LOS ANGELES -- Several years ago, director Leslie Dektor walked away from his advertising career, one which yielded assorted honors including 13 DGA Award nominations as best commercial director of the year. He won that DGA Award twice, in 1992 and 2000. Dektor said he “adored” directing spots but it was his experience in the ad discipline that naturally led him to shift his filmmaking focus to the world of documentaries. “I tended to make advertising film that dealt with people, capturing moments, ‘the sweet... Read More, Comment

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) -- The organizers of Time's Up say the movement to eradicate discrimination in the workplace will have a presence at Sunday's Oscar show, but there are no plans for a red-carpet dress code. Shonda Rhimes, Ava DuVernay, actresses Laura Dern and Tessa Thompson, producer Katie McGrath and attorney Nina Shaw talked about the movement's progress and next steps with news reporters Thursday. They stressed that while Time's Up made a splashy appearance at the Golden Globes earlier this year, with most... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Just as "Black Panther" is setting records at the box office, a new study finds that diverse audiences are driving most of the biggest blockbusters and many of the most-watched hits on television. UCLA's Bunche Center released its fifth annual study on diversity in the entertainment industry Tuesday, unveiling an analysis of the top 200 theatrical film releases of 2016 and 1,251 broadcast, cable and digital platform TV shows from the 2015-2016 season. Among its results: minorities accounted for... Read More, Comment

BERLIN (AP) -- "Touch Me Not," an experimental movie about intimacy from Romanian director Adina Pintilie, won the top Golden Bear prize at the Berlin International Film Festival on Saturday. The movie, which follows the story of a woman who can't bear to be touched and various other people searching for intimacy, was chosen from a field of 19 competitors at the first of the year's major European movie festivals. The Berlin jury was led by German director Tom Tykwer. "We were not expecting that," Pintilie... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk (Warner Bros.) won the marquee live-action feature honor for Best Sound Mixing at the 54th Annual Cinema Audio Society (CAS) Awards held Saturday night (2/24) in Los Angeles. The audio team recognized for its efforts on Dunkirk consists of production mixer Mark Weingarten, CAS; re-recording mixers Gregg Landaker and Gary Rizzo, CAS; scoring mixer Alan Meyerson, CAS; ADR mixer Thomas J. O’Connell; and Foley mixer Scott Curtis. In his acceptance remarks, Landaker... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Not too long ago, Peter Sarsgaard felt he had to have a difficult conversation with his oldest daughter about 9/11. He and Ramona, then 9, were in a car on the anniversary of the terror attacks and the twin light beams above ground zero were switched on. The girl declared them "pretty." That's when her dad realized he needed to explain what they were, right then and there. She's not alone. "There is a whole generation of people that are in their late teens — that are 20 even, if they were 3 at... Read More, Comment

RICHMOND, Va. -- The Martin Agency announced the remainder of its executive management team on the heels of Kristen Cavallo being named CEO and Karen Costello’s promotion to chief creative officer. “Today we doubled the representation of female leaders on the executive committee to give men and women equal opportunity for success,” said Cavallo. “Gender discrimination isn’t an HR issue. It’s a culture issue. And the fastest way to change a culture is to level the playing field in leadership.” Making it her... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Bing Liu--who in January won the Sundance Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Filmmaking on the strength of his feature documentary Minding the Gap --has joined the directorial roster of L.A.-based Nonfiction Unlimited for commercials and branded content. Nonfiction is a mainstay company known for bringing notable documentarians into the ad arena for select projects. In Minding the Gap , three young men--including Liu--bond with one another via skateboarding to escape volatile families in their... Read More, Comment

SAN FRANCISCO -- Independent creative agency Venables Bell & Partners is partnering with issue-driven communications firm RALLY. Together, VB&P and RALLY will work with a variety of entities from brands to advocacy organizations to develop impactful communications campaigns and guide them through political and social opportunities and challenges. VB&P leads brand development and advertising efforts for clients including Audi, PlayStation, Chipotle, Reebok, and 3M. The agency has earned top industry... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Production and entertainment company m ss ng p eces has added VR pioneering director Jessica Brillhart to its immersive roster. Her latest project is Beethoven’s Fifth , a VR collaboration with NASA’s JPL that is an official selection at SXSW 2018. Brillhart comes from a background ideally suited for technology and storytelling. After graduating from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Brillhart joined Google as its first in house director working on many award-winning shorts and documentaries as... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK -- Global creative agency Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners (KBS) has hired Amber Wimmer as director of interactive production. She will be responsible for overseeing all digital productions, evolving the agencies interactive process and standards and contributing to the expansion of its creative interactive capabilities. Wimmer joins KBS from Google Creative Labs where she launched a voice command music making experiment. Prior to that, she was executive producer at The Barbarian Group,... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- The Cavalry Productions has signed director Laurence Dunmore for commercials and digital work in the U.S. Dunmore is a lauded Cannes Lion-winning director with credits for American Express, Dodge, AT&T, ING, Liberty Mutual, Bank of America, BMW, Cadillac, Ford, Mercedes, Dewar’s, Jameson, Lexus and Turkish Airlines. Prior to The Cavalry, Dunmore was handled by production house Superprime, which he joined in 2015 after a lengthy tenure with RSA Films. He continues to be repped in France by... Read More, Comment

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- Alex Prager has signed with production company Arts & Sciences for spots in the U.S. This marks her first career commercial representation. A fine art photographer and filmmaker living in Los Angeles, Prager began her career in photography after seeing a William Eggleston show and has been one with the camera ever since. Her work consists of elaborately staged scenes that draw inspiration from a wide range of influences and references, including Hollywood cinema, experimental films, popular... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Director Fantavious Fritz has joined Furlined where he gains his first career commercial representation in the U.S. and U.K. He continues to be handled by production house OPC in the Canadian ad market. Fritz is a director, screenwriter and photographer known for creating beautiful and thought provoking imagery with a focus on empathetic storytelling. He grew up in Calgary and attended film school in Toronto. A fixture in the local film community, Fritz was recognized in 2016 by TIFF as part of... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Production house atSwim has extended representation of director Chris Applebaum to include the U.S. Previously, Applebaum had been represented by the company--which is headed by EPs David Schiavone and Michael Appel--for spots and branding work just in Europe. Applebaum is best known for his fashion and beauty work in spots for Bud Light, Carl’s Jr., Pizza Hut and music videos for such artists as Demi Lovato and Rihanna. Applebaum feels atSwim is a great fit on both continents. “My studio and... Read More, Comment

LONDON -- Harsh Kapadia has been promoted to executive creative director at WPP’s VML London. Kapadia has moved to London from VML New York where he was a group creative director. His work has been recognized with awards including Cannes Lions, Clios, D&AD, The One Show and Spikes Asia. He also serves on VML’s Global Creative Council, which pushes the boundaries on ideas and helps introduce innovation and technology to the heart of brands. While at VML New York, Kapadia led new business efforts and... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- It's not often that a composer is asked to provide musical accompaniment to a woman having sex with a fish monster. It's almost as rare that a composer is asked to conduct a big-city symphony in a performance of his movie score the same week he's expected to win an Oscar for it. Alexandre Desplat, whose music gave voice to the emotions of the mute couple at the center of "The Shape of Water," embraced both tasks. He was one of five Academy Award nominees whose scores the Los Angeles... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Weinstein Co. might be saved from bankruptcy after all. A group of investors, led by businesswoman Maria Contreras-Sweet, said Thursday that it has revived a potential deal to buy the assets of the beleaguered film and TV studio, which has been beset by lawsuits stemming from the sexual assault and harassment allegations against its deposed CEO, Harvey Weinstein. Just four days earlier, the Weinstein Co. announced it was pulling out of the sale and would file for bankruptcy protection,... Read More, Comment

LONDON (AP) -- Comcast, the owner of NBC and Universal Pictures, has launched a bid for European pay TV broadcaster Sky that threatens to thwart a rival offer by media mogul Rupert Murdoch' 21st Century Fox. The move appears not only opportunistic but aimed at disrupting the European expansion of arch-rival Disney, which is currently looking to take over Fox. Comcast said Tuesday it is offering 22.1 billion pounds ($29.50 billion) for London-based Sky. The proposed cash deal values each Sky share at 12.50... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Darkest Hour led the way in the feature competition with two wins at the Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Awards (MUAHS, IATSE Local 706) held on Saturday night (2/24) in Los Angeles. Darkest Hour topped the Best Period and/or Character Make-Up and Best Special Make-Up Effects categories. Also picking up feature honors were: I, Tonya for Best Period and/or Character Hair Styling; Pitch Perfect 3 for Best Contemporary Make-Up; and Guardians of the Galaxy-Vol. 2 for Best Contemporary Hair... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Aside from the posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight") and best animated film for "The Incredibles," no superhero film has ever penetrated the top categories of the Academy Awards. Though regular honorees for their bombastic visual effects or thunderous, wall-to-wall sound, comic-book movies have been denied the upper reaches of achievement. Marvel Studios — one of the most dominant pop-culture juggernauts the movies have ever seen — hasn't won a single Academy Award. But there... Read More, Comment

In the James Bond films, sex with a globe-trotting spy seems to be fun, fun, fun. A martini, a tuxedo, a witty line or two and then it's off to a luxurious bed with two tanned, muscular bodies. Not so in the new thriller "Red Sparrow ," where the sex is cold, ugly and often violent. This dark, meandering and cliche-ridden bummer starring a trying-hard Jennifer Lawrence tries to reach for a cool and stylish look at contemporary spycraft but often falls victim to cartoon violence and a muddled... Read More, Comment

Watching the Israeli film "Foxtrot " is like watching a dream play out. Writer-director Samuel Maoz's ("Lebanon") excellent film is of course more structured than the average dream (or nightmare), with themes and Greek tragedy twists that are expertly crafted to test the heart, but there is a precise sensation of out-of-body powerlessness and comic absurdity throughout that can only be described as dream-like. And the overall experience is a meditative and powerful one. The story is ostensibly... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- "Black Panther" scored one of the best second weekends ever with an estimated $108 million in ticket sales, putting it on track to rank among the highest-grossing blockbusters ever. Ryan Coogler's Marvel sensation is on a box-office course that few films have managed, according to studio estimates Sunday. It is only the fourth film to earn $100 million in its second weekend, along with "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" ($149.2 million), "Jurassic World" ($106.6 million) and "The Avengers" ($103.1... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- NBC finished the Pyeongchang Olympics by averaging just under 20 million viewers with its primetime coverage on the network, NBCSN cable and live streaming, which was a 7 percent decline from the Winter Olympics of 2014. The Nielsen company said that the NBC-only average in primetime was 17.8 million, or a 17 percent decline from Sochi. In 2014, NBC only offered prime-time coverage on the network, and did not have simultaneous programming on cable and online. NBC said the viewership helped make... Read More, Comment

The creative team at agency Deutsch is taking us to “Prom Night” on Oscar night. Set to debut during the Academy Awards telecast on Sunday (3/4), this spot titled “Prom Night” for Nest’s new Hello video camera doorbell Hello taps into the topic of how men treat women in society. A dad at work is able to talk to his son remotely via Nest Hello on prom night, reminding him of the importance of treating his date with respect. Clearly, respect is a value that begins at home. Matt Baron of... Read More, Comment

Matteo J. Mosterts wrote, directed and edited this short film in which two adverb patrol officers, members of the grammar police, arrest a hipster for improper use of the word “literally.” Titled Literally, the cinematic comedy short comes at a time when the English language is often butchered to fit into a tweet, when semantics are irrelevant, and when the word “literally” is literally not used correctly. However, it’s not only the hipster in this offbeat Mosterts-conceived world who’s guilty... Read More, Comment

A new campaign for Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support aims to eradicate the helplessness of abuse and provide a path to lead an independent and safe life. Founded in 1985, Genesis provides safety, shelter and support for women and children who have experienced domestic violence, and raises awareness regarding its cause, prevalence and impact. Directed and edited by Sai Selvarajan of Lucky Post in a collaborative effort with Element Ad 2 (the public service agency of Ad 2 Dallas), this spot... Read More, Comment

Directors Jonny & Will present the comings and goings of life in the freezer with this spot, part of a series of ads for Aussie frozen foods brand, Birds Eye out of J. Walter Thompson, Melbourne. Their puppeteered pair of spokes-peas shoot the breeze amidst a hand-crafted miniature polar landscape, complete with ice cube mountains. Executive creative director Kieran Antill of JWT Melbourne, said: “The fact is the freezer has been considered a dumping ground for ‘back up products’ and we... Read More, Comment

Lucozade Energy is partnering with the new Tomb Raider film, released by Warner Brothers in March, for a bold campaign featuring action from the movie. Created by Grey London, the campaign introduces the agency’s new “Energy Beats Everything” creative idea for the brand, highlighting that having the right energy can help you overcome any situation. The campaign reunites Lucozade Energy with the Tomb Raider franchise almost 20 years since the video game version of Lara Croft first starred in a... Read More, Comment