LOS ANGELES -- Along The Road To Oscar is a significant destination in and of itself—the DGA Awards. And four of this year’s five DGA nominees for Outstanding Achievement in Feature Film correspond with those in the running for the Best Director Oscar: Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water (Fox Searchlight); Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird (A24); Christoper Nolan for Dunkirk (Warner Bros.); and Jordan Peele for Get Out (Universal Pictures). (The remaining DGA nominee was Martin McDonagh for Three Billboards... Read More, Comment

As production and post execs look to the new year, SHOOT surveyed them on their vision and goals for 2018. And in light of such issues as sexual misconduct, gender pay disparity, the lack of opportunity for women and ethnic minorities finally coming to the fore, we sought feedback on these fronts, finding them to be of paramount concern to a cross-section of industry respondents. Robin Shenfield, CEO of The Mill, noted that an initiative yielding positive results in the U.K. could surface in... Read More, Comment

Park Pictures Features—the motion picture sister shop to commercial/branded content production house Park Pictures—has become a fixture at the Sundance Film Festival in recent years, last month breaking new ground at the indie showcase by extending its reach to a filmmaking discipline for the first time to tell a deeply personal, emotionally moving real-life story that resonated with attendees, winning a coveted Audience Award. Since its launch in 2010, Park Pictures Features has produced 10... Read More, Comment

The filmography of director Floyd Russ has made its mark on varied fronts, most recently at last month’s Sundance Film Festival where his documentary short ZION debuted. Russ introduced audiences to Zion Clark, a young wrestler who was born without legs. Growing up in foster care, Clark struggled with fitting in his whole life—until he finds the sport of wrestling, a passion which he pursues, pushing himself to great lengths. The inspirational, emotionally stirring story—produced by NYC-based... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- There's not an Academy Awards category this year that doesn't feature some element of exciting new talent, captivating backstories or the possibility of an Oscar landmark victory. But, oh, that best director category. In even the glittering array of nominees to the 90th Academy Awards, the best director category stands out. Want history-making diversity? Check. First-time nominees? Check. Overdue veterans? Check. Just about the only thing missing from this year's directing nominees (that is,... Read More, Comment

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- War for the Planet of the Apes (Twentieth Century Fox) scored four Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards on Tuesday night (2/13), including the marquee honor for outstanding VFX in a photoreal feature. The 16th annual competition’s other top award, for best effects in an animated feature, went to Coco (Disney-Pixar). Beyond its VES Awards tally--the other three wins coming for compositing, effects simulation and animated character (for the protagonist ape Caesar)-- War for the Planet of the Apes... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK -- Jordan Peele earned Best Original Screenplay distinction for Get Out (Universal Pictures) at the Writers Guild Awards on Sunday night (2/11). The top prize for Adapted Screenplay went to James Ivory for Call Me by Your Name (Sony Pictures Classics), based on the novel by Andre Aciman. And winning for Documentary Screenplay was Brett Morgen for Jane (National Geographic). Coming up big in the TV competition was T he Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu) which topped both the Drama Series and New Series... Read More, Comment

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.(AP) -- Patrick Stewart was so inspired by the inventors and inventions being honored by the motion picture academy Saturday night (2/10) that he offered a spontaneous recitation of a scene from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The venerable actor hosted the academy’s annual Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony, an untelevised dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and he closed the evening by going off-script with Puck’s plea in defense of art. Stewart was a gamely host throughout the... Read More, Comment

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- Emmy, Golden Globe and Peabody Award-winning producer, director and writer Ryan Murphy and his Ryan Murphy Productions have entered into a multi-year deal to produce new series and films exclusively at Netflix, starting July 1. “Ryan Murphy’s series have influenced the global cultural zeitgeist, reinvented genres and changed the course of television history. His unfaltering dedication to excellence and to give voice to the underrepresented, to showcase a unique perspective or just to shock the... Read More, Comment

Jennifer Salke, president of NBC Entertainment, is moving over to Amazon Studios as its chief, filling the void left when Roy Price was ousted from that position in October over sexual harassment allegations. Salke will report to Jeff Blackburn, Amazon sr. VP of business development and digital entertainment. Among those reporting to Salke will be Amazon COO Albert Cheng who’s overseen the studio since Price’s departure. Salke, who first joined NBC Entertainment in summer of 2011, has had a key... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK -- Matt Miller, president and CEO of AICP, and Robin Shenfield, CEO and co-founder of The Mill and the 2018 chairperson of the AICP Show: The Art & Technique of the American Commercial, have announced the composition of the Show’s Curatorial Committee. Call for entries has been issued (click here for details) with the deadline being March 9. “The Curatorial process and Committee makes the AICP Show stand out as one of the most important awards shows in the world,” noted Miller. “The idea of... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK -- Production company and artist management agency Great Bowery Film has added London and L.A.-based director Gerard de Thame to its roster of filmmakers, artists, photographers, creative directors, designers and animators. Great Bowery will represent de Thame for spots and branded content worldwide except for the U.K. where he continues to be handled by his London-based company, Exposure Pictures. Having directed more than 500 spots, de Thame has won numerous awards for his work, including Cannes... Read More, Comment

CULVER CITY, Calif. -- Director/DP Andy Maser has joined the roster of Superlounge for exclusive U.S. spot representation. His work spans commercial, broadcast, documentary, non-profit and feature film production. Maser’s documentary films have won Northwest Regional Emmy Awards and numerous film festival honors, while his commercial projects have received trade mentions and Vimeo Staff Picks. Maser DP’d Adaptation Bangladesh: Sea Level Rise (Justin DeShields, director), a hopeful story about people facing and... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Comedy duo Director Brothers--consisting of Josh Martin and Ryan McNeely--has joined integrated content studio Humble for commercials and branded content in the U.S. Martin and McNeely are Funny or Die veterans. They were part of the original core at Gifted Youth, Funny or Die’s commercial production division, when it opened in 2012. Later, Director Brothers worked via production house Caviar prior to coming aboard the Humble roster. The duo has written and directed projects for HBO, Comedy... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Sanctuary Content, the L.A.-based production house headed by founder/EP Preston Lee, has added Mindcastle--the directing team of Danielle Krieger and Casey Warren--to its roster for spots and branded content in the U.S. This marks the duo’s first formal production company roost in that Mindcastle was previously freelancing under its own brand name. Mindcastle’s work, which is characterized by powerful emotional storytelling, has won numerous honors, including the One Club’s Young Guns award,... Read More, Comment

MARINA DEL REY, Calif. -- Director Daniel Sheppard has come aboard the roster of production house Backyard for U.S. commercial representation. Based in Long Beach, Calif., Sheppard continues to helm spots for the Canadian market via Toronto-based Partners Film. Sheppard’s credits include comedy spots for such brands as Wendy’s, Advil, GMC, Walmart, Classico, Microsoft, Sprint, Canadian Tire, and Tim Hortons. Sheppard is also the creative mastermind behind the satirical spin-off of the Cannes Lions: “The Dannes Lions.”... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The entertainment industry union SAG-AFTRA has issued a code of conduct in an effort to protect its members from sexual harassment in the workplace. The code published Saturday says that employers are obligated to provide a harassment-free workplace and must have mechanisms for reporting it without fear of retaliation. SAG-AFTRA also says members acting as producers or supervisors are also subject to the same laws and rules as employers. It also encourages members to act as active bystanders... Read More, Comment

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- On Thursday, Google will begin using its Chrome browser to eradicate ads it deems annoying or otherwise detrimental to users. It just so happens that many of Google’s own most lucrative ads will sail through its new filters. The move, which Google first floated back in June, is ostensibly aimed at making online advertising more tolerable by flagging sites that run annoying ads such as ones that auto-play video with sound. And it’s using a big hammer: Chrome will start blocking all ads —... Read More, Comment

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.(AP) -- Ryan Coogler was feeling overwhelmed by "Black Panther." It was only his third feature film and, at just 30-years-old, he was making it with Hollywood's most powerful studio under enormous cultural expectations and with $200 million to get it right. And he really didn't want it to "suck" (his word). The Oakland, California, native got into filmmaking almost on a lark when a creative writing professor at St. Mary's College in Moraga, California, where he was attending on a football scholarship,... Read More, Comment

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.(AP) -- One year ago, most audiences didn't know the name Daniel Kaluuya. Now, the 28-year-old British actor has a best-actor Oscar nomination for starring in one of last year's biggest films, "Get Out"; a culture-shifting blockbuster opening this week ("Black Panther"); and a Steve McQueen film on the horizon. The Associated Press, which named Kaluuya one of its breakthrough entertainers of 2017, spoke to the actor recently about his crazy year, the life-changing nomination and his mom's practical... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- No one is more at the epicenter of the watershed pop-culture moment that is "Black Panther" than Chadwick Boseman, the Panther himself. On the eve of Ryan Coogler's juggernaut of a film arriving in theaters — and shortly before stepping out with his girlfriend for Valentine's Day — Boseman has the relaxed air of a politician who knows election day is going to go very, very well. Not only is Marvel's acclaimed "Black Panther" expected to gross at least $150-180 million this weekend in North... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- A proposed $500 million deal to sell Harvey Weinstein's movie studio appears in jeopardy after New York's attorney general filed a lawsuit that could catapult the company into bankruptcy as it smolders in the wake of dozens of sexual misconduct allegations against the Hollywood mogul. The Weinstein Co.'s board will not consider completing a sale while Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's lawsuit is pending, according to a person familiar with the negotiations who was not authorized to speak... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The kooky caveman characters that come to life in "Early Man " have been kicking around in Nick Park's imagination for decades. Long before he created Wallace and Gromit, Park was taken with Ray Harryhousen's animated dinosaurs in the 1966 Raquel Welch movie "One Million Years B.C." "I just couldn't believe real dinosaurs moving around with people," Park said, recalling the film he saw as an 11-year-old that would inspire his love of animation. "So I guess that sort of thing has been in the... Read More, Comment

One of the first images in the film "Nostalgia" is of an heirloom necklace dangling on the neck of a diner waitress. One of the last images is of a massive puffy cloud, ever shifting in the wide sky. Between these symbols of permanence and flux is a deeply meditative movie about time, loss and the stuff we fiercely hold onto along the way. "Nostalgia" is thoughtful and lyrical, an unrushed poem with a first-rate cast. Directed by Mark Pellington with a screenplay by Alex Ross Perry, the film is... Read More, Comment

Sally Potter's new film "The Party " is 71 minutes long. That fact alone shouldn't necessarily be a selling point — stories need as long as they need — but when superhero movies and comedies regularly extend well past the two-hour mark, it's hard not to appreciate the restraint. And it is a rich and layered 71 minutes that Potter spends, in black and white, with a group of highly educated and highly dysfunctional people gathering for an intimate dinner party at Janet (Kristen Scott Thomas) and... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Olympic thrills and the aftermath of a patriarch’s death on “This Is Us” combined to give NBC a golden ratings victory. NBC’s total viewership last week topped that of the other three major broadcasters combined by 27 percent, the biggest network regular-season gap since Nielsen’s electronic “people meters” began measuring ratings. That comes with an asterisk: It’s not measured against weeks that included Super Bowls and a full seven nights of Olympics, NBC said Tuesday. The first four nights... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Newcomers like "Fifty Shades Freed," ''Peter Rabbit" and "The 15:17 to Paris" breathed some fresh life into a marketplace that has for weeks been dominated by "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle," ''The Greatest Showman" and various Oscar contenders. But it's all just setting the stage for "Black Panther," which opens next week. "Fifty Shades Freed" managed to take the top spot on the charts in North American theaters. Universal Pictures estimated Sunday that the final chapter in the Christian Grey... Read More, Comment

Wieden+Kennedy London created this Nike short, titled Nothing Beats a Londoner , which centers on enterprising, fiercely competitive, young Londoners who shape sport and culture in the metropolis around them. These hungry, resourceful and confident youngsters take us on a whistle-stop tour of their city--with the help of cameos from some of the Londoners they look up to, even as they strive to one-up them with their own sporting achievements. Shot on the streets of the capital--in the very... Read More, Comment

It’s the year of 2009 in the Paris apartment of a woman named Laurence. The main character isn’t at home. Equipped with Polaroid cameras, guests were invited to examine her apartment thoroughly and photograph any relevant evidence in order to discover Laurence’s secret. Signs of a struggle, a suspicious red stain on the carpet, a blood-stained toothbrush, coffee beans in her handbag.... What happened here? Over the course of a month, BETC and Addict Aide invited more than 7,000 people to come... Read More, Comment

This anthem spot for GE along with three :30s are running during NBC’s broadcast of the Winter Olympic Games. Conceived by BBDO New York, this “What Matters” campaign touches upon the technological advancements that GE has made. Yet those advances pale by comparison to what they mean for people in everyday life--like a mom whose premature baby benefited from GE innovation. Yet to this grateful mother, the technology isn’t what matters--instead it’s that she can take her baby daughter home... Read More, Comment

In the latest take on New York Lottery’s “How Would You Spend It?” campaign from McCann New York, “Small Town” builds off of the original concept of showing how one New Yorker would spend his time if he won Cash4Life’s top prize of $1,000 a week for life. Directed by Noam Murro of Biscuit Filmworks, “Small Town” features actual miniature buildings and props to tell the story of how one lucky winner uses his newly afforded time to revisit a childhood hobby. The spot will be featured across New... Read More, Comment

Every 98 seconds, someone is sexually assaulted in the U.S. One of the biggest barriers to justice for survivors is decades worth of untested rape kits. A brutal new PSA says that the untested rape kit backlog has the same effect as putting the victims themselves on the shelf. In the aftermath of a sexual assault, a victim who choses to undergo an exhaustive and invasive forensic evidence collection examination—often referred to as a rape kit—expects the kit will be tested and the evidence used... Read More, Comment

A rain-soaked cab ride through Manhattan and tough love speech highlights this regional NY area, client-direct spot for Nike’s new OBJ-AF1 shoe. A young, talented athlete with familiar bleached, spiked hair sits in the back of the cab one night, as native NY son/poet/actor Lemon Andersen plays cabbie while reciting a powerful NYC manifesto. Want to be remembered by sports fans in the world’s greatest city? “Your Hustle gotta be on even when you’re off duty,” Andersen said, looking into his rear... Read More, Comment

Seyi Peter-Thomas of Station Film directed Nickelodeon’s new “Our Places, Our History” campaign featuring children celebrating Black History Month. The multi-platform campaign will be supported across Nick’s social and digital platforms throughout the month of February. This series of PSAs set in Charleston, South Carolina, explores the themes of education, culture and cuisine as they relate to African Americans, and encourages today’s generation of children to be part of the deep well of... Read More, Comment

The spot opens on a mysterious wanderer and his trusty steed as he discovers a literal fork in the road. We come to find that the wanderer is on a quest for breakfast and the fork in the road is forcing him to choose between pancakes or omelettes. Which way to go? He struggles deeply with this quandary until he’s abruptly rescued by an casual bystander who informs him that he could just go to IHOP where “they have all kinds of omelettes that come with pancakes,” so he doesn’t have to choose. He... Read More, Comment

A girl is one of several in a Winter Olympics-like ice rink picking up flowers and other plaudits thrown down by the crowd to fete a just concluded great performance by a professional figure skater in competition. One of the girls, though, is about to give her own performance on ice once she picks a teddy bear off the ice. She and the bear launch into a routine--to the beat of the Flashdance song “What A Feeling”--that has the crowd roaring, and the judges giving the proverbial thumbs-up, all... Read More, Comment