Bicoastal Shilo has added Daniel Cohen to its directorial roster for worldwide representation outside the U.K., where he continues to be represented by Aardman Animations.
A native and resident of London who recently relocated to New York City, from an early age, Cohen dreamt of a life in the creative industry. Initially he focused on being a sculptor, which led to him building miniature sets and animating them. He was accepted into film school but left after a year to join Graham Fink's production company thefinktank as a runner in 2003. As the now-famous story goes, one day a script came in for Fink that Cohen took an interest in and secretly wrote a treatment for. Fink liked it and submitted Cohen's treatment as his own. The agency awarded him the job, at which point Fink came clean and told them that it was actually a young office runner who would love to direct the commercial. They agreed and that live-action project for Nelson Mandela's READ charity won Cohen the Creative Circle's Best Newcomer Award in 2004, setting him firmly on his own path as an emerging director.
Through late 2006, he directed commercials and short films involving live-action and animation for thefinktank and many major brands and agencies, some of which he wrote himself, like his RMCC short which earned a Gold ADDY Award. He then spent three very productive years on the roster of Th1ng, followed by two more years with HLA, before landing with Aardman Animations. Cohen's signature style has been seen in campaigns for Amnesty International, Hellmanns, Hovis and many others, including a 2012 British Arrow Craft Award-shortlisted cross-media campaign for Bullring Shopping Centre.
Cohen said he was drawn to Shilo's work, marked by its broad range of mixed media. Jose Gomez, Shilo's owner and director, described Cohen's filmmaking style as "very handcrafted and whimsical. I really love how his work is clever and witty. As we expand our roster of artful and design-driven directors Daniel is the perfect fit for Shilo to expand our offerings."
AI-Assisted Works Can Get Copyright With Enough Human Creativity, According To U.S. Copyright Office
Artists can copyright works they made with the help of artificial intelligence, according to a new report by the U.S. Copyright Office that could further clear the way for the use of AI tools in Hollywood, the music industry and other creative fields.
The nation's copyright office, which sits in the Library of Congress and is not part of the executive branch, receives about half a million copyright applications per year covering millions of individual works. It has increasingly been asked to register works that are AI-generated.
And while many of those decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, the report issued Wednesday clarifies the office's approach as one based on what the top U.S. copyright official describes as the "centrality of human creativity" in authoring a work that warrants copyright protections.
"Where that creativity is expressed through the use of AI systems, it continues to enjoy protection," said a statement from Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter, who directs the office.
An AI-assisted work could be copyrightable if an artist's handiwork is perceptible. A human adapting an AI-generated output with "creative arrangements or modifications" could also make it fall under copyright protections.
The report follows a review that began in 2023 and fielded opinions from thousands of people that ranged from AI developers, to actors and country singers.
It shows the copyright office will continue to reject copyright claims for fully machine-generated content. A person simply prompting a chatbot or AI image generator to produce a work doesn't give that person the ability to copyright that work, according to the report. "Extending protection to material whose expressive elements are determined by a machine ...... Read More