By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Neil Patrick Harris’ Oscar Writing Team Named

Posted Wednesday, December 10th, 2014 - 2 Comments »
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> Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron today announced the special material writing team for the 87th Oscars, which will air live on Oscar Sunday, February 22, 2015, on ABC.

Host Neil Patrick Harris will lead the special material writing team alongside head writer Dave Boone.  Boone, a veteran of eight Oscar telecasts, won two Emmys® for his work on the 63rd and 64th Tony Awards®, and received nominations for all three subsequent shows.  He also earned nominations for his work on the 84th Oscars, hosted by Billy Crystal, and the 70th and 71st Golden Globe Awards telecasts.  Boone’s additional writing credits include the “Primetime Emmy® Awards,” “The Neighborhood Ball: An Inauguration Celebration,” the “Academy of Country Music Awards,” the “Screen Actors Guild Awards,” and “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest.”

Writer and producer Paul Greenberg won an Emmy as a writer on the 63rd Tony Awards and earned three more nominations for his work on subsequent telecasts.  His other credits include “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” the “Primetime Emmy Awards” and the “People’s Choice Awards.”  Greenberg also is a veteran sketch comedy performer and is currently writing, producing and acting in his own show, “International Ghost Investigators: Hollywood Division,” which airs on DirecTV’s Audience channel.

Mason Steinberg, a three-time Emmy Award nominee, has written material for some of biggest comics in the industry.  His television credits include the 84th Academy Awards® show, the “Primetime Emmy Awards,” the “MTV Movie Awards” and series such as “Crank Yankers,” “The Andy Milonakis Show,” “Lopez Tonight,” “Stevie TV” and “The Crazy Ones.”

Derek DelGaudio is a performance artist, writer and co-founder, along with artist Glenn Kaino, of A.Bandit, an experimental performance art collective.  DelGaudio wrote and co-starred in “Nothing to Hide,” a theatrical magic show directed by Neil Patrick Harris that debuted at L.A.’s Geffen Playhouse in 2012 and Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre in 2013.  DelGaudio was selected as an artist-in-residence at Walt Disney Imagineering earlier this year.  He is currently writing a new theater show to debut in 2015.

Liz Feldman is a four-time Emmy winner for her work as a writer and producer on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”  Feldman wrote material for the 79th and 86th Academy Awards telecasts and was a writer and producer on the comedy series “2 Broke Girls.”  She is the creator of the new comedy series “One Big Happy,” which she is also writing and executive producing for a 2015 launch.

Paula Pell is a comedy writer, producer and actress, best known for her writing work on “Saturday Night Live” for two decades.  The SNL characters she helped create include Debbie Downer, the Spartan Cheerleaders, and Marty and Bobbi.  A few years ago, Pell began writing for feature films, and in 2012 she executive produced Judd Apatow’s “This Is 40.”  Her first original screenplay, “The Nest,” was shot this summer with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey.  The film is due out next year.

Tim Carvell is a writer and executive producer on the series “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.”  A veteran of three previous Oscar telecasts, Carvell also served for 10 years as a staff writer and head writer on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” during which time he won six Emmy Awards for his work.  Carvell is the author of the Planet Tadmiddle-grade book series, based on his column for MAD magazine.

 

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87th Oscars Social Media Guide
Follow the Academy, Oscar’s producers, and host Neil Patrick Harris for the latest updates throughout Oscar season.

Host
Neil Patrick Harris: http://twitter.com/ActuallyNPH

Oscars Producers
Neil Meron: http://twitter.com/neilmeron
Craig Zadan: http://twitter.com/craigzadan

Hashtags
#Oscars

Academy
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheAcademy
Twitter: http://twitter.com/theacademy
Instagram: http://instagram.com/theacademy
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/oscars
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+Oscars

 

ABOUT THE ACADEMY
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is the world’s preeminent movie-related organization, with a membership of more than 6,000 of the most accomplished men and women working in cinema. In addition to the annual Academy Awards—in which the members vote to select the nominees and winners — the Academy presents a diverse year-round slate of public programs, exhibitions and events; acts as a neutral advocate in the advancement of motion picture technology; and, through its Margaret Herrick Library and Academy Film Archive, collects, preserves, restores and provides access to movies and items related to their history. Through these and other activities the Academy serves students, historians, the entertainment industry and people everywhere who love movies.

FOLLOW THE ACADEMY
www.oscars.org
www.facebook.com/TheAcademy
www.youtube.com/Oscars
www.twitter.com/TheAcademy

 

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Posted in MCN Curated Headlines, Movie City News, Press Releases | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “Neil Patrick Harris’ Oscar Writing Team Named”

  1. Dixon Steele says:
    December 10, 2014 at 1:17 pm

    No BRUCE VILANCH???!!!

  2. Ray Pride says:
    December 10, 2014 at 4:03 pm

    SOMEONE NOTICED! It was all I could do not to put that in the headline.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon