Last year, a new course was added in the department of telecommunication and film, TCF 451: Advanced Television Production. The class is designed to give upper-level students in the College of Communications and Information Sciences insight into the production aspect of television.

Professor Adam Schwartz assigned a project to the class — create a television pilot. Because of the success of the pilot created in its first year, the TCF department decided to offer the class again.

“[The professor is] pretty open with helping us if we have something, but right now he’s trying to take a step back… and not so much micromanage us,” said Andrew Carey, a senior. “If we need suggestions he’s open to helping us out.”

About a dozen students make up the class, which allows each student to have hands-on experience in the production process.

Each student has an opportunity to pitch an idea for the storyline, which they then choose through a vote. Director Marcus Tortorici’s idea won in a landslide. Though Tortorici, a junior, thought of the premise of the pilot, scriptwriters Andrew Carey and Heath Williamson were chosen to write the screenplay.

“The class so far has been kind of roundtable discussion,” Carey said. “We got to do pitches first. The idea wasn’t me and Heath’s, so we had to take Marcus’ idea and develop it from there.”

The two have just completed a rough draft for the pilot, which the rest of the class will critique, then offer suggestions, Carey said.

According to Carey and Williamson, the pitch focuses on a high school senior suffering from psychosis, a mental disorder associated with a detachment from reality and includes hallucinations. He has recently been released from a mental institution and is re-entering high school.

The character struggles to appear normal by hiding and controlling his psychosis, but it is extremely difficult because “his day dreams manifest into reality,” Williamson said.  The main character also has an imaginary sidekick.

Despite dealing with a serious mental disorder, the script is meant to be lighthearted and playful, which the scriptwriters demonstrate through the character’s humorous hallucinations.

Because students taking the class will be focusing on the production of the television pilot, they will need actors and actresses. Members of the class created a Facebook event detailing the open audition process.

Auditions will be held Friday, Sept. 24 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Tuesday, Sept. 28 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Reese Phifer, Room 180. For more information regarding auditions, students can contact Katherine Longfield, a member of the class and co-producer of the pilot, at [email protected].

Once the characters have been cast, filming will begin.

The main location will be a local high school. Filming may also take place at the Aquatic Center because of a scene near the end of the pilot involving a pool and a high dive. Other filming locations have yet to be determined.

The pilot will be filmed on location using cameras supplied by the TCF department.

The project is still in the beginning stages, since the class has the entire semester to complete it.

Last year, the final product, “Cast and Crew,” was shown at the Bama Theatre, and Carey said the class hopes to show their project there as well.

The project is representational of the production process of a television show. From the plot to the actors to the cameras, each decision regarding the production is left up to the students.

This decision-making process allows them to get a glimpse of real world television production, helping them decide their interest level in the subject.

“When you are writing for something, you do have to answer to people, so I think that part’s accurate,” Carey said. “We had to apply for our jobs on the movie and give vision statements for the parts and tell what we were going to do and pitch ourselves as capable. We didn’t just get handed out jobs.”

Lifestyles Editor Kelsey Stein contributed to this report.