“Outnumbered” was an experiment in the basics of film and television. Now, three years later, juniors Rachel Diebel and Camille Adams have come a long way. Their new show is an example of creative storytelling.
“Dear Emily,” an original miniseries, premieres Feb. 9, on Mast TV’s YouTube page.
The trailer is available to watch now.
On Jan. 23, about 25 friends, family and crew from the show gathered in The CAVE for an advanced screening of the first four episodes.
Diebel and Adams have worked on three shows together in their time at Pacific Lutheran University. This year, Adams utilized her Emmy-nominated writing talent to adapt the classic novel “A Little Princess,” into a vlog style, as detailed in a previous Mast story.
That story was written in pre-production, however, and didn’t get the chance to truly explain how the adaptation works.
Now that episodes have been seen, it appears to be a remarkable achievement in print-to-screen adaptation.
Adams crafted a script which moves a slower-paced novel along at a nice pace. It’s humorously strange but surprisingly relatable – audiences laughed at the way the protagonist Sarah (junior Maylen Anthony) talked to her computer, but nodded in agreement with the reality of roommate pairings.
Diebel makes stylistic choices to make the show look like it’s really from a webcam: plain colors, grainy shadows, breaking the fourth wall and jagged cuts.
“It wasn’t what I expected,” said first-year Rhiannon Berg, who attended the premiere. “They did a really good job portraying what being a girl in college is like.”
Next year, the duo will work with the new PLU program, “Showrunners,” which will facilitate productions like these for years to come. Adams said it will “offer lots of professional mentorship.”
Adams and Diebel’s fourth and final original series is likely to be a 90-minute mystery miniseries, but nothing’s final.
“It [will be] our senior year,” Adams said, “we are going to do what we want to do.”
Starting Feb. 9, the 24 episodes of “Dear Emily” will air every Tuesday and Thursday on Mast TV.
Matthew Salzano worked in Fall 2014 as a Public Relations consultant for “Dear Emily.”
