“In the Lu,” California Lutheran University’s first late night sketch show, is bringing comedy to the school’s campus every other Thursday night of the 2015 spring semester.

The video series, created by senior Alexia Chalita, is student- produced and based on the daily happenings of the Cal Lutheran campus.

Three episodes of “In the Lu” have currently been released. Each episode is no more than fourteen minutes long and includes various student hosts and comedy segments.

Chalita, a communication major with an emphasis in film and television, began developing the work of this project her junior year when she took professor David Grannis’ TV production class.

“I was in TV production class with Grannis and he was talking about how there is a TV channel, but there is no programs that actually go in it. So I got this crazy idea to make a TV show, and everyone in the class thought I was crazy,” Chalita said.

Chalita began pitching the idea to her professors, classmates and friends. Chalita approached Grannis, and he was uncertain whether or not Cal Lutheran had the equipment and staff to support this kind of project.

“It wasn’t a class, and it wasn’t affiliated with any CLU organization. It was basically students saying, ‘Yeah we want to do this.’ You can’t do it by yourself. It takes a lot of people to do a show,” Grannis said.

However, Chalita’s persistent push to find participants paid off. Chalita was able to acquire a production team to begin brainstorming for “In the Lu.”

Junior Mackenzie Paul volunteered to be the head screenwriter and in charge of pre-production. Junior Kevin Kunes and junior Tetteh Canacoo would work as head editors of post-production, and Chalita would take the role of executive producer.

“I want to write comedy, so once she said sketch show, I was immediately on board,” Paul said.

Producing the show is not an easy process. Although the “In the Lu” episodes are released every two weeks, there is a lot of work and effort crammed into such a short time frame.

“At first we try to write it all out, plan it all out, and then we shoot whenever we can,” Paul said. “A lot of that is getting screen segments at times when there are actually people walking around. We struggle with that a lot, so we are learning that process.”

Chalita, Kunes, Canacoo and Paul will be receiving independent study credit for their hard work and effort in this process if they produce eight episodes of the video series.

Also involved with the show is sophomore Michelle Cerami who is the host of the “On the Street with Michelle Cerami” segment.

“I am a religion and sociology major. I am not into TV and film and I have no interest in doing that with my life, but Alexia said, ‘Look, you’re funny, and we need people to act. I know you don’t do this, but would you want to do it,’ and I said sure,” Cerami said.

According to Chalita, Cerami’s segment is one of the most popular on the show and it will remain an ongoing segment throughout the series.

“A lot of it is improv. We usually just go for it. When I see some people walking, I might just follow them and give them a hard time. People are really taken back, they are like ‘What’s this for, who are you?’” Cerami said.

Chalita said the cast and crew are not just students with an emphasis in film and television production. Students across all disciplines are involved to make the project a success.

“We have a couple freshmen who come out on weekends and volunteer ‘cause they just want to learn more. Outside the production side of it we have a lot of departments. We have the marketing department, the music production department. We have actors and directors and people who give their time and who want to be there,” Chalita said.

The cast and crew of “In the Lu” have received positive feedback from the Cal Lutheran community.

Cerami said  she hopes students who watch the show at improv, on the “In the Lu” Facebook page or on the “In the Lu” YouTube channel are able to relate to the show’s comedic relief.

“I think sometimes we take ourselves so seriously. Give us a chance to poke fun at ourselves and have a good time and laugh together. It is a good way to bond, and I hope people get a good sense of community out of it,” Cerami said.

Brooke Straeter
Staff Writer
Published February 18th, 2015