The World Producers Organization held its 12th Annual Summit in Cannes under the organization of the AICP, APA and CFP-E. During their get-together, more than 100 production company owners and executives from 33 countries discussed pressing issues facing the global production industry. As a group, there was absolute resolve that in order to deliver the highest quality product to marketers in the most efficient fashion, bidding procedures must be fully transparent.
Major factors for transparency include marketer expectations such as disclosure for budget range, and complete knowledge of other bidding entities.
The concern that advertising agency-owned production entities could be involved as competitors continues to be of paramount concern to the industry, and is part of an ongoing investigation by the Department of Justice in the United States.
Several countries have issued industry-wide statements regarding anti-competitive bidding practices and the reluctance to engage in business under these conditions.
The open market–where production companies compete for work based on expertise and price–is the guarantor of value for advertisers. Anything that distorts that competitive balance, such as agency-owned entities engaged in multi-bidding for work, where they have access to insider information regarding independent production companies’ bids, is contrary to the interests of advertisers–as well as being unfair to the production companies also bidding.
Steven Soderbergh Has A Multi-Faceted “Presence” In His Latest Film
Steven Soderbergh isn't just the director and cinematographer of his latest film. He's also, in a way, its central character.
"Presence" is filmed entirely from the POV of a ghost inside a home a family has just moved into. Soderbergh, who serves as his own cinematographer under the pseudonym Peter Andrews (his father's name), essentially performs as the presence, a floating point-of-view that watches as the violence that killed the mysterious ghost threatens to be repeated.
For even the prolific Soderbergh, the film, which opens Friday in theaters, was a unique challenge. He shot "Presence" with a small digital camera while wearing slippers to soften his steps.
The 62-year-old filmmaker recently met a reporter in a midtown Manhattan hotel in between finishing post-production on his other upcoming movie ("Black Bag," a thriller Focus Features will release March 14) and beginning production in a few weeks on his next project, a romantic comedy that he says "feels like a George Cukor movie."
Soderbergh, whose films include "Out of Sight," the "Ocean's 11" movies, "Magic Mike" and "Erin Brockovich," tends to do a lot in small windows of time. "Presence" took 11 days to film.
That dexterous proficiency has made the ever-experimenting Soderbergh one of Hollywood's most widely respected evaluators of the movie business. In a wide-ranging conversation, he discussed why he thinks streaming is the most destructive force the movies have ever faced and why he's "the cockroach of this industry."
Q: You use pseudonyms for yourself as a cinematographer and editor. Were you tempted to credit yourself as an actor for "Presence"?
SODERBERGH: No, but what I did is subtle. For the first and... Read More