Oh, those first few weeks of fall quarter. The sunshine. The friendships. The new classes. And the textbooks for those classes that finally arrived around midterms due to the swamped mail rooms.
It's no secret that certain campus mail rooms were a bit disorganized in the beginning of the year. While this situation frustrated many, it inspired one student to write a comedy series for NUCH1.
"I tried to think of something that a lot of students might be able to relate to on campus," Communication freshman Chris Romero, director and writer, says. "So I went off the whole 'Hey, the mail room is a place where our packages go and I never see them again' thing." In early 2012, he wrote the pilot of The Mail Room and successfully pitched it to NUCH1.
Romero admitted that, although the initial idea for the series came from students' collective frustration with the mail rooms, it has since progressed beyond that. The series centers around college roommates Noah and Gary. Noah just wants to pick up a package, so he flirts his way to the front of the line. But later he tries to flirt with Felicity, a girl who doesn't respond to his flirtation like the rest do. She just wants her missing package so she can go on with her life. Noah realizes he likes Felicity, so he comes up with an elaborate plan to take over the mail room so that he can find the package and win her heart in the process.
Communication freshman Jared Bohlken, director of photography, described several aspects of the show that make it unique, including its use of a DSLR camera, 3D animated title sequence and especially the outro scenes during the credits. "Those are always fun to watch," he said. "You get to see the characters interact, or you get to see something that's a small idea we had that wouldn't fit into the actual episode but that ends up being really funny."
Although the three episodes comprising the first season will be relatively standard when it comes to televised comedy, The Mail Room plans to break format in its second season.
"There may or may not be a Christmas musical episode," Bohlken says. "But that's kind of where it's headed. We want to have even more fun with it so it doesn't become the same thing over and over again."
The Mail Room is one of several promising new underclassmen-produced series this year, says NUCH1 General Manager Kara Reddy, a Communication junior. "It's so great that freshmen are joining our group, because that means they have at least three or four years to develop their series," she said.
In this first season, The Mail Room aims to connect with students over the shared problem of slow mail service and make them laugh about it. But Romero says that, as an aspiring television writer, he also hopes his series will help revitalize NUCH1 and its programming.
"Up to this point, most film students want to do movies and short films," Romero said. "There's not as much interest in TV and episodic stuff, so we're hoping to bring interest back into that because it's not as existent on campus."
The 10-minute pilot episode of The Mail Room premieres Monday, May 14, at 7 p.m. on NUCH1.