Mark Hyatt and George Cawood are exec producers at the newly launched Culver City, Calif.-based production house Make+Model
Mark Hyatt and George Cawood are exec producers at the newly launched Culver City, Calif.-based production house Make+Model, which opens with a directorial roster that includes the Goetz Brothers who come over from Detour, Russell Bates, formerly of Crossroads, Marcos Zavitsanos from Alta Vista, and Jon Barber whose work recently won several Bessie Awards with OPC in Canada….Nola Pictures, New York, has signed director Nick Lewin whose credits include American Express, AT&T, BMW, British Telecom, Cadillac, Chevron, Diet Coke, Ford, Guinness, Heineken, Honda, Nissan, Visa, Volkswagen and Volvo. Lewin's prior roosts include Crossroads and London-based shop Lewin & Watson which he co-ran. The move to Nola reunites him with executive producer Charlie Curran whom he worked with at Crossroads and back when Curran was an agency producer….Optimus Santa Monica has brought Ashley Bartell aboard as a producer. Bartell, who will work closely with executive producer Therese Hunsberger, had served most recently as director of operations at RavensWork, a commercial audio mixing and recording house in Venice, Calif. She has worked with such clients as Kia Motors America (KMA) for David&Goliath; Nestlรฉ Nesquikยฎ and Northrop Grumman for McCann Erickson; Toyota for Saatchi & Saatchi; and Toys”R”Us for You&Me. Optimus is a leading postproduction and production house headquartered in Chicago with an editorial boutique in Santa Monica….Exec producer Roland Gauthier, VFX supervisor Michael Kuehn and animation director Alex Tysowsky have formally founded Hinge Digital, a Portland, Ore.-based animation and VFX studio….Noah Clark has joined Victors & Spoils office in Boulder, Colo., as creative director. He will lead creative efforts on all the agency's account. He previously worked at Crispin Porter+Bogusky, and prior to that at agency Ground Zero….Connor Swegle, formerly executive producer at Click 3X Entertainment, N.Y., has joined Hollywood-based multidisciplinary brand strategy and design agency Troika as exec producer. Swegle will work closely with creative directors Whit Friese and Gil Haslam on Troika's key entertainment brands, such as ESPN, Discovery Networks and EA Sports. While Swegle will focus largely on client services and project management, he will also play a key role in facilitating the agency's knowledge and expertise as a brand consultancy for strategic services and creative execution…
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads โ essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More