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Home » The Barbarian Group Spins Out Lot112 to Deliver Coherent Digital Content

The Barbarian Group Spins Out Lot112 to Deliver Coherent Digital Content

Have you heard about Lot112? No, it’s not a sequel to Pynchon’s ‘The Crying of Lot 49’, though it’s still a little unusual. Lot112 is a new ‘content studio’ created by the Barbarian Group

Lot112 will function independently, the Barbarian Group has said, providing project support to the shop’s existing clients in addition to working on independent projects. Their idea? Create a standalone operation that will be free to figure new ways of doing brand work. This approach, they figure, will help Lot112 create, produce and deploy content more like a network, one that uses media companies, content distribution channels, agencies, and production studios to create content.

The agency’s rationale with Lot112 is to “devise a new model” for representing brands by pulling all the different pieces together to reduce the fragmentation of said brand’s messages by testing data around content effectiveness.

Lot112 will function a bit like the newsrooms of yore, in part to figure out quicker ways to create and distribute digital content affordably, at scale and in real-time.

The studio will produce a broad range of content, including long and short form video, stop motion animation, still photography, infographics and editorial pieces.

Lot112’s anchor clients include Samsung, Pepsi, and Brisk. The new shop has new hires that include filmmaker Craig Teper, agency vet Heather Brown and media producer Eric Camins. They will be joined by seven additional dedicated staffers.

Creating a small, production company-like shop looks like another unique way The Barbarian Group is trying to make sense of today’s ad environment for its client.

The one-piece, swooping desk defining the office includes sections that become meeting areas.

The Barbarian Group must be inspired by their fun looking digs too: Based in an open, loft-like space in the Flatiron district, the creative house was open to an architect’s plans of creating one continuous swooping bit of a worktable that is some 4400 continuous square feet, taking up much of that floor space. (You can see a video of just how it turns into many different work and conversation spaces on The Barbarian Group’s website.) .

Cinder, the open source C++ library created by The Barbarian Group, enables interactive displays among its many uses.

Even more unusual: Cinder. After all, how many agencies can you name who develop a free, open source C++ library tuned to the creative arts field? The software, now used by technology companies, universities and others, won the company a first ever Cannes Lion Innovation Grand Prix.

Perhaps it’s not too surprising The Barbarian Group is so technologically adept,when you know it’s a division of Cheil Worldwide, which in turn is a a division of Samsung. As their press material elaborates  – “The agency specializes in using technology to creatively solve problems, to tell nuanced stories across emerging mediums, and to make the world more interesting. “

About Dan Ochiva

New York City-based journalist and NYCPPNEWS founder Dan Ochiva writes and consults on film, video, and digital media technology.

Community & Partner Links

How Sony’s New Virtual Sound Technology Can Change How We Hear Films

Kami Asgar and Jessica Parks are post-production heavyweights who work with major studios, namely Sony. As a sound designer (Asgar) and as a post executive (Parks), their collective resume touches on everything from Apocalypto to Grandma’s Boy to Venom.

Parks has recently shifted her focus from supervisor to hands-on sound design, and we talk about how it’s never too late to pivot on your career path and find the thing you love doing wherever you are in life.

Click on this link to read the rest of the article on No Film School’s site.

NJ – Governor Murphy signs $14B Incentive Program Bill – the NJ Economic Recovery Act of 2020

 Film tax credits — amending existing programs to include provisions for so-called New Jersey film partners and New Jersey film-lease partners and allowing an additional $200 million of tax credits annually over 13 years.

Click this link if you want to read the full article on the Lexology site. http://bit.ly/35NtDx6

Film Commish announces date for production restart

In her December 18, 2020 news update, MOME Commissioner Anne del Castillo announced that the Film Office is now accepting permit applications for production activity that begins on July 27th.

She also announced awards now (Awkwafina) and more. To read all of the Film Commish’s bloggy sort of news column, click here.

Stimulus Offers $15 Billion in Relief for Struggling Arts Venues

The coronavirus relief package that Congressional leaders agreed to this week includes grant money that many small proprietors described as a last hope for survival.

For the music venue owners, theater producers and cultural institutions that have suffered through the pandemic with no business, the coronavirus relief package that Congress passed on Monday night offers the prospect of aid at last.

To read the full article on The New York Times’ site, click here.

If you want to start production, here’s the latest news from the Mayor’s Office

Phase 4 production guidance is available on the Film Permit website. All production activity, whether it requires a Film Permit or not, must comply with New York Forward Industry Guidance.

For more information see, please refer to the State Department of Health’s Interim Guidance for Media Production During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Please review the guidelines and FAQ before submitting permit applications. The Film Office is operating remotely, so please allow additional time for Film Permit processing.

The above paragraphs contain links to the various FAQ – just mouse over the relevant words.

Nikon to Stop Making Cameras in Japan

Nikon has fallen on hard times as of late as its camera sales have cratered, and now there’s a new indicator of how dire its financial situation is: the company is reportedly pulling the plug on making cameras in Japan after over 70 years of doing so.

To read the full article on Petapixel’s site, click here.

NVIDIA Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

NVIDIA Research has invented a way to use AI to dramatically reduce video call bandwidth while simultaneously improving quality

What the researchers have achieved has remarkable results: by replacing the traditional h.264 video codec with a neural network, they have managed to reduce the required bandwidth for a video call by an order of magnitude. In one example, the required data rate fell from 97.28 KB/frame to a measly 0.1165 KB/frame – a reduction to 0.1% of required bandwidth.

To read the rest of this article on Petapixel, click this link.

 

 

 

Union Health Plan Dodges Film Workers’ Suit Over Virus Relief

Law360 (October 9, 2020, 5:22 PM EDT) — The Motion Picture Industry Health Plan’s board can’t be sued under ERISA for allegedly flouting its duties when it relaxed plan rules in response to COVID-19, a California federal judge has ruled, nixing a proposed class action filed by two cinematographers who still couldn’t qualify for benefits.

In an order entered Thursday, U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner granted the board of directors’ motion to dismiss Greg Endries and Dee Nichols’ Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit accusing board members of breaching their duty to treat all plan participants fairly.

Endries and Nichols, members of Local 600 of the International Cinematographers Guild, said in July that the board left them and others “out in the cold” in its attempts to address the problems COVID-19 caused for plan participants.

But Judge Klausner agreed with the board’s contention that the case, which alleged a fiduciary breach, should be tossed because plan administrators don’t act as fiduciaries when they amend health care plans.

Read the full article on the Law360 site by clicking here.

Russo Brothers Received Close to $50 Million From Saudi Bank

Anthony Russo and Joseph Russo photographed at the PMC Studio in Los Angeles for the Variety Playback Podcast.

The Russo brothers, directors of the all-time top grossing film “Avengers: Endgame,” quietly secured a roughly $50 million cash infusion for their production company AGBO from Saudi Arabia earlier this year, multiple sources tell Variety.

In a deal brokered and closed at the beginning of the pandemic, the Russos received the investment from an undisclosed Saudi bank in exchange for a minority stake in the brothers’ Los Angeles-based shop.

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