As the 2010-2011 school year comes to a close, so must all the projects students have been dutifully working on. This includes “Adjusting Focus,” a web series produced by senior Brad Eustathios and directed by sophomore Dan Griffin.

“Adjusting Focus” is a web series about Nick (played by sophomore Tim Hawk), a sophomore at Greshell University, who joins an infamous film club with a deep and dark past. Nick finds himself being used as the poster child for the film club and slowly must adjust to his new college life.

The “Adjusting Focus” crew completed the 6 episodes of the series and says that their goal has been accomplished, and that they are thrilled to be done, even though it’s a bitter sweet moment.

“Yes, we officially wrapped on Wednesday last week,” Eustathios said. “It feels wonderful. It feels good. It’s the extra burden, extra weight lifted off your shoulders even though it was fun while it lasted and we got a lot done, it was still tedious.”

Co-creator Dan Griffin agrees.

“It’s a relief,” Griffin said, “because I feel like this project is something that we really enjoyed doing and we are really happy that we did it but it was bigger than we thought. We’re happy to have it be over and move on to other things, smaller projects. We’re planning on doing less better as our professor [Tim McCarty] says.”

Lead actor Tim Hawk said that he didn’t expect the amount of time “Adjusting Focus” would take, but is thrilled that it turned into a great learning experience.

“When I first jumped on board and was auditioning I thought it would be fun and didn’t take into consideration how big of a part ‘Adjusting Focus’ would play in the upcoming school year,” Hawk said. “I viewed it as a fun project… but once we finished the first two episodes I became more involved in the show other than acting. ‘Adjusting Focus’ eventually took over my sophomore year but I think it was for the best…I know we are all excited to be done and the thought of social lives outside of ‘Adjusting Focus’ sounds great to everyone.”

Most of the cast and crew from “Adjusting Focus” will probably be eagerly jumping on board for new projects.

“They had fun,” Griffin said. “We have people who are more involved in the writing, people who are in charge and people who were there to learn and have fun, and we are hoping to get them more involved. And maybe the people more involved this year can step back and see it from a different point of view.”

Eustathios had the unique privilege and perspective of being both a lead actor and a producer behind the scenes. The experience will help him greatly as he prepares to graduate and make his way into the broadcast communication and journalism world.

“Both have merits,” Eustathios said. “Production and stuff is fun because you get to create and write and make jokes that you think people might laugh at and whatnot. It is fun to see those things come to life in the end.”

Eustathios enjoyed showing a clip of “Adjusting Focus” at the symposium at the end of March, because it gave him an opportunity to see what people thought of the jokes and lines that he helped create.

Griffin agreed.

“We were surprised at the symposium because there was a wide range of adults and kids and the age range was just so large,” Griffin said. “It was just so well received and we were surprised because we thought our ideal target audience was college kids. We are finding that little kids like it and parents like it and it’s not just an age group, it’s a type of person. That’s been pretty interesting.”

Besides the time and effort put into this project, as well as the fun that came out of it, there were some severe challenges that were found among them, which any project will encounter.

“Biggest challenge had to have been timing,” Hawk said. “It’s hard to get everyone together when they are needed for shoots but we were able to figure out schedules where everyone could be there. Personally, it’s too easy to become wrapped up in a project this big…but here we are, almost to the final product and I don’t regret for a second auditioning.”

Sophomore Spencer Stadnik also had dual roles for the show, playing a character named Arnold, as well as composing the theme song for the show and doing a lot of audio technical work.

“As far as coming up with it, recording it, mixing it…it took about a week or two,” Stadnik said of the time he put into the theme song. “I really enjoyed creating the song. That was a lot of fun, great experience, great opportunity for me but I also enjoyed acting in it as well. Like Dan [Griffin] says, we kind of became a family.”

Eustathios agreed that he enjoyed acting just as much as doing behind-the-scenes work.

“I had a lot of fun with the acting,” Eustathios said. “It’s been a while since I’ve acted in much so it was fun to get back to that. It’s fun to do the acting, but it’s so horrible to watch the end result of the acting because there’s just so many lines…I can’t even watch the episodes anymore because I’m like ‘Oh geez, I hated the way I said that line’ and it’s very vain, but it’s just part of the process.”

And the process is really what it was all about. With this experience underneath their belts, the cast of “Adjusting Focus” should feel accomplished and able to take on bigger and better tasks.

“We gained so much knowledge out of this experience when it comes to film making,” Hawk said. “For the first two episodes we had a few kinks to work out, but finally we got to the point where we knew what to do and how to do it and we could get creative with the scenes and enjoy it. Also, our show is a milestone for us to look back at. In the future, when someone asks to see what kind of work I have done, I can flip over to the show and say ‘I directed this episode’ or ‘I wrote the joke you just laughed at.'”

Griffin sees the same group of people (and anyone else who would like to join) continuing in trying to do other projects, especially something with more of a sad and somber tone. Anyone can be funny, Griffin explained, but now it could be time to try something harder. For now, however, the cast and crew of the web series are happy and more than willing to be funny for others.

When asked what Griffin would like to say to those readers who still haven’t seen “Adjusting Focus” he simply stated: “You should watch it. It’s awesome, it’s fun and it’s very clever and witty.”