Due to limited time, no cable and unlimited access to Wi-Fi, an epidemic is sweeping through college dorm rooms. The ability to stream virtually any show online is a click away because of popular sites like YouTube, Hulu and Netflix.

At Biola there are a few growing web series that have taken a giant leap into the sea of online web shows through unique ways of storytelling.

Javid

Courtesy | Javid Series

“Javid” started with a group of three guys: junior David Noble, junior J.J. Carroll and sophomore Sam Halleen. Carroll and Halleen are both film majors and were in an art of storytelling film class together as freshmen last year. Throughout their freshman year they brainstormed ideas about making videos but never got around to putting those ideas into practice.   

Noble and Carroll became friends last fall when they realized they had a similar sense of humor. The three men decided they should start a series of web shows together, and over the span of two days they filmed their first promo for the series. Noble and Carroll, who star in the series, combined their first names — J.J. and David — to create the title for the series known as “Javid.”
         
The Javid crew focuses on making their content consistently humorous and continue to produce new videos every Monday.
      
Their big break on campus came from receiving first place at Biola’s #TechFail Video Competition sponsored by student development at Midnight Madness in the fall. The contest encouraged Biola students to produce a 90-second video of their most awkward, funny or embarrassing technology fails to win a grand prize of $1000.
         
“We use our talents to glorify God in what we do, not to be disgusting and demeaning, but to be funny without swearing and crude sex jokes. Christians can actually be funny and not uptight,” Carroll said.
         
Noble and Carroll hope to continue to create witty ways for their viewers to be entertained in season two. Instead of being story-driven, this season is going to be more “topical and situational humor,” Carroll said. “Javid” is going to turn its focus toward making music videos and shorts.
         
“We’re going to put out one to two music videos a month and in between that some one-minute videos, short comedy segments, rather than longer drawn out ones,” Carroll said.

Five Stories Up

Courtesy | Five Stories Up

What makes the “Five Stories Up” series different from most music videos and web series out on the web is that senior Samuel Smith, the director and creator, only films the vocal performances from one angle and all in one take.

“It makes the video feel more authentic with no edits, capturing raw vocals with people who are talented at what they do in one uncut take,” said senior Matthew Bacchus, the show’s producer.
         
The Five Stories Up series features both music majors and students who aren’t always in the spotlight on a weekly basis. They’ve also featured the well-known spoken word band “Listener.” Five Stories Up currently has two awards under its belt, winning Best Student Produced Web Series and Best Overall Web Series at the LA Web Fest in April 2012.
         
“We're looking forward to sharing [an upcoming] film with everyone and we hope everyone tunes in for the final season of Five Stories Up,” Smith said.

Coach Tracy       

Courtesy | Coach Tracy

David Tracy, a sophomore film major at Biola, plays a rather serious, yet comedic, role in the newest web series on campus, called “Coach Tracy.”  It all started last year during intramural football when Tracy and his friends made one video joking around with the football team and decided to put it on YouTube.
           
In late fall, as teams began forming at Biola for intramural football, people asked Tracy if he was going to record more videos for the upcoming season. Those questions gave Tracy and the other producers the idea to make a web series.
         
The series takes place at a secular college, making it edgier than and different from other web series produced at Biola. The genre produced is a unique cross between a tragedy and comedy.

“Our goal in making Coach Tracy was to mix ‘One Tree Hill’ with ‘Friday Night Lights,’” Tracy said.         

When Tracy put the second video online it quickly got a few hundred views. Tracy, along with the show’s screenwriter, senior Michael Sullivan, and assistant writer, sophomore Braden Roggow, made the decision to keep producing more shows for the “Coach Tracy” series.

The cast and crew begin shooting with a general idea for the scene, but no script. Sullivan calls the show an “exaggerated reality.”
         
“It’s completely real footage and contributes to the punch line of the joke. The outcomes of those intramural flag football games [that “Coach Tracy” is based off of] are true and it’s the most non-fabricated thing about the show,” Tracy said.