Student-run Web series premiere to go ‘Beyond the Bruin’

Wearing leopard slippers, a tiger-patterned cardigan and a vibrant orange afro, Panini Jones laid between two miniature palm trees.

Tears flowed down his face as Jones announced his profound aspiration to be as selfless as the tree in the popular children’s book “The Giving Tree.”

Jones is just one of the many comedically improvised characters set to appear on the new Web series “Beyond the Bruin.” Created by three UCLA students and premiering on YouTube on Monday, the show will combine serious interviews with comedic acts and musical performances.

Each episode will have a sports, comedy and music section, and the premiering video will spotlight improv character Panini Jones and fourth-year music and political science student Yasmeen Al-Mazeedi performing with her band.

UCLA tennis player and third-year political science student Kyle McPhillips will also appear on the first episode for an in-depth interview as she describes her path to UCLA, the political system of dating at tennis camp and her family’s video series, Goldilocks and the Conjoined Bears.

Future installments will feature performances by UCLA student band Loop Garou, UCLA student musical comedy band Hot Chocolate Party and an interview with communication studies professor and former editor at large at the Los Angeles Times, Jim Newton.

“The show gives students an open forum to display their talents and stories,” said Joshua Thomas, a fourth-year political science student and co-founder and host of “Beyond the Bruin.” “We’ve got so many different personalities at UCLA and we are much more than just our athletics and academics.”

Thomas said he was at his fraternity, Zeta Beta Tau, in his second year when his brother started playing “It’s Not Unusual” by Tom Jones and the idea of hosting a talk show struck him.

“I started doing the ‘Carlton dance’ from ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,’ and I noticed people in the room were entertained by it,” Thomas said. “They told me I should be a late-night talk show host, and since I was having fun, I thought, why not?”

Thomas said it was not until after he performed in Spring Sing with his fraternity that he relayed his TV show host idea to his fraternity brother, third-year global studies student Ben Kurzrock.

“I had written the Spring Sing number and had always liked creating characters,” said Kurzrock, creative director of “Beyond the Bruin.” “This was taking it to the next level because the show would feature improvised comedic interviews, which I had not really seen around campus.”

Second-year political science student Dean Rowe said after he joined Zeta Beta Tau, the three friends joined forces to establish “Beyond the Bruin” as an official campus organization.

Thomas said they scouted the UCLA student group Film and Photography Society as well as other fraternities to pitch “Beyond the Bruin” and recruit 30 students for their creative, production and marketing teams.

The organization plans to have more formalized team applications in the future, Thomas said.

Thomas added that the team recruited most of their talent through connections in their fraternity and friends they made through Spring Sing, but they are hoping to have open auditions in the future to recruit more talent.

Kurzrock heads the creative segment of the Web series and, together with the creative team, brainstorms a list of improv characters for use on the show.

Kimia Behpoornia, a UCLA alumna and four-time Spring Sing Company performer, said she chose to play an obsessed cat lady from the list.

“I had a lot of crazy stuff in my closet so I just packed some cat lady clothes and showed up,” she said. “The scene was pretty much improvised, with Josh and I just talking for fifteen minutes.”

Thomas said funding presents the largest challenge to the Web series.

“We are not an actual production company and don’t have an endless amount of resources,” Thomas said. “Getting funding is our number one priority.”

Kurzrock said all three creators have spent $500 on equipment rentals, and are planning to fundraise through a UCLA Spark campaign next quarter. After securing solid funding, the creators said they hope to release their series once a month.

Rowe said UCLA students should watch “Beyond the Bruin” to learn about the person walking next to them on Bruin Walk.

“We all forget that UCLA students are brilliant,” Rowe said. “Our show allows people to watch a three-minute clip about a student who is third in the world at yo-yoing or a UCLA athlete who won the women’s national title in tennis last year.”

Thomas said he thinks “Beyond the Bruin” realizes UCLA’s potential in the amount of students with talents and hidden backstories that go unnoticed, and the show therefore provides a platform for those students to be seen and heard at UCLA and throughout the greater L.A. community.

“We are not afraid to take risks and push the envelope while still having an accurate representation of what’s happening on campus.” Thomas said. “It’s comedy without the raunchy.”