Judy Greer plays Liz, Barry Dominic's lexical nemesis. I think she's really swell and darling. Her character also comes off as really, really smart, which is how I would have done it.
Silicon Follies Screen Caps
Screen snapshots from the opening title sequence of the Silicon Follies television pilot:
Ethan Embry, Judy Greer, Scott Bairstow, Barbara Williams, Nicole Bilderback, and Hart Bochner all star.
Here's Ethan, who plays the character of Paul Armstrong – a chronically harried project manager in the middle of a huge code push. His cubicle looks a lot like mine looked. And yours, probably.
Judy Greer plays Liz, Barry Dominic's lexical nemesis. I think she's really swell and darling. Her character also comes off as really, really smart, which is how I would have done it.
Scott Bairstow plays Free Bits/Open Source hacker Steve Hall, here in a scene where he's having a recursive software epiphany with a rubber duck. I think he totally did a great job with the role. And real-life Open Source hackers like Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond can only dream of being this cool...
Barbara Williams plays Kiki, Barry's soon-to-be ex. The screenwriters made her much more of a player in the tech biz, which I liked.
Nicole Bilderback plays Vero, Liz's friend. Again, this character was changed a bit by the screenwriters to be more dynamic and tech-savvy. I think they were trying to tell me something... um, like, write stronger women into my books? Okay, I will. Nicole is so cool. I also think I recognize her from “Clueless”, which is my favorite Jane Austen adaptation.
Here's Hart Bochner, playing Barry Dominic. Personally, I think he's doing a great impersonation of Oracle's Larry Ellison. He's all chiseled and intense and impatient, rushing headlong into emerging technology and Tetramemory's next quarter results. Here he is negotiating the purchase of an apricot orchard, which he intends to bulldoze for a new corporate headquarters.
Hart/Barry in a board meeting. Note the rotating Teramemory “T” graphic in the background. I thought it was pretty cool. Hart totally has the whole, “Steve Jobs reality distortion field” vibe going on. You know, that black-turtlenecked, techno-charismatic intensity required to motivate employees and put venture capitalists in a trance.
Barry (Hart) and Paul (Ethan) in a scene where Barry terrorizes Paul – in front of the board of directors – into committing to an impossible project deadline. Paul vacillates between elation and terror. It's such a great scene.
In my novel, the Teramemory corporation is kind of a character unto itself. Here's “Tetramemory” Headquarters (The screenwriters had to change the name from Teramemory because somebody registered the teramemory.com domain name and wouldn't give it up without a fight.) Note the huge chrome “T” they constructed and put in front of the building. What's really hysterical is that much of the material for Silicon Follies came from my experience at a 1980's artificial intelligence start-up called Teknowledge – and we had our own gigantic T, too. Somehow, the set designers managed to intuit this. It was kind of creepy. I mean, I had very little input into the production of the TV pilot, and yet they're hitting so close to the mark on so many little details. Or in this case, one very big chrome detail.
Liz Toulouse (Judy Greer) in her Tetramemory job interview. I thought she did a swell job with that role. I tell ya, this woman's going places. Major Oscar bait. Though I have to say, her full frontal nudity in “Adaptation” with Nicholas Cage caught me a little off guard – here was my prim little “Liz” starring as the seductress in Cage's character's fantasies...
Paul Armstrong (Ethan Embry) reviewing Liz's resume.
Hacker Steve (Scott Bairstow) eating noodles with a spectacular display of bad table manners, consistent with his hacker character. It was really hilarious. I think he has really good comic instincts.
Liz in the “Addressed for Success” scene, where she disses one of Barry's company memos on email and inadvertently CC's the entire company. People really seem to like this scene.
Paul and Liz in Barry's office.
