UCSB’s Recreational Sports Dept. recently released the first installment of the “Study Break” video series on gauchosplay.com, hoping to offer some comedic relief to a studious student body.

The short one to three minute clips, filmed and edited by fourth-year film & media studies majors Ryan Turner and Addison Smith, are comedic, athletic-minded skits unique to UCSB. The first clip, released Feb. 9 on YouTube, is an amateur’s guide to tortilla tossing.

The initial installment is part of a four-week trial period during which Turner said he hopes to gain student interest in the clips.

“The point of these videos is to build an audience and show the website gauchosplay.com,” Turner said. “They are videos released weekly on Sunday for students to take a break from studying and reading and just get some enter- tainment.”

The tortilla tossing video has already received over 2,000 hits, the most any RecSports video has received to date.

“We’re trying to embrace the really shitty, old school editing style by using explosions and wipes and flashing text,” Smith said. “Crap that you’d see an 8-year- old use on Microsoft Movie Maker. Basically, they’re intentionally terrible instead of trying to go for extremely professional, because for the last time in our lives we can explore with terrible gimmicky shit before we graduate.”

Rochelle Farnum, a second-year communication major and student marketing manager for RecSports, said the videos are aimed at embodying the essence of a Gaucho.

“We want to empower the student body, because that’s what we’re empow- ered through,” Farnum said. Gauchosplay.com previously attracted a small following of students interested in athleti- cally geared videos, but has largely remained off most students’ radar. Eric Olsson, UCSB alumnus and one of the original gauchosplay.com videogra- phers, said he saw the site as an outlet for limitless creativity.

“Now that it’s more established and fellow filmmaking friends have hopped on board, it has allowed all of our styles to mesh and create what we think are cool videos,” Olsson said. “So, I’d say the tortilla one has marked the birth of a new era in gauchosplay.”

Farnum said the concept of a “study break” applies beyond the gauchosplay videos.

“RecSports is where a biopsych major who spends a lot of time in the lab or studying can escape and play an hour of intra- mural sports,” Farnum said. “We want to provide opportunities for athletes to get involved. Our goal is to balance [academic life with athletics] … so students can have a sense of power.”