LOS ANGELES -- Pardon the interruption has given way to often not getting the chance to interrupt at all. And because of that sea change in the marketplace, brands need to proactively seek new ways to attract audiences and engage prospective consumers--that was among the key messages to come out of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s inaugural Digital Content NewFronts West event spread over two days (Oct. 9-10) in L.A., during which varied companies presented their content slates and development... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- More women are being hired to direct TV episodes but the numbers remain stagnant for directors of color, according to an industry guild study. Women directed a record 25 percent of episodic television in the 2017-18 season, an increase of 4 percent from the previous season, according to the Directors Guild of America study released Wednesday. African-Americans directed 13 percent of series TV in 2017-18, unchanged from last season, the study found. Asian-Americans at 6 percent and Latinos 5... Read More, Comment

ALBUQUERQUE, NM (AP) -- Netflix has chosen New Mexico as the site of a new U.S. production hub and is in final negotiations to buy an existing multimillion-dollar studio complex on the edge of the state’s largest city, government and corporate leaders announced Monday. It’s the company’s first purchase of such a property, and upcoming production work in Albuquerque and at other spots around New Mexico is forecast to result in $1 billion in spending over the next decade. More than $14 million in state and local... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The TV academy's first African-American chairman is stepping down after two years. Hayma Washington told Variety he decided against seeking a second two-year term so he could focus on his work as a producer and promote diversity. Washington also has served as chief executive officer of the academy, which administers the Emmy Awards. An academy spokesman said Tuesday that Washington's replacement will be chosen at upcoming elections for new officers and governors. Washington was elected in... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- The American Film Institute (AFI) has unveiled the full lineup of Galas that will screen at AFI Fest 2018. The titles screening are: the world premiere of Bird Box (director Susanne Bier) on Monday, November 12; the world premiere of the episodic series The Kominsky Method (created by Chuck Lorre) on Saturday, November 10; The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (directors Ethan Coen, Joel Coen) on Sunday, November 11; Green Book (director Peter Farrelly) on Friday, November 9; and Widows (director Steve... Read More, Comment

SAN FRANCISCO -- Independent advertising agency Venables Bell & Partners has hired Hilary Coate as its new head of integrated production. She joins the team following the retirement of Craig Allen, who joined VB&P as its first producer when the agency opened in 2001, and went on to build its integrated production team and capabilities. In addition to leading the integrated production discipline at VB&P, Coate will partner closely with the agency’s content divisions, which include Lumberyard, Rabble... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- In the year after the downfall of Harvey Weinstein and the rise of #MeToo awareness, women in Hollywood are still processing and evaluating what, if anything, has fundamentally changed in their business — from the nature of scripts to an increase in basic opportunity. Some say that things have absolutely changed, while others struggle to see any discernable difference that can be attributed to the cultural awakenings and discourse of the past year. In other words, if there are more female-... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The #MeToo movement has sent dozens of once-powerful Hollywood players into exile, but few of them have been placed in handcuffs or jail cells. And it's increasingly apparent that the lack of criminal charges may remain the norm. Harvey Weinstein has been charged with sexual assault in New York, and Bill Cosby was sent to prison in Pennsylvania in the year since stories on Weinstein in The New York Times and The New Yorker set off waves of revelations of sexual misconduct in Hollywood. But... Read More, Comment

Anders Behring Breivik probably thinks "22 July " is about him. He's the violent narcissist whose actions are at the heart of the film, but Breivik is really the enigma in its center. No, "22 July" is about everyone other than Breivik — and that is a remarkable cinematic feat. This powerful, must-see film — written and directed by Paul Greengrass — explores several of the lives altered when right-wing extremist Breivik went on a deadly rampage in Norway in 2011, killing 77. How this could this... Read More, Comment

Nearly a half-century has passed since the majestic moment when Neil Armstrong stepped carefully onto the lunar landscape, left foot first, taking that giant leap for mankind. Whether you were alive then and glued to the TV, or relived it later through that iconic, grainy NASA footage, what you probably remember is just that: The majesty. You're probably not thinking much about the deafening noise, the claustrophobia, the terror of blasting off in a rickety sardine can that could fail at any... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Actress Amandla Stenberg was named after a 1989 Miles Davis album — a lush, African-tinged funk fusion that takes its name from the Zulu and Xhosa word for "power." In South Africa under apartheid, "amandla" was — and still is — a rallying cry against oppression. It's a lot for Stenberg to live up to. "You think?" she asks, laughing and thanking her mother for the heavy responsibility. Then she turns more serious. "It's something I keep very close to my heart." Stenberg has already done much to... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Audrey Wells, who wrote and directed the 2003 romantic comedy "Under the Tuscan Sun" as well as the screenplay for the new film "The Hate U Give," has died after a five-year battle with cancer. She was 58. A representative from United Talent Agency says Wells died Thursday. The San Francisco native had early jobs as a disc jockey at a local jazz station and in public radio before making the transition to film, armed with a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles. She... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Ambitious, lavishly produced television series are routine in the era of big-spending streaming platforms. But the latest entry, Amazon’s “The Romanoffs,” tests viewers with its classic TV format: it’s an anthology series made up of eight self-contained episodes, a contrast with the season-long narratives of shows including “American Crime Story.” The element connecting the tales of “The Romanoffs” is the ancestral link its main characters claim to the Russian imperial family assassinated in... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Filmmaker Rory Kennedy couldn't resist the obvious place to open her new documentary on NASA. That's a news clip of her uncle, President John F. Kennedy, challenging the space agency to land a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. Kennedy said she wanted to give people who were not alive in the 1960s a sense of the excitement and energy that surrounded the Apollo missions and space flight in general. The movie about NASA's 60th anniversary, called "Above and Beyond: NASA's Journey to... Read More, Comment

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Will Vinton, an Oscar-winning animator who invented Claymation, a style of stop-motion animation, and brought the California Raisins to TV, has died in Oregon. He was 70. Citing a family statement, The Oregonian reported that Vinton died Thursday following a lengthy battle with multiple myeloma. He won an Oscar in 1975 for the animated short film "Closed Mondays" then founded Vinton Studios in Portland the next year and went on to win three Emmys as a producer. Stop-motion is a technique that... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Eighty-seven countries have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film category for the 91st Academy Awards®. Malawi and Niger are first-time entrants. The 2018 submissions are: Afghanistan, “Rona Azim’s Mother,” Jamshid Mahmoudi, director; Algeria, “Until the End of Time,” Yasmine Chouikh, director; Argentina, “El Ángel,” Luis Ortega, director; Armenia, “Spitak,” Alexander Kott, director; Australia, “Jirga,” Benjamin Gilmour, director; Austria, “The Waldheim Waltz,” Ruth... Read More, Comment

"The Hate U Give " begins with a scene at the family dinner table where a father is giving his young kids "the talk" — the one in which he explains to his 9-year-old daughter, Starr, and toddler son exactly what to do when they're pulled over by a police officer. Hands on the dashboard. No sudden movement. Answer the questions directly. Don't elaborate. A teenage Starr (played by Amandla Stenberg, who gives an astonishing performance) is narrating this memory. She's as surprised as the audience... Read More, Comment

Relapse is part of recovery. That's what one doctor in "Beautiful Boy " tells David Sheff (Steve Carell), the distraught father of a teenage son, Nic (Timothee Chalamet), who has been dabbling in alcohol, weed, cocaine, heroin and crystal meth, and has become an addict. He disappears for nights on end from his father's idyllic home in the woods outside of San Francisco which he shares with a stepmother, Karen (Maura Tierney), and his two very young step-siblings. He steals his little sister's... Read More, Comment

Drew Goddard, the screenwriter-turned-director whose feature debut was the meta-horror film "A Cabin in the Woods," has laid another movie trap. This time, in the pulpy but artificial thriller "Bad Times at the El Royale," it's a motel. And as anyone who has ever watched a movie knows, bad things do indeed tend to happen in motels. Just ask Marion Crane or Llewelyn Moss. The El Royale is Goddard's hermetically sealed site this time. It's a once-swanky, now-kitschy Lake Tahoe lodge — a blare of... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Mochi — a pillowy, Japanese rice dough — has been around for centuries. But now it's one of the fastest-selling items in your grocery's freezer aisle. The popularity of the bite-sized treats is due in part to The Mochi Ice Cream Co. The company was founded three years ago after the private equity firm Century Park Capital Partners bought Mikawaya, a 105-year-old Los Angeles-based Japanese confectioner. Mikawaya is credited with inventing ice-cream filled mochi in the 1990s. The treats were sold... Read More, Comment

FRANKLIN, Tenn. -- Joseph R. Stanley, who most recently served as a respected cost consultant, working with Advertising Production Resources (APR) from his home near Nashville, passed away unexpectedly last Tuesday (10/2) at the age of 68. Stanley is perhaps best known for his long tenure on the agency side of the business, relocating from Denver to Los Angeles to become a commercial producer at Dailey & Associates in the 1980s. He was soon named sr. VP of production and print at the agency. During his 25... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Manhattan's district attorney has decided to drop part of the criminal case against Harvey Weinstein. The development was announced in court Thursday with Weinstein looking on. The tossed charge involves allegations made by one of the three accusers in the case, Lucia Evans, who was among the first women to publicly accuse Weinstein of sexual assault. In an expose published in The New Yorker one year ago Wednesday, Evans accused Weinstein of forcing her to perform oral sex when they met alone... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- In a weekend of perfect counterprogramming for Hollywood, the comic-book movie "Venom" shrugged off bad reviews to shatter the October box-office record with an $80 million debut, while Bradley Cooper's "A Star Is Born" soared to $41.3 million. With $174.5 million in tickets sold at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore, it was easily the best October weekend ever thanks to two very different films that both outperformed expectations. "Venom" came in a critically panned, much-... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Senate’s vote confirming Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh sent viewers flocking to Fox News Channel, which recorded its biggest Saturday audience in more than a decade. Fox’s daytime audience was bigger than any for the network since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, while its Saturday primetime lineup eclipsed anything since the Iraq War in 2003, the Nielsen company said. Kavanaugh’s victory after a lengthy confirmation battle benefited the network that’s a favorite of people friendly to his... Read More, Comment

P&G brand Vicks and Publicis Singapore have launched the second edition of Vicks #TouchOfCare. This campaign now tells another inspiring story, this time of Nisha, a young girl who has Ichthyosis, a genetic skin disorder. The transformation of Nisha due to the love and care provided by her adoptive parents Aloma and David Lobo, forms the crux of this digital video, “One in a Million,” which was directed by Anand Gandhi via Offroad Films, Mumbai. Read More, Comment

To celebrate the Mill Valley Film Festival’s 41st year of showcasing the best in independent and world cinema, the team at Sausalito, Calif.-based ad agency BSSP created a campaign that not only highlights its rich history, but also promotes the importance of preserving the element of surprise in great film with a faux product designed to detect film spoilers. Universally, movie goers hate when someone spoils the film they’re watching. In this campaign, fictitious spokesperson Bill O’Brian,... Read More, Comment

Social activist, public speaker, and Vanity Fair contributing editor Monica Lewinsky has launched #DefyTheName, the campaign for 2018’s National Bullying Prevention Month. It follows the success of her 2017 #ClickWithCompassion campaign, which was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Commercial for its award-winning PSA “In Real Life.” This year’s campaign enlists a who’s who of big names to show those experiencing bullying that they’re not alone--and in fact part of an incredible community of... Read More, Comment

Impossible Foods brings its plant-based burger to White Castle with the Impossible Slider. To celebrate the new relationship, Impossible Foods and White Castle teamed up with Wu Tang clan’s RZA, GZA and Ghostface Killah and filmmaker Sam Spiegel to debut a four-episode online series called Wu Tang in Space Eating Impossible Sliders . It features the hip hop artists eating White Castle’s new Impossible Sliders while they orbit Earth answering questions from fans. The mini-series is set in space... Read More, Comment

Barbie has rolled out the Dream Gap Project, a multi-year global initiative to raise awareness around limiting factors that prevent girls from reaching their full potential. Research has identified that starting at age five many girls are less likely than boys to view their own gender as smart and begin to lose confidence in their own competence. Cultural stereotypes, implicit biases and representation in media work together to further this issue. In the United States, this has been referenced... Read More, Comment

Uber, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and Tool of North America teamed on a campaign that calls attention to the all-too-common excuses for drunk driving, replacing them in this spot with “Reasons To Ride” other forms of transit ranging from Uber to train or bus. Tool’s Phillip Montgomery directed this public service message which contrasts scenes of people giving a reason for driving drunk with scenes of Uber, train and bus drivers echoing the same “excuses”--except they’re reasons for... Read More, Comment

In celebration of International Day of the Girl this Thursday (10/11), Black Dog Films produced this installment of Girls Who Code’s “Sisterhood” series. It’s a digital visual album celebrating sisterhood which aims to empower girls around the world. Black Dog duo Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer directed “Healing,” featuring vocals by Lizzo, electronic music artist and activist Madame Gandhi and Seattle’s Northside Step Team. The music film emphasizes the power of #sisterhood in navigating... Read More, Comment

Goldman Sachs has rolled out an advertising campaign aimed at raising awareness of the firm’s signature philanthropic initiative, 10,000 Women, which supports female entrepreneurs in emerging markets around the world through access to business education, networking, and capital. Conceived by a creative ensemble at agency Forsman + Bodenfors New York, the print and digital components of the campaign feature CEO-style portraiture—oil paintings in gilded gold frames—of several of the 10,000 women... Read More, Comment

The Mill has teamed up with TBWA\Chiat\Day NY, TBWA\Chiat\Day LA, MAL\FOR GOOD and the Climate Reality Project for a new campaign driving awareness on the importance of voting. Spearheaded by Al Gore, The Climate Reality Project is a community of people committed to turning awareness into action that can save our planet’s species and natural resources. The campaign stars a photo-real penguin named “Earth” (voiced by social media influencer Liza Koshy) and follows the character through her run... Read More, Comment

Director Jake Zalutsky of production house Picture North profiles professional female boxer Jessica McCaskill in this spec piece for Under Armour. Titled “Respect the Sport,” the film captures McCaskill’s dedication to the sport in terms of both physical intensity and emotional commitment. A prime challenge, said Zalutsky, was “creating a space in which Jessica felt comfortable opening up about some of the challenges and pressures she’s faced as a female athlete, which became the focus of the... Read More, Comment

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