During their college years, ISU alumni Chad Calek and Justin Holstein spent weekends in hotel rooms alternating between sleep and scrawling a script loosely based on their lives.

They never dreamed the script, “The Private Public,” would be picked up by the Showtime television network.

“The [Iowa State] Daily was the genesis of the idea,” Calek says. “I used to write columns at the Iowa State Daily. The committee on women was really upset about a certain column … about media as a powerful tool. I made a comment, and people exploded.”

The situation caused Calek to think about the media and how powerful it really is. An idea was formed, and the story began. The result was their film, which follows two students who, while working on a project for their film class, uncover a professor whose past problems with the law have been kept a secret.

“A lot of the story was based on truth,” Holstein says. “We wrote [during] weird hours. We’d rent these hotel rooms, and I’d write some, and then Chad would wake up and write some more.”

The $2 million film, shot in 21 days, was filmed at the University of Nebraska-Omaha campus. The movie was originally scheduled to be filmed at Iowa State, but the crew had to pull the film and move elsewhere due to disagreements with the university.

“I don’t have any hard feelings. Everything happens for a reason,” Kalek says. “For whatever reason, they chose not to be a part of it.”

“There’s so much red tape at universities,” Holstein adds. “Chad was kind of a Howard Stern of ISU. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it.”

After the film was made, they sent an advance copy to a distributor, who in turn passed it around the entertainment world. When their contract with the distributor ran out, Calek and Holstein started looking for another. Before they signed with anyone else, they received the call they had been waiting for. Showtime was interested in airing the program on its Showtime NEXT channel.

“The Private Public” cast includes three former “The Real World” cast members — David Burns from “The Real World: Seattle,” Jason Rush from “The Real World: Boston” and Glen Naessens from “The Real World: Los Angeles.”

“We were at this club [in Chicago], and Dave was there,” Holstein says. “Chad and Dave hit it off. I didn’t really follow the show, so when I got home, I turned on ‘The Real World’ to see who this guy was. I called Chad up and said ‘This guy is perfect.'”

Other cast members include Traci Bingham of Baywatch, Curt Smith of Tears for Fears and Cory Brown of KAZR radio in Des Moines.

“I’m not an actor,” Brown says. “It was cool to watch ourselves on TV. We got a bunch of friends together. It’s hard to watch though. I think I suck.”

Brown had a small part in the movie. He played the main character’s roommate and was only on the set for a few days.

“Basically I sat around, drank beer and talked about lesbians,” Brown says. “I only had, like, seven lines.”