Bubbawheat here with my own take on a feature run very well in the past by Andrew. I wanted to be able to showcase some of the members of the LAMB here with their own words and what better way than by asking them a few questions. I’ll be starting out by talking with some of this year’s Lammy winners, and in the future I plan on highlighting some forgotten LAMBs that are still active, but haven’t been around here in a while. My first victi-err interviewee is Lindsay from French Toast Sunday who won the Lammy Award for best design.
Bubbawheat: First off, can you tell me a little bit about you, your site, and how it came about?
Lindsay: Well my name is Lindsay and I am a 24 year old film fan from Baltimore, MD. I swear too much, have the voice of a 12 year old boy and can’t properly pronounce anything. I also have a habit of highlighting my negative attributes before the positives ones. I run Frenchtoastsunday.com along with five other friends. I initially started blogging about film solo, just here and there, but the more film I consumed the more I read about it. I started to frequent blogs and message boards and then really got into podcasts. Once I decided on trying to actually produce a podcast, a formal film blog seemed necessary. We try to really have fun with what we do and not take ourselves too seriously.
BW: I have to ask, is there a significant meaning behind the name French Toast Sunday?
L: I always feel bad telling this story because it’s really silly. So some people that frequent the site might already be familiar with my boyfriend Jason. He helps with behind the scenes stuff and sometimes drops in on the podcast. Well when we were trying to think of a name for the site, Jason suggested we make it something abstract like “French Toast Sunday.” That was the first idea anyone suggested. The group tends to encourage his ridiculous ideas so of course everyone just started championing the name. When I asked him “how did you come up with that?” he responded that it’s “just like Rotten Tomatoes, it doesn’t make any sense.” I proceeded to explain what Rotten Tomatoes referred to and he proceeded to feel like a goof. But when all was said and done we just kept calling the concept of the site and podcast ‘French Toast Sunday.’ So much so that it just stuck. Everyone we polled really liked it for whatever reason so we just owned it. I wish it was cooler story.
BW: Sometimes a silly little story is just as entertaining as a deep profound meaning to a site. There’s many different features on your site, which one do you enjoy the most?
L: I love our podcast. Sometimes I listen to it a little, is that bad? But seriously, I think that it is easily one of the best things about our site and certainly my favorite thing to produce. Getting together once a week to blab about film with your buddies? It doesn’t get much better.
BW: I know I love listening to podcasts and think it would totally be fun to do one. Now, you won this year’s Lammy for best design, who came up with the design for it?
L: I came up with the design and Jason helped me code it. The entire FTS crew gave their input on what features to include and what the content should look like. I sort of have ADD when it comes to the site’s design and everyone helped me figure out what worked and what didn’t.
BW: Did you and the rest of the FTS crew have a specific goal or goals in mind when creating the look of the site?
L: Laying out concrete goals was one of the first things I did when we decided on a redesign. I certainly wanted it too look professional and one of the biggest things was highlighting all our different authors. That was the main focus because I wanted our readers to get to know us all on a personal level, so they could come to FTS and seek out one author in particular if that’s who they connected with more.
BW: It’s nice to see a focus on the authors, I did notice it was rather easy to tell who wrote what which isn’t always easy on other multi-authored sites. Is there something about your design that you wish were different/better?
L: Everything? Hahah I am ALWAYS worried about specific design components on the site and constantly playing around with different ideas. I feel like I’m never done but I have been slowly coming to terms with the fact that not everything is going to be perfect all at once.
BW: What’s your favorite movie that you’ve watched recently?
L: That’s tough. I guess most recently at home I rewatched Battle Royale for the first time in a white and almost forgot how bad ass that was. In theaters the last great thing I watched was Moonrise Kingdom, which I thought that was very charming.
BW: Thanks so much for your time talking with me today, and I’ll be back next week with another interview.
Tags: French Toast Sunday