Posts Tagged writers

Brian McCarthy on NameShake

Posted by admin in iPhones, pop culture on April 22, 2009

Brian McCarthy‘s and Lance Laspina‘s NameShake was something I found out about through The Joke Gym‘s (& Friend of the Blog) Paula Johnson. Pop culture does not normally include iPhone coverage, but the way Paula described it to me seemed to make it a perfect fit for the blog. According to Johnson, NameShake is “an iPhone app that lets you figure out names for your baby. It has a huge database with the meaning of thousands of names. You choose the gender and country of origin you want, shake the iPhone, then see the names … The product has already helped me, but not with a baby … There is also interest from writers who can use the product to name characters.”  My thanks to Johnson for getting me in contact with McCarthy, and my thanks to McCarthy for this email interview.

Tim O’Shea: How did you first come up with the NameShake product?

Brian McCarthy: Well, my wife and I discovered we were pregnant last July. After carting around baby naming books for awhile and suffering the ignominy of numerous paper cuts, I decided there had to be a better way. That’s when I called Lance to ask for his advice and during the conversation we decided to work on this together.

The initial project was much broader but we chose[1] to test the waters by limiting ourselves just to the naming application for the short term. I have to say, we both feel it’s been really worthwhile and hope to do more applications in the future.

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Jeffrey Berman on The Write Environment

Posted by admin in Film, episodic TV, pop culture on February 18, 2009

When the writer’s strike happened in late 2007/early 2008, writer Jeffrey Berman was looking for a way to stay busy in a productive manner. And that’s how his new project began–The Write Environment. Here’s more details on the project: “THE WRITE ENVIRONMENT features 50-60 minute, in-depth, one-on-one interviews with some of the most lauded and prolific writers in the television industry today, including Damon Lindelof (Lost), Tim Kring (Heroes), Phil Rosenthal (Everybody Loves Raymond), Doug Ellin (Entourage), Sam Simon (The Simpsons), and Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

… each episode … takes viewers backstage into the heretofore unseen world of the writer’s room for intimate interviews that offer a rare look at these diverse writers and what inspires them. From that first idea to the finished script, the writers share their views and stories, examining their successes, failures, and everything in between.”

I enjoy the chance to interview interviewers, so my thanks to Berman for his time.  In preparation of the interview, he was kind enough to allow me to view screeners of the Lindelof and Whedon interviews. My thanks also to Sylvia Desrochers for making this interview possible.

Tim O’Shea: How did you first come up with the idea of doing this series when the writer’s strike was in full swing? Do you think you would have been able to get these writers’ time if they had not been on strike?

Jeffrey Berman: The series came about as a byproduct of the Writers Guild Strike. I had co-founded a web site called UnitedHollywood.com. Our mission was to keep our members, and the public, informed as to what was really going on behind the scenes. My contribution to the site was producing live interviews from the strike line as well as viral videos to assist in getting our point of view heard. As the strike progressed we started talking about cutting out the middleman, aka the studios, which would allow us to retain ownership of our own projects. As an aside, I’ll tell you that screenwriting is the only faction of the creative world where the creators do not retain ownership or rights to their material once they sell it.

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