Why are they called “A Filthy Lot”? Are they a porn studio? You may have asked yourself this and you aren’t alone… we get that a lot.
The name has existed for a long time, well before we formed a Youtube company. Back in the fall of 2012 Chris Livingston, Nadav Santo, a former colleague Billie, and myself were hired to ghost write a series for the BBC. A friend had pitched a concept and been given the green light for a science fiction show with a very tight timeline for delivery. At the time our friend was too busy producing a different series, so we were brought on to tackle the job. We had ten days to write season one.
The four of us had only recently started working together as a group and didn’t have an office per say so we were operating out of Nadav’s six hundred square foot apartment in East Vancouver. Fueled by creativity, a deadline, and copious amounts of caffeine our waking hours were consumed entirely by the project.
I was the only team member with a regular day job at the time so weekdays between seven to three I was otherwise disposed, but would head to the apartment immediately thereafter and stay until midnight.
Our group dynamic was invigorating, and however this project turned out we were sure of one thing, that the team would keep working together, and as such… we needed a name.
One day closer to the deadline I had finished the shift at my day job and headed post haste to the apartment. As I walked through the door I was greeted by the stagnant funk of my three hyper-focused and under-washed collaborators, and so I greeted them as follows:
“Ugh, writers… they really are A Filthy Lot.”
Seated amongst a sea of index cards, Chris leapt to his feet and pointed at me.
“That’s it! That’s the name!”
And thus we became A Filthy Lot.
-Trevor Gemma
Chief Creative Officer
