A longtime voice in the advertising, commercial production, and post-production community has gone silent. SHOOTonline has ceased publication after 66 years, ending new editorial content and its daily newsletter on August 28, 2026, following more than six decades of covering the people, companies, legal developments, and creative work shaping advertising, film, television, production, and post.
Publisher Roberta Griefer announced the decision in a personal farewell to readers, advertisers, sponsors, colleagues, and friends, explaining that the closure was not the result of a dramatic business development, but simply a decision that the time had come to step away.
“There’s nothing dramatic about the decision; it’s simply the right time to relax and enjoy life more without being tied to the constant responsibility of SHOOT,” Griefer wrote.
For Griefer, that responsibility lasted 36 years.
She became publisher in September 1990, when the publication was known as Backstage SHOOT. In January 2005, Griefer and business partner Gerald Giannone completed their purchase of SHOOT from then-owner VNU.
What followed was a publication that became deeply embedded in the commercial production community, chronicling new production companies, director signings, agency developments, post-production moves, campaigns, technological shifts and the careers of generations of filmmakers and craftspeople.
SHOOT also became an important source for reporting on legal and business issues affecting advertisers, agencies and commercial production companies – coverage that made it more than simply a showcase for new work and industry moves.
The publication’s history also reflects just how dramatically the media and production businesses changed during its run.
When Griefer arrived in 1990, SHOOT was a weekly tabloid newspaper. There was no website. Pages were assembled manually, with copy pasted onto boards and edits made with an X-Acto knife before staff shipped the finished materials to the printer by FedEx.
Editorial employees were among the few staffers with computers. The publication had only recently acquired a fax machine, and reels arrived on three-quarter-inch videotape.
Its West Coast editorial presence at the time consisted of reporter Bob Goldrich, whom Griefer soon brought onto the staff. Goldrich would eventually become SHOOT’s longtime editor and one of the publication’s most recognizable editorial voices.
Together, Griefer, Giannone and Goldrich became familiar and trusted figures to generations of people across advertising and production – relationships that extended far beyond the pages of the publication itself.
That relationship-building became central to SHOOT’s identity.
The publication covered an industry built around relationships, representation and reputation, and became a regular destination for news about directors, production companies, editors, VFX artists, composers, agencies and executives.
Its archives ultimately became a record of an enormous period of change in commercial filmmaking -from an era dominated by film, physical reels, and print publications to digital production, online video, social media, streaming, virtual production, and generative AI.
SHOOT also developed programs including its New Directors Showcase and “The Best Work You May Never See,” helping introduce emerging filmmakers and recognize work that might otherwise have escaped wider attention.
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The decision to close rather than sell was deliberate.
Griefer said she and Giannone had explored potential buyers, including extensive discussions with one company under a nondisclosure agreement that she believed could have been a strong steward for SHOOT. Those conversations ultimately did not result in a transaction.
Other preliminary discussions took place, but the owners decided against prolonged negotiations while simultaneously continuing to operate the publication.
The door, however, may not be completely closed.
Griefer indicated that serious parties interested in SHOOT and its assets are still welcome to reach out, leaving open the possibility that some part of the brand could eventually find another chapter.
For now, however, the closure leaves a genuine hole in the production press.
At a moment when traditional trade journalism is contracting, and production companies, post houses, filmmakers, agencies and independent creatives are competing for fewer places to have their work seriously covered, losing an established industry publication matters.
SHOOT spent 66 years documenting who joined where, who directed what, which companies opened their doors, which legal battles mattered and, occasionally, which companies closed them.
On August 28, it had to write that story about itself.
For Griefer, the schedule finally has something considerably less deadline-driven.
After decades of vacations accompanied by work and hundreds of daily emails, she plans to head to Maui in October and discover what taking a vacation without simultaneously publishing SHOOTonline actually feels like.
She has earned it.
For the industry SHOOTonline chronicled for more than six decades, its absence will be felt.
