Known to many as a hard working group of student producers, writers, and reporters, TealTV is expanding itself to now include directors, actors, and filmmakers into its job description for some. Their latest project, ”On the Air” is a new feature film coming to the UNC Wilmington campus on August 24, 2016.

A crew of twenty-five students from our very own UNCW came together to work with forty cast members to execute this project. Included in this mix are some professional actors from Wilmington’s community. “On the Air” is sponsored in its entirety by the university’s student-led television production network, TealTV.

Surprisingly, very little of the film takes place on campus here at UNCW. The primary locale for filming was Coworx at Barclay Commons. Other locations for the film involve places around the Wilmington area, including this year’s Azalea Festival.

The film itself has been dubbed a “mockumentary” by TealTV’s co-president Kyndall DySard.  He stated that “[On the Air] is about a local news station intern who discovers the unorthodox ways the member of WHAT 42 handle the news.”

On the Air is believed to be breaking ground as the largest production in UNCW history by any student media organization. The script itself was 101 pages long, and the film has a runtime of approximately one hour and twenty minutes.

This student-led feature film is wrapping up its production and has a set premier date at our very own Lumina Theatre, located in the Fisher Student Center. The show itself is free for students, faculty, staff, and community members.

Dysard also commented on one of the organizations goals for the film. “We hope to inspire students to work for the new 2016-2017 TealTV feature film, other TealTV productions and overall, to support UNCW student filmmakers,” she said. 

Producer and Actor Wesley Elder commented on his favorite thing about being a part of this project: “My favorite thing was the fact that we created the longest narrative product that has ever come from UNCW students… Just creating something with students that was blessed with great support from the community was awesome.”

Elder is blatantly proud of the work that the cast and crew have put into this film, but he definitely has big goals for the future of the film. “While this isn’t a major Hollywood film, I do think it can garner an audience.” He said, “My main goals are to get it with a distributor, get it on Netflix and other digital platforms, and to hopefully make some revenue to put back into TealTV for future projects.”

Looking forward to the future is certainly an aim of TealTV, with the success of this project setting the tone for their future endeavors.

Actress Mikaela Fleming described some of her relationship acting in this film as character Taylor Wallace. “I would never have been able to bring Taylor Wallace’s character to life without the help of my fellow actors and the spectacular directing team. I got to work beside fellow students, professional older actors, and even my professor.”

The entire production seems pretty close knit. With a project this large, it’s no wonder that members of their team came together to create something so monumental. When asked what the most challenging part of working on such a large project was, Fleming said:

“We filmed in a bunch of different locations. That was very challenging when you have a cast of 15+ actors with busy schedules plus the entire crew of 25. We also filmed at The Azalea Festival this spring which was very exciting but challenging because people kept watching us film or walk through the scene and wave to the camera.”

Fleming explained why this could be a positive: “Although it messed up a few scenes we got to promote the movie,” she stated with enthusiasm.

Collectively, TealTV has set a great goal for future UNCW filmmakers: create the next big project. Go out and see the final product for yourself at Lumina Theatre on August 24^th for free. Doors open at 6 p.m..