Students to produce sibling sitcom

Walking through groups of iMacs and shelves of professional filming equipment during his Media Arts class one day, sophomore Ehrland Hollingsworth imagined all the possibilities that the Media Arts Program building had to offer.

“It hit me that we could do a sitcom in the MAP room [with the resources] around early December. And the sitcom was born,” Hollingsworth said.

Created as an extracurricular project, the sitcom centers around three teenagers living alone. Without support from adults, they run short of money to pay their house rent and decide to rent one of their rooms out to a tenant, who changes with every episode.

The three main characters are played by sophomores Amelia Troyer and Charles Li and senior Mac Hyde. Hollingsworth is the director, and sophomore Gray Robertson is the floor manager.

Despite Hollingsworth’s previous experience with drama and plays, he claims that the world of sitcoms is almost foreign to him and Robertson.

“The sitcom was mainly started to explore the film medium, although my involvement in plays and such over the years has given me some guidelines on how to organize it, Gray and I are mostly playing it by ear,” Hollingsworth said.

Troyer plays the role of Kim, the only rational sibling.

“I heard about the sitcom auditions after signing up to be a part of the writing team, and I was feeling pretty spontaneous one day and just decided to go for it,” she said.

Three episodes have been written, and pre-production has already started. Several sets have already been made by Hollingsworth and his father, and production is slated to start in early March.

Adhering to Hollingsworth’s first vision, the two directors are making full use of the MAP building’s resources. The filming will take place in the MAP building, and they will be using the same professional cameras used to film the SHSTV’s Friday announcements.

“I wanted to get the experience and to learn how to to do a full scale production because most of what we [normally] do is just filming a home video camera,” Hollingsworth said.

Hollingsworth hopes to upload his episodes online and eventually get his sitcom aired on Public-Access Television. He is determined to continue project through senior year, as long as there is support.

Though the sitcom is still in its early stages of production, Troyer has high hopes for the future of this project.

“Ehrland has written some hilarious scripts,” she said. “Everyone behind the sitcom is wonderful, and I’m super enthusiastic about how it will turn out!”