Michael J.S. Murphy graduated from Miami in 2001 with a mass communication degree and a film studies minor, hoping to follow his childhood dream of becoming a writer.
Seven years later the Brunswick, Ohio, native is residing in Silver Lake, Calif., in the east side of Los Angeles, and works as a script-coordinator for ABC's According to Jim. He co-wrote Tuesday's episode of the series with regular writer John Schwab, titled "Period Peace."
Murphy and Schwab were given an outline and each wrote on a different section of the script, combining their efforts to come up with the final product.
"Overall, it is great to get a credit, as far as writing with Schwab," Murphy said. "It was the first time that we wrote together and it went very smoothly."
The script for "Period Peace" was a freelance script, which means it could not have been written by members of the current writing staff. "Period Peace" was completed before the Writers Guild of America went on strike in November and was produced in the midst of the strike.
Murphy has only done one script and is not officially a member of the guild, so the strike left him out of work for only a month.
The writers prepare scripts further in advance than the production team, so at the start of the strike there were still six episodes to be shot, "Period Peace" being one of them, so he continued to work until all of the scripts were produced, Murphy explained.
"My job on the show was not as writer, and since they stayed in production, I continued to work until all the scripts we had written prior to the strike were produced," Murphy said.
Murphy also emphasized the importance of the rights of writer.
"The strike sets a base-level precedent so writers are getting paid something-precedent for the Internet," he said. "We don't know what the future holds but (the Internet) is what it is."
The passion to write began at a young age for Murphy. He entered and won various writing contests through his school, which opened the door to meeting renowned authors, including children's book author Judy Blume.
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But it was the 1987 motion picture Space Balls, directed by comedian Mel Brooks, which inspired Murphy to direct andproduce movies.
"I wanted the things (in movies) to turn out how I thought they should," Murphy said.
As a Miami student, Murphy was involved in WMSR, and remains in touch with friends that he met through WMSR via e-mail, and still sees them about once a year.
He was also a student employee for four years, working for Bob Parker in audiovisual services, which was located in the basement of Hughes Hall at the time.
"(Murphy) was a very good person and entertaining to be around," Parker said. "He always showed up to work on time and did what I asked him to do."
Murphy also worked alongside Andy Marko, currently a producer in the department of communications, to produce what Murphy described as an off-the-wall informational video about residence halls to show at first-year orientation.
Additionally, Murphy said he was involved in the production of a CD to teach students about the Miami Indian Tribe with Miami professor Robert Vogel.
Upon graduation, Murphy moved to Los Angeles to work on the Drew Carey Show, where he had interned since junior year at Miami. The job at the Drew Carey Show was less than glamorous, as his main responsibility was making copies of scripts and delivering them during late, obscure hours of the day. Following his stint with the Drew Carey Show, Murphy worked for 8 Simple Rules as a writer's assistant. He put the ideas of the writers into outlines, proofread and dealt with formatting for the duration of the show before becoming a script coordinator for According to Jim.
The advent of YouTube.com has brought about another outlet for creativity for Murphy. Currently, Gabriel Sunday and 2002 Miami graduate Frank Wolff work with Murphy on their Web site, Not a Banana (www.notabanana.com), producing sketch comedy videos.
According to Jim airs 9 p.m. ET Tuesdays on ABC.
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