Don’t be surprised if you start seeing cameras on campus filming students in the near future. It will be for a comedy series students Luis Turbides and Scott Stewardson are producing for their own YouTube Channel.
“So far it’s a UMass YouTube comedy series,” said Stewardson at the series casting call. As of yet they do not have a title for the series, but they do know what kind of show they want it to be.
“Whenever my theater friends ask me about it, I tell them ‘It’s Lysistrata on steroids,” said Turbides, who is a Theater Arts major himself. In case you’re not familiar with Lysistrata, UMass Boston put on the play last semester, which Turbides described as a “very raunchy, R-rated show.”
They also haphazardly described their series as “a live action South Park.”
Stewardson and Turbides met during the fall semester in their Creative Writing class. The two immediately hit it off. After class they would hang out in the hallway for up to an hour sometimes talking about shows, movies and random stuff. The after class chit-chat led them to start talking about the possibility of creating a web series, and ideas began to be thrown around.
Inspiration like the time the two students both showed up to class because they didn’t know it was canceled due to Hurricane Sandy led to ideas being born for the web series.
When they saw a teacher sitting in an empty classroom across the hall, another idea was created. The teacher stayed in the empty classroom for the entire class period. This inspired a character for the series of an eccentric teacher who would go on with a lecture even if a single student was not present.
The ideas finally turned into something more concrete when the semester ended. “As soon as winter break came we got to writing,” said Turbides. A two-part pilot was finished, and they hope to make ten 15-20 minute episodes by the end of this spring semester.
Scenes are going to be shot almost guerilla style, as actors will get the script ahead of time. “We’ll quickly rehearse it on the spot and eventually turn the camera on and start recording,” said Turbides.
Why are the two creating the series, you might ask?
“For fun,” said Stewardson. “It might be unnecessary fun considering how much we have to do to complete it, but it’s something we want to do.”
Stewardson and Turbides plan to start shooting the last week of February. If you’d like to see if you can be involved with the series contact Turbides at [email protected]