Tufts students who look for passive-aggressive friendships, salacious romantic entanglements and quippy dialogue in their TV shows need not look as far as Orange County or the Upper East Side. In fact, they may not even have to look off campus.
TUTV's original series "In Motion" follows a group of friends at Tufts and all the drama that comes with their relationships. The series launched its third season premiere on its YouTube.com channel this past Tuesday.
Drama, drama, drama
The name ‘In Motion' implies the ongoing-ness of interaction amongst people and the way you're sort of in everyone's lives," sophomore Thomas Martinez said. Martinez created the show last spring and currently serves as writer, director and actor. "The show's a little bit quirky. It's kind of what you'd call a web-soap. It's not anything too deep. It's something you can just sort of watch and pop in on."
"I like to say that it doesn't know it's campy," said freshman Katie Hegarty, who joined the production at the end of last semester as a writer and producer. "It's not supposed to be a soap opera, but it sort of is. It's a classy soap opera."
"It's a Tufts drama," Austin Bening added. Bening, a freshman, plays the character Josh on the show. "It's very entertaining."
Though "In Motion" is populated by fictional Jumbos, it does have roots in real life. Martinez said he based many of the show's original relationships on the hall he lived in during freshman year.
"The show's about those ‘hall-cestuous' relationships that just kind of happen," Bening said.
JT Vancollie, a sophomore who acts and writes for the show, agrees that a lot of inspiration for the show is taken from real Tufts scenarios. "When Thomas and Katie and I are thinking of stories, we draw on our own crazy stories about our own lives, so it's kind of just taking that and making it a little more extreme," Vancollie said.
Keeping it fresh after ‘Mouthwash'
It may be hard for some to ignore the resemblance between "In Motion" and "Mouthwash," TUTV's last great Tufts drama. Like "Mouthwash," "In Motion" films on campus and follows the trials and tribulations of a group of students. But Martinez and the rest of the "In Motion" crew, like their characters, strive to create the show's own separate identity.
"We think about ‘Mouthwash' a lot, but it's not really a rivalry," Martinez said. He cited the older show as a reference.
To the younger cast and crew members of "In Motion," "Mouthwash" is something of a non-entity. Hegarty, who has never seen "Mouthwash," said, "So many freshmen who watch the show now don't know what ‘Mouthwash' was, so we're really in a category by ourselves."
"It'll occasionally show up under ‘Related Videos' on our YouTube videos, which makes Thomas kind of mad," she added.
Though Martinez created "In Motion" when he was a freshman, he had been preparing for the opportunity for some time. "I had always been interested in making stuff with my friends," he said. "I think when I was eight, we made our first film in my backyard. When I got to Tufts, I really wanted to make a show about friendship and relationships and the different dynamics that go into all sorts of relationships."
Martinez didn't waste any time in making his vision come to life. His introduction to TUTV came just two weeks into his freshman year, after he heard about the network from a friend. "I was really into ‘Mouthwash' because I heard about it the day I got here and watched all of it," Martinez said. "So at the TUTV general interest meeting, I just pitched my show idea and got access to cameras and other equipment."
Vancollie, who joined the show last semester, was impressed by Martinez's vision for "In Motion." "He just started explaining the show to me, and I thought, ‘That's really awesome; I want to help out in whatever way I can,'" she said. "And so here I am now."
Soaps and student life
Between "In Motion" and "Mouthwash," TUTV has become a breeding ground for Tufts-based soaps. What is it about Tufts that makes it such a good setting for dramatized stories of students' lives?
"Tufts is big enough to have a lot of diversity but small enough to have people know each other's business," Vancollie said.
"I also think there's something about Tufts that makes friendships grow a lot more rapidly than they would anywhere else," Hegarty added. "There's something about this place where you meet people and you know them immediately."
Martinez pointed out that, like the characters in "In Motion," many Tufts students share a particular passion for what they do. "Everyone here had to work really hard to get here, so everyone is really ambitious and really into what they do," he said. "I think the reason the show works at Tufts is because I tried to create people who are all from different pockets, and therefore their interests either bring them together or pull them apart."
Martinez looks forward to changing the approach of the show in the upcoming season, which will run for a total of seven episodes. "Initially, I just had a bunch of different characters, and I threw them everywhere without knowing who they were. But now that we're on season three, I feel like I've finally started to learn who the characters are," he said.
A presidential star
Teenage drama isn't the only curveball viewers can expect in season three. According to Hegarty, "We were just throwing around ideas at a writers' meetings, and all [of a] sudden we were like, ‘Oh my God. What if we got Bacow?'"
On a lark, she drafted a letter to University President Lawrence Bacow and was shocked to get an immediate response. "He agreed right away, which was the best part," Martinez said. "He just said, ‘Don't make me do anything stupid.'"
The Tufts campus' most famous face won't just be playing himself. The show's writers couldn't ignore Bacow's striking resemblance to cast member Ben Schwalb. Schwalb, who is also the executive online editor for the Daily, plays Trevor on the show. "We were like, ‘Okay, he's going to play Trevor's dad,'" Hegarty said. "He's playing the president of the university, but he's President Kaufman. He's the Bob Saget-on-‘Full House' type."
"Working with him was really great," Martinez said. "He came in five minutes early and had his lines memorized. He actually ad-libbed a few lines." Bacow's cameo will undoubtedly be a big attention-getter for the show. But because "In Motion" can easily be watched on YouTube, with episodes at only 10 minutes long, the show has already been able to get a significant amount of on-campus viewership.
"It tripled in hits between seasons one and two on YouTube," Hegarty said. "I was watching a preview in my room, and my roommate said, ‘Oh my God, I love that show!' I had no idea she even knew what it was."
"When people do recognize me and tell me they watch the show, it's an awesome moment," Vancollie said.
"It's definitely a college crowd watching," Hegarty added. "It's by college, for college."
Like all good soaps, "In Motion" is designed to be a fluffy diversion for its viewers. "Don't expect a work of art," Hegarty said. "It's for fun. You're going to enjoy yourself. You'll relate."
"The show is something really fun to do, so if people can watch it and see how much fun we have and get enjoyment from that, then that's awesome," Vancollie said.
For those interested in getting caught up on "In Motion," the first two seasons and the third season premiere are posted on the show's YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/inmotionshow. New episodes debut Tuesdays at 8 p.m.
