LOS ANGELES -- One Strange Rock (National Geographic) has been one remarkable ride for cinematographers Johnny Rogers and Simon de Glanville. The former was involved in volcano lensing in the Congo, a free diving sequence in Mexico, and a Lechuguilla Cave shoot which entailed eight days of living underground. Meanwhile de Glanville’s exploits included chronicling a Soyez rocket launch, Sami reindeer herding, a Varanasi water fight and life in a monarch butterfly sanctuary. “You’re pushed almost to the limit... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Morgan Neville is a lauded filmmaker whose 20 Feet From Stardom won the Best Feature Documentary Oscar in 2014 and the Best Music Film Grammy the following year, among assorted other honors. 20 Feet was nominated for the Sundance Film Festival’s Documentary Grand Jury Prize, as were Neville’s films Troubadors in 2011 and Best of Enemies (co-directed with Robert Gordon) in 2015. So the bar was set high when it became known that Neville was making a documentary about iconic children’s television... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Escapism is usually the domain of big-budget spectacles, but a pair of blockbuster documentaries has caught on at the summer box office partly because they're a respite from today's headlines. The Fred Rogers documentary "Won't You Be My Neighbor" and the Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg portrait "RBG" have each played to some of the season's most packed theaters. In eight weeks, "RBG" has made $10.9 million, a mammoth sum for any documentary. Morgan Neville's "Won't You Be My Neighbor... Read More, Comment

CANNES, France -- Procter & Gamble had a Grand time at the Cannes Film Lions competition on Friday (6/22) as two of its efforts garnered Film Grand Prix honors: P&G’s “The Talk” directed by Malik Vitthal of The Corner Shop for BBDO New York; and the “It’s A Tide Ad” Super Bowl campaign helmed by the Traktor collective via Rattling Stick for Saatchi & Saatchi, NY, “The Talk” is part of P&G’s continuing My Black Is Beautiful initiative. The piece features different African-American parents having “... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Deutsch has hired Shannon Washington as SVP, creative director in its Los Angeles office. Washington will lead the H&R Block account, which recently appointed Deutsch as AOR. She will report to Deutsch chief creative officer of North America, Pete Favat. Washington joins Deutsch from Droga5 New York, where she served as a creative director on CoverGirl and Chase. She brings more than 10 years of experience in integrated, print, experiential, broadcast and digital brand and consumer... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK -- BBH NY has named Ed Zazzera as its head of production. Zazzera reports to Gerard Caputo, BBH NY’s chief creative officer. Prior to joining BBH NY, Zazzera spent nine years at DDB where he managed an integrated team of content, digital, art and print producers, the internal production studio and the business affairs group. Before joining DDB, Zazzera was executive producer at BBDO NY, producing filmed content for all media and managing production for a number of clients. Previously, he worked at... Read More, Comment

CANNES, France (AP) -- Born in Massachusetts, raised outside Washington D.C. and a resident of New York, director Debra Granik has lived a filmmaking life more intrepid than her own. Her films, fictional and documentary, have taken place in upstate New York, rural Missouri and, now, the Oregon woods. "I come from what they call the land of nowhere. I'm from the suburbs," said Granik in recent interview. "It's extremely atomizing. So your search is: I'm born on this very narrow path. You have to knock on the door like... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Say this about TV creators in 2018 — they don't give up easily. Three current shows — "Roseanne," ''Transparent" and "House of Cards" — have been crippled by scandal, but each plans to continue without their disgraced stars. "The bottom line is fundamentally money," said Karen Tongson, a professor of English, Gender Studies and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. "These crews, these actors, these shows that have audiences, that have critical acclaim, are... Read More, Comment

LONDON -- BMB has hired Matt Lever as its chief creative officer. He comes over to the London shop from VCCP where he’s been deputy executive creative director for the past three years. Lever starts his new role in August. He will oversee BMB’s creative output across all clients and disciplines and form part of the agency’s executive team. Lever replaces Jules Chalkey who joined Ogilvy & Mather London earlier this year. At VCCP, Lever oversaw the rebrand of O2, which resulted in the award-winning “... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Yard Dog has signed comedy director Tom Feiler for exclusive representation in the U.S. Feiler specializes in performance-based comedy often involving odd characters and skewed scenarios. His many credits include campaigns for Walmart, McDonald’s, Iams and Tim Horton’s. In describing his approach toward comedy, Feiler points to a spot for the Illinois State Lottery about a pudgy track and field athlete preparing for a high jump. After the event is given a big build up by a play-by-play... Read More, Comment

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- California will soon have what experts call the nation's most far-reaching law to give consumers more control over their personal data under a bill the governor signed Thursday. The law will compel companies to tell customers upon request what personal data they've collected, why it was collected and what categories of third parties have received it. The new law will take effect Jan. 1, 2020, and lawmakers say they will likely make alterations to improve the policy before then. Consumers will... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The organization that bestows the Oscars is continuing to lean into its promise to make its ranks more diverse by inviting a record 928 new members representing 59 countries to join including actors Tiffany Haddish, Kumail Nanjiani, Gina Rodriguez and "The Rider" filmmaker Chloe Zhao. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says Monday that that 49 percent of its invitees are female and 38 percent of are people of color. Should all the invitees accept, the new class would boost its... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) Awards Committee announced the winners of the 2018 HPA Engineering Excellence Award, the honored companies being Blackmagic Design, Canon, Cinnafilm and IBM Aspera in tandem with Telestream. Awards will be bestowed on November 15, 2018 at the 13th annual HPA Awards gala at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Winners were determined at a blue ribbon judging session held at IMAX on June 16. The Engineering Excellence Award was created to... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Walt Disney Co. on Wednesday won U.S. antitrust approval for its $71.3 billion bid for Twenty-First Century Fox's entertainment assets. Disney must first sell its 22 regional sports networks, the Department of Justice said. The company has 90 days to sell the networks, with an option to extend for another 90 days. Fox's assets have been the target of bidding war between Comcast and Disney. Comcast offered nearly $66 billion for Fox's assets, which include the FX network and the studio that... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The 2018 BET Awards barely handed out any trophies with big stars like Cardi B, Drake and Kendrick Lamar absent, but the show included superior performances by rising singer H.E.R, rapper Meek Mill and gospel artist Yolanda Adams, who paid tribute to Anita Baker and nearly brought her to tears. Baker, an eight-time Grammy winner who dominated the R&B charts from the early ‘80s to mid-90s, earned the Lifetime Achievement Award on Sunday at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. The 60-year-... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- As "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" cruises into its tenth season, Jerry Seinfeld realizes that with great success also comes the potential for lawsuits. He experienced it with the "Seinfeld" television series, his animated turn in "Bee Movie," and now with his latest show. The lawsuit comes from Christian Charles, who claims he developed the concept, and is therefore the owner of the project. Charles directed the first episode of the series. Seinfeld says he's not worried, though he's a... Read More, Comment

Like the pleasures of slow cooking, purposefully slow cinema can be a welcome respite from the craziness in both our world and multiplexes. And that is exactly what you'll get with filmmaker Debra Granik's "Leave No Trace ," a poetic and low-key drama about a father and his teenage daughter whose attempt to live outside of society becomes increasingly impossible. Granik, you might recall, is the co-writer and director the 2010 film "Winter's Bone," a stunning exercise in mood and setting that... Read More, Comment

There's an oppressive bleakness to the brutal action-thriller "Sicario: Day of the Soldado." But with faces like Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro, what are you going to do? Amid the dust cloud of violence that settles over the "Sicario" sequel, nothing stands out like the furrowed brow of Brolin's grimace or the cold, worn-out stare of del Toro. They look like gunslingers from an Anthony Mann or Sam Peckinpah western, just with heavier ammo and dark sunglasses. With such sunken, world-weary... Read More, Comment

For a few shining minutes, "Uncle Drew" is the movie it surely intended to be: funny and clever, quick and snappy, and most of all, fun — all infused with love for the great sport of basketball. Unfortunately, those minutes come during the closing credits, a sequence entertaining enough to be its own viral video. But wait — that's what "Uncle Drew" originally was, anyway: a series of web videos from a Pepsi ad campaign starring NBA great Kyrie Irving as a white-haired senior citizen who shows... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- The first time that brothers David Kellman, Bobby Shafran and Eddy Galland were in the public eye, it was joyous. The then 19-year-old identical triplets, separated at birth, had just learned about the others' existence. Despite growing up separately, the three big-smiling, curly-haired kids smoked the same cigarettes and finished each other's sentences. They appeared on shows like Phil Donahue, became early '80s tabloid regulars and even made a cameo alongside Madonna in 1985's "Desperately... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- The dinosaurs still rule the box office. "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" surpassed expectations to open with $150 million in ticket sales in U.S. and Canada theaters over the weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. While that total didn't approach the record-breaking $208.8 million debut of 2015's "Jurassic World," it proved the 25-year-old franchise still roars loudly among moviegoers. It also gave Hollywood its first back-to-back $100 million-plus openings in a non-holiday period... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Cable television networks offer sports, reality, comedy and drama. But what’s selling now is opinionated news. Sixteen of the 17 most-watched programs on cable last week were either on Fox News Channel or MSNBC, the Nielsen company said. The only exception was coverage of the NBA draft on ESPN. Three editions of Sean Hannity’s show on Fox were the three most-watched programs. Fox and MSNBC were the two highest-rated cable news networks for the week, and Fox News did better than Fox’s broadcast... Read More, Comment

P&G’s Safeguard®, a brand with a heritage of providing long-lasting protection for families, has launched a new campaign called “Pabaon Sa Buhay” (Protection for life)– reinforcing the brand’s belief that the lessons learned at home have the ability to shape and protect a child for life. The campaign idea is built on the core tension that every parent faces in bringing up their children. Having to balance the desire to keep them close and protected with the need to let them go out and... Read More, Comment

To promote its World Cup coverage (which includes a comprehensive online hub), U.K. newspaper The Sun shows in this campaign how deeply their crazed staff is into soccer. In this madcap commercial--from agencies Pulse Creative and The&Partnership, London--an impromptu soccer game breaks out in The Sun offices. Andy Lambert of 76 Ltd. directed this 90-second spot. Read More, Comment

Airbnb has long stated that its mission is to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere. In line with that, the company has expressed opposition to President Trump’s travel ban--which the U.S. Supreme Court just upheld. To show its support of policies that help open doors and build bridges--not walls--between cultures, Airbnb launched this digital ad which was created in-house with production/postproduction from Where The Buffalo Roam. The spot shows us moving backwards--literally and... Read More, Comment

Created by David&Goliath (D&G)--in collaboration with Horizon Media, Inc., Casanova//McCann, Time Advertising, Muse Communications and Alcone Marketing Group--this integrated campaign is based on a simple truth that California is known for being a land of dreamers. The centerpiece of the campaign is this :60 cinema spot titled, “May the Best Dream Win,” which depicts stories of Californians using their SuperLotto Plus winnings to realize their dreams, whether finally having the means to... Read More, Comment

Director Joanna Bailey of Snapper Films teamed with MullenLowe London to make a thought-provoking film highlighting the lazy and harmful stereotypes that still plague advertising. “The Problem is Not Seeing the Problem” is a powerful film that serves as a stark reminder that the industry has a long way to go to remove these false preconceptions from its output. It was created for the Unstereotype Alliance, the industry-led initiative convened by UN Women--the lead UN agency on gender equality... Read More, Comment

AG Rojas, represented by Park Pictures, directed this music video for Kamasi Washington’s latest single “Street Fighter Mas” from Washington’s new album Heaven and Earth. Rojas dives into Washington’s psychedelic modern jazz world, pairing the musician’s larger-than-life instrumentation with a visual narrative pitting Kamasi against his nemesis in a round of the classic video game Street Fighter. The video begins with our “hero,” Kamasi himself, setting out on a journey to find a worthy Street... Read More, Comment

Tool director Floyd Russ teamed with Uppercut editor Paul La Calandra to create this spot, “Never Far,” saluting military families for Verizon that shows family bonds can surpass the limitations of physical distance. This spot, out of 140, Verizon’s in-house agency, features a father overseas serving his country remotely, while still teaching his son about basketball. Though the distance causes strains at times, the family is able to share important and genuine moments together through video... Read More, Comment

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