Based on a compilation of results from 31 TV/cinema competitions, The Gunn Report ranks this year’s top commercial production houses as being bicoastal/international Partizan, followed by London-headquartered Harry Nash, then London-based Gorgeous Enterprises, and bicoastal/international @radical. media. Tying for fifth place were Bangkok-based Matching Studio, and the just-closed Propaganda Films. (Full coverage of The Gunn Report will appear in next week’s SHOOT.)….Director Martin Cannelakis has joined bicoastal Gartner. He comes over from bicoastal/international hungry man…Director Paul Street has joined Crossroads Films, bicoastal and Chicago, for U.S. representation. The British native, who is relocating to Southern California, was previously with Los Angeles-headquartered A Band Apart Commercials for stateside work….Feature filmmaker John Landis (Coming To America, Animal House, The Blues Brothers) has come aboard Los Angeles-based A Band Apart.35mm for representation as a spot director….Company 3, the Santa Monica-based telecine house, has taken the first step toward its anticipated launch of a studio in New York. Colorist Billy Gabor is relocating from Company 3’s West Coast operation to New York, where he will work out of R!OT Manhattan, joining a telecine team there that includes Victor Mulholland and John Bonta. Gabor establishes a Big Apple presence for Company 3 as it proceeds on constructing a New York studio of its own. Company 3 and R!OT are both part of the Liberty Livewire Pictures Group family of companies….SHOOT was provided with the wrong moniker for the renamed Burning Suits. The new banner is Creative Content Artists (CCA), the New York-headquartered post/sound design/mixing and visual effects company, with holdings that consist of New York houses Super Dupe, East Side Video, Lower East Side Studios, Arc Light, Crush and Post Perfect….Ceinwyn Clark has been named executive producer at Stimmüng, the Santa Monica-based music and sound design shop. Clark had previously served as executive producer at bicoastal tomandandy and HUM Music+Sound Design, Santa Monica….James Martin, formerly head of production at Santa Monica-based Milk Bar, has taken the executive producer reins at Audio Lounge, a Santa Monica-based sound design/ music house formed this summer by sound designer Jon Klok…. Chicago-headquartered Optimus has named its Santa Monica division Optimus West….
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 — 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