The challenge of a hit show is not only having to meet or exceed an already high creative bar but also to remember—and not stray from—what resonated with viewers to begin with. Shawn Levy, executive producer and director on Stranger Things —the Netflix series created by the Duffer brothers (writers/directors/EPs Matt and Ross)—dealt with that dual challenge in season two after an auspicious, lauded season one which last year scored five Emmy Awards from a whopping total of 18 nominations. “Once... Read More, Comment

With a filmography that includes such lauded documentaries as The Thin Blue Line, Gates of Heaven and the Oscar-winning The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, director Errol Morris has continually pushed creative boundaries. The Thin Blue Line, for example, paved the way for an expanded view of the documentary form, though it paid the short-term price for being different as the Motion Picture Academy deemed the seminal film ineligible for Best Documentary Oscar... Read More, Comment

“Break a leg” is theatrical slang for good luck. But there’s more than luck involved in breaking successfully into the industry and evolving into a working producer and/or director. Each step along the way is a challenge—one we hope to make a little easier through career advice offered by a cross-section of producers from the ad agency and production house sectors. To help foster opportunities for those seeking a meaningful foothold in the business—and in the spirit of SHOOT’s 16th New... Read More, Comment

This e.dition contains the first “Earwitness with Lyle Greenfield,” a podcast brought to you by SHOOT and Bang Music. Greenfield is the founder of Bang Music and past president of the Association of Music Producers (AMP). Like the SHOOT Earwitness column written by Greenfield, the new semi-regular podcast is about music and its place in popular culture. Sometimes the podcast will be in sync with a written Earwitness column such as this week's--which ties into a recent installment titled "Papa's... Read More, Comment

CANNES, France (AP) -- The leaders of the Cannes Film Festival have signed a gender equality pledge promising to make their selection process more transparent and to push their executive boards toward gender parity. Cannes director Thierry Fremaux signed the pledge Monday in a packed tent on the Cannes beach, along with Edouard Waintrop, artistic director of Cannes' Director's Fortnight section and Charles Tesson, artistic director of Critics' Week. Watching from the front row was this year's nine-member jury,... Read More, Comment

CANNES, France (AP) -- Eighty-two women climbed the steps of the Palais des Festivals at the Cannes Film Festival in an unprecedented red carpet protest to press for improved gender equality in the film industry. The number of stars, filmmakers and film industry professionals ascending the steps represented the number of female filmmakers who have been selected to compete at Cannes during the festival's seven-decade history. In contrast to their 82, 1,866 films directed by men have been picked for the prestigious... Read More, Comment

CANNES, France (AP) -- When Wim Wenders first met Pope Francis before shooting the documentary "Pope Francis: A Man of his Word," the pontiff warmly greeted the German filmmaker before warning Wenders that he is no movie buff. "He said: 'I've heard a lot about you but you must know I don't know much about cinema and I haven't seen a single one of your films. Actually, I don't know almost any movies,'" says Wenders. Later, once the film was nearly completed, Wenders inquired if Pope Francis wanted to see it. The... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK -- The One Show Best in Show honors, recognizing the single most outstanding work from among the 19,823 entries received this year from 73 countries, was awarded to McCann New York for ”Fearless Girl” on behalf of State Street Global Advisors. The work won nine Gold Pencils this year over two nights (May 10 & 12) of award ceremonies. This year’s top global honors, based upon cumulative One Show Pencils and Merits won across all disciplines, were: Agency of the Year: BBDO New York Network of... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK -- McCann New York’s “Fearless Girl” for client State Street Global Advisors won the coveted 2018 Best of Show Award at the New York Festivals International Advertising Awards gala held last night (5/17) at the renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City. The statue of a fearless young girl standing up to Wall Street’s Charging Bull became a symbol of female empowerment, the icon of International Women’s Day, a piece of city art, and a social media phenomenon. People... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Bullitt has signed Drake Doremus for commercialmaking and branded content representation in the U.S. Doremus is known for both his branded and feature fare. On the latter score, his latest film Zoe , starring Ewan McGregor and Lea Seydoux, premiered as the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival’s Centerpiece title. On the branded side, Doremus’ short film, The Beauty Inside , directed for Intel and Toshiba out of agency Pereira O’Dell, received three Grand Prix honors (Film, Branded Content &... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Director Renny Maslow has joined Skunk for commercialmaking and branded content representation in the U.S. and U.K. Specializing in comedy, Maslow has helmed spots for such brands as State Farm, Time Warner, Bud Light, Chevrolet, ESPN, Android, Diet Coke and Ikea. He received a Sports Emmy Award for best promotional announcement on the strength of the NFL on FOX “Life is Better with a Ring” campaign featuring pro football legends Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Michael Strahan and Troy Aikman along... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK -- Carolyn Johnson has been promoted to serve as head of integrated production at m:united//McCann, the dedicated Microsoft global agency collective that integrates creative and strategic talent from within McCann Worldgroup. Johnson most recently served as executive producer at m:united//McCann. Johnson’s new role includes growing the capabilities and scope of the agency’s production resources while also leading the m:united//McCann integrated production team across all media platforms. Prior to... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- NBC is turbo-charging the trend of reviving canceled comedies with its pickup of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine." The network quickly swooped in after Fox dumped it last week, adding it to NBC's midseason schedule. While the fan outcry was heartening, NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt said Sunday that because of business considerations, the pickup already was in the works. The show is made by an NBC Universal-owed studio. Greenblatt said if he had known earlier in the series' development that... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Glance at next season's schedule for CBS and you could be forgiven for wondering what decade it is. The network is adding remakes of 1980s series "Murphy Brown" and "Magnum, P.I." to a line-up that already includes blasts-from-the-past "Hawaii Five-0" and "MacGyver." CBS executives said Wednesday that the "Murphy Brown" reboot, which again stars Candice Bergen, moves TV anchor Murphy out of prime-time. She hosts a morning cable show with the snappy title of "Murphy in the Morning," and is... Read More, Comment

CANNES, France (AP) -- In a passionate, expletive-ridden monologue at the Cannes Film Festival, director Spike Lee lambasted Donald Trump for the U.S. president's response to last year's violent white supremacist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia. Lee spoke to reporters Tuesday after his "BlacKkKlansman" premiered Monday night at Cannes to a rousing standing ovation. The 1979-set film, loosely based on a true story, is about black police detective Ron Stallworth (played by John David Washington, Denzel's son) and... Read More, Comment

CANNES, France (AP) -- In one of the oddest but most fitting of press conferences, reclusive and iconoclastic director Jean-Luc Godard spoke to reporters Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival via FaceTime, answering questions over a mobile phone screen. The unusual sight and rare audience with the 87-year-old French filmmaking legend was marveled at by festivalgoers who pronounced the press conference perfectly "Godardian." The director who pioneered film's New Wave movement during the 1960s was connected by phone by... Read More, Comment

CANNES, France (AP) -- For these the-movies-are-dying, I'll-stream-it-at-home times, Christopher Nolan has brought out the big guns. The 47-year-old filmmaker, passionate booster of the big screen and champion of celluloid, has, in a time-traveling expedition of his own, returned "2001: A Space Odyssey" to its original analog presentation in a new-but-old print that on Friday will put Stanley Kubrick's mind-blowing sci-fi masterpiece back into theaters to commemorate its 50th anniversary. "It hasn't withstood the... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Usually by now, the prolific filmmaker and legendary screenwriter Paul Schrader is already on to the next one. But after finishing the religious thriller "First Reformed," which has been hailed as Schrader's late-life masterpiece, the 71-year-old filmmaker is taking a breather. "I've just decided to let this one play out," he said in a recent interview speaking by phone from his home in Putnam County, New York. "First Reformed," which A24 will release Friday, is a kind of capstone to Schrader's... Read More, Comment

CANNES, France (AP) -- While the rest of the world, and the Academy Awards, were celebrating Pawel Pawlikowski's film "Ida" as one of the best films of 2013, the quiet, black-and-white film was swept up into political debate back in Poland, Pawlikowski's home country. It still mystifies the filmmaker why Poland's ruling right-wing party, which took power in late 2015, painted his film as "anti-Polish." ''Ida" was about a young orphaned woman in the 1960s on the cusp of taking her vows to be a nun when she discovers... Read More, Comment

CANNES, France (AP) -- The Cannes Film Festival can validate an aspiring filmmaker like few other places. In a year light on American directors at Cannes, one of the few trumpeted by the festival is Paul Dano, whose filmmaking debut "Wildlife" opened Cannes' Critics Week sidebar. "Wildlife," which the 33-year-old Dano scripted with his partner Zoe Kazan, is based on the 1990 Richard Ford novel, set in 1960s Montana and seen largely through the eyes of a teenage boy, Joe (Ed Oxenbould). After his father (Jake... Read More, Comment

CANNES, France (AP) -- John Travolta first came to Cannes 40 years ago while promoting "Grease," and he's still dancing along the Croisette. The 64-year-old actor returned to the Cannes Film Festival to promote his new mafia boss John Gotti biopic "Gotti," celebrate the anniversary of "Grease" with a screening on the beach, and, at a soiree on Tuesday night, share a few dance moves alongside rapper 50 Cent. Travolta loves Cannes; it's where Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" debuted two decades ago and won the... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Diahann Carroll recalls a date with Marlon Brando that yielded a slap and career advice. Robert Adler tells how he co-invented the TV remote control. Walter Cronkite shares his dismay over learning that White House pressure trimmed a CBS report on Watergate. Their accounts are part of an extraordinary collection of 4,000-plus hours of video Q&As recorded over more than two decades by the Television Academy Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences,... Read More, Comment

If there's one takeaway from "Solo: A Star Wars Story ," it's that our favorite scoundrel had been through a lot before he ever met up with Luke, Obi-Wan and Leia. Sure, he'd talked up his Kessel Run time and out-maneuvering Imperial ships, but this film contains at least three epic set-pieces, involving a job atop a high-speed train careening around a snowy mountain, a fiery space showdown with a squid-like super monster and an explosion-filled shootout, that are so spectacular that they have... Read More, Comment

At a recent screening of "Deadpool 2," the audience didn't get up when the end credits came up, patiently sitting through the scrolling names of visual effects supervisors and lighting specialists. Real "Deadpool" fans know to stick around until the ushers toss them out. That's because the filmmakers aren't content with containing their sprawling, anarchic and subversive hero in any conventional box. No, in the world of Deadpool, even the boring end credits are studded with jokes and teases. So... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- CBS soared in the ratings with major plot moves on the season finales of its two most popular shows. On the comedy “The Big Bang Theory,” Sheldon and Amy’s characters tied the knot, while Pauley Perrette’s character, Abby, signed off from “NCIS” after a decade and a half with the drama. Both programs reached more than 15 million viewers last week, well above any other show on the air, the Nielsen company said. With the television season coming to an end — and networks presenting next season’s... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- "Avengers: Infinity War" is still ruling the box office in its third weekend in theaters, easily beating out the mom-themed fare. The Walt Disney Studios on Sunday estimates that "Infinity War" has added $61.8 million from North American theaters bringing its total domestic earnings to $547.8 million. Globally the film has now grossed over $1.6 billion— $200 million of which was from its massive opening in China this weekend. It's now the fifth highest grossing film of all time worldwide. The... Read More, Comment

SANE, a mental health charity in the U.K., has launched a national advertising campaign to encourage those struggling with depression to find their voice and call for help. Created pro bono by ad agency Iris, the campaign has as a centerpiece this film which portrays a man being silenced by an unidentified intruder who covers his mouth as he struggles to answer the phone. The intruder is a metaphor for the man’s depression, who wants to stop him talking. The film ends with the line: “Your... Read More, Comment

Titled Hey Charlie , this heart-wrenching video from the Christopher D. Smithers Foundation follows a lad named Charlie as he grows up. We see a healthy, normal, promising life turned upside down by opioid addiction. Robert Smyth of Heavy Pictures and Brinkley Smithers directed this docu-style piece. The Smithers Foundation, Inc. was founded in 1952 by R. Brinkley Smithers in memory of his late father. Originally, the purpose of the Foundation was to carry on the charitable activities pursued... Read More, Comment

Wondros directors Chris Riess and Amy Hill, professionally known as Riess|Hill, provide a new take on Mother’s Day storytelling in Teleflora’s new campaign, “Love Makes a Mom.” These deeply moving spots highlight three unconventional motherhood scenarios that beautifully reinforce the brand’s belief that it is love above all else that makes a Mom. In this spot produced by Wondros for Wonderful Agency, we meet Cara and her daughter Mia who has Down syndrome. Read More, Comment

Director Peyton Wilson of Chelsea Pictures directed this Ford piece out of agency Global Team Blue (GTB) which brings one woman’s seemingly simple wish to life: to hug her parents. The short film focuses on a young woman who, due to cultural and generational norms, has never properly hugged her parents. Following a devastating earthquake in her home country of Japan in 2011, she realized the necessity of expressing to her loved ones the impact they’ve had on her life. Seven years later, she... Read More, Comment

This spot for Bacardi from BBDO New York is uniquely told entirely from the waist down. It features an eclectic group of dancer friends meeting up for a rum-fueled night in the Caribbean. Throughout the piece, each friend dances to create a different musical sound through the movement and expression of their hips, legs, and feet. As the group comes together, their sounds mix together, forming a track by DJ trio, Major Lazer, longtime Bacardi friends and collaborators. Directed by Tom Kuntz of... Read More, Comment

Last year, Johnsonville created a limited run of t-shirts using a member’s (employee named Shawn) tagline, “You Can’t Spell SaUSAge Without ‘USA’” written across the chest. The shirts were a huge hit on the brand’s social channels, garnering a surprising level of positive sentiment. This led agency Droga5 NT to the insight that consumers might be compelled to hear the story of Johnsonville’s All American origins and that the “Made in the USA” claim not only built trust and quality associations... Read More, Comment