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From the importance of diversity in storytelling to the impact of Netflix and other streamers on the distribution marketplace, a panel of top content industry creatives and executives weighed pressing issues for the future of filmmaking.

The panel, held March 31 as part of the World Film Industry Conference and hosted by the nonprofit org NewFilmmakers LA, featured a master filmmakers’ dialogue moderated by Variety chief film critic Peter Debruge.

The panelists were drawn from different disciplines: Oscar-winning documentary director Morgan Neville, filmmaker/showrunner Aline Brosh McKenna, producer Paul Perez (Perez Pictures), Walt Disney Animation Studios vfx supervisor Marlon West and previsualization expert Chris Edwards (The Third Floor).

Whatever their achievements, one thing was clear, as “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” co-creator McKenna put it: “We all have gatekeepers.”

Fresh off making her feature debut with “Your Place or Mine” at Netflix, McKenna explained that she found an ally for the Reese Witherspoon-...

Red hot TikTok unveiled a TikTok For Business platform Thursday with a new augmented reality feature called Branded Scan and a tagline — “Don’t Make Ads, Make TikToks.”

At its first NewFront presentation, the social media giant beloved by teens said it’s partnered with 2D and 3D development firms Bare Tree Media, Subvrsive and Tommy to “scale creativity and production of Ar effects and help marketers make ads that mirror user content, that’s often humorous with easy to use special effects and sound.

Hashtag challenges allow users to compete to create ads for brands they like. TikTok has set up a creator marketplace to connect brands with thousands of ‘TikTokers’ who have been vetted by the Tiktok team.

“TikTok is the greatest show on earth rigt now for people and for the industry,” said Katie Puris, managing director, Global Business Marketing, at the virtual presentation.

TikTok For Business...

Exclusive: The Third Floor, the global visualization studio which has worked on projects including The Mandalorian, Game Of Thrones and Joker, has named Tim Keene as Managing Director of its London office.

Keene returns to the UK after a period working in production in Hollywood. His career began at Framestore, before he became a VFX producer and VFX supervisor for companies such as 20th Century Fox, Lucasfilm, Lionsgate and Universal Pictures, working on projects including Spectre, Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi and Knives Out. His most recent work was on Dolitte for Universal.

The Third Floor creates visuals across film, television, games, Vr and themed attractions, helping filmmakers to virtually plan projects. The film and TV side works across the entire cycle of production, from storyboards and pre-vis, to creating and managing visual assets during production, right through post-production.

Yesterday, Deadline revealed how gaming tech could be harnessed...

The Third Floor, the industry’s busiest visualization company in tackling superhero movies, already had an advantage working remotely with real-time tools and virtual workflows when the coronavirus pandemic struck early this year. Turns out, though, that the Covid-19 epicenter was too close for comfort.

“When this crisis began, we initially faced the challenge of protecting our staff in Beijing, who were in the midst of launching our first permanent office in China,” said CEO and co-founder Chris Edwards. “When the virus started spreading beyond Wuhan, the first thing we did was send everyone home and connect them virtually…we learned a lot about the procedures for mitigating the risk of spreading the virus that we began to apply to our other offices in London, Atlanta, and La [headquarters].

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Leading U.S. pre-visualization firm The Third Floor will open its first China office in Beijing this summer. Its local Chinese partner for the venture will be Hollywood Production Center (Hpc) China, led by CEO Fan Dong, Variety has learned.

“This has been like 10 years in the making. We’re very proud,” said Third Floor founder and CEO Chris Edwards on a panel during the Beijing International Film Festival. The firm’s “Hollywood-proven creative and technical workflows will help realize projects from China’s rich talent and culturescape,” the company told Variety in a statement, and “looks forward to more to come soon from firm’s newest West-East locale.”

The Third Floor is known for its work on major projects such as “Avengers: Endgame” and “Game of Thrones.” The company began dabbling in the China market as early as 2004, just after its founding, by designing an ocean theme park in Shenzhen/Hk.