Q&A with NYFA Producing Alum Lydia Muir, creator of the web-series The Roommate Contract

NYFA Alum Lydia Muir is an international New-York based writer, producer and showrunner. During her classes in the One Year Conservatory Program in Producing, Lydia had to produce a web-series episode. What started as a school assignment grew into an actual web-series called "The Roommate Contract", which Lydia wrote and produced 3 episodes of with the support of her classmates. 

Lydia talked to us about her journey to NYFA and her experience producing the web-series.

NYFA Alumni Network: Can you tell us a bit about yourself, where you're from, and what brought you to New York Film Academy?

L.M: Hi! My name is Lydia Muir. I am a half-Taiwanese, half-English producer, currently based in New York city. I completed a business degree in the Netherlands only to realise that I didn’t want to work in an office so I started to explore the creative industries. I discovered film production in London and loved it. Producing was the perfect balance of using my business skills whilst also being in the creative world. After a year of that, I pivoted and moved to Taiwan to learn more about my cultural background. A few years later, the passion to work in film and television was still there so I decided to apply for NYFA as a way to get back on the path of producing. 

NYFA Alumni Network: What projects have you worked on since graduating? Have you won any awards or been showcased in any festivals or competitions?

L.M: I feel very lucky to have worked on a variety of projects since graduation from short films to music videos to creating my own web series. A short film I produced last year with screenwriting alumni Dhwani Shah called ‘Sapling’ was featured in various festivals around the world. It also received the ‘Highly Commended Award’ from Australia’s leading smartphone film fest SF3 as well as ‘Best Narrative Short Film’ from the International Mobile Film Festival in San Diego. My own short film ‘Unboxed’ was also awarded the ‘Award of Excellence’ at the Depth of Field Festival in the Student category. 

NYFA Alumni Network: Tell us more about your web-series The Roommate Contract ? How did it come about?

L.M: The Roommate Contract is a romantic comedy web series based in New York city where it’s impossible to find an apartment and even harder to find love. Our two leading characters, Aiysha and Nathan, find both when Aiysha moves into Nathan's spare room. However, with their no-dating contract, they must find a way to keep their feelings at bay or they will lose both. 

This project started as a class assignment in my producing program. We were tasked with creating the first episode in a web series. Rather than taking a script to adapt, I decided to write one. With the support of my classmates and other students at NYFA, we were able to create episode one and part of episode two. We had such a blast creating it and were so happy with the results that we decided after graduation to continue. We finished episode two and then filmed episode three. All three episodes are now available to watch on YouTube after having our NYC premiere screening at the Angelika theater. 

NYFA Alumni Network: What did you learn at NYFA that you applied directly to this project and others?

The most obvious skills I applied were the fundamentals of producing such as scheduling, getting permits, deal memos etc. Being at NYFA also gave me the necessary contacts to put together a great team to make the web series - from cast to crew. However, I think the most important thing I gained from my time at NYFA was the confidence and belief that I could even make a web series. Before the program, if you would have told me that I would be creating a web series from scratch and premiering it at one of the most well known theatres in the city, I would have thought you were insane. In the program, the support and encouragement I received from my instructors combined with the experience I gained from being in the program, allowed me to see that I had the ability and resources to create anything I wanted to. Trying new things also gave me the chance to explore other paths and opened me up to other strengths I wasn’t aware I had. That’s what I will always be grateful to NYFA for.

About the web-series: 

In New York it’s impossible to find an apartment and even harder to find love. Aiysha and Nathan find both when Aiysha moves into Nathan's spare room but with their no-dating contract, they must find a way to keep their feelings at bay or they will lose both. 

Check out the teasers: