Alumni Spotlight: Eavesdropping Director Nicolas Alayo (‘18)

Since graduating from JPCatholic in 2018, Nicolas Alayo has built a career creating compelling digital content that reaches millions of viewers. As a Commercial Video Director at True Classic for five years, he helped shape the brand's distinctive advertising style through a series of highly successful and widely shared campaigns.

Today, Nicolas is also a writer and the director for Eavesdropping, a scripted romantic comedy micro-series that has grown to more than 700,000 followers and over 250 million views across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Co-created with Kaleigh Howland and Christian Sullivan, the show celebrated the finale of season 2 with a live premiere in downtown Los Angeles last October and is currently on Season 3, releasing episodes twice a week.

We caught up with Nic to hear about his creative journey, the lessons he's learned, and how his time at JPCatholic prepared him for a career as a filmmaker.

Q. Tell us about your journey since graduating from JPCatholic. How did you get your first job?

After graduation, I moved straight to LA and picked up freelance editing work wherever I could find it, whether by reaching out to old classmates or cold-emailing businesses. Eventually, one of my old roommates recommended me for an editing position at a media company, where I worked for about a year. That's where I learned advertising and social content creation, and how to work within a team, organize projects, and manage my role in a large organization.

Right after Covid started, my Creative Director left to join True Classic and brought me on. I started editing and doing creative strategy for them right away. When he left a few months later, I took over their paid media content alongside an agency. Over the next three years, the company scaled to $100M. After watching a few outside vendors try and fail to make commercials, I threw my hat in the ring and started writing, directing, and editing them in-house. By the time I left in 2025, I had led 11 campaigns and helped generate over $450M in sales.

In my last year at True Classic, I realized I hadn't made a single personal project since graduation, so I dusted off my cameras and started carrying them around to practice again. Around that time, one of my videos randomly gained 3M views on Instagram, and the idea for Eavesdropping started to take shape.

Q. What is Eavesdropping about, and what sparked the inspiration for it?

Eavesdropping is a social-first web series with 1–3 minute episodes, created by me, Kaleigh Howland, and Christian Sullivan. It follows two high school classmates who reconnect after 10 years and navigate their renewed friendship as adults.

It's inspired by movies like When Harry Met Sally and Before Sunrise. When I pitched the idea to my co-creators, it was meant to be a way for us to practice scene work together. We challenged ourselves to write two-page scenes that didn't require much production, so we could focus on the acting and directing. As we developed the characters, their history and conflict started to emerge on their own.

Strategically, I knew social media was the most powerful way to reach and build an audience, but I was wary of becoming an influencer. I didn't want to build an audience around my personality; I wanted to build it around my work. As early as 2023, people were already returning to social pages to follow serialized stories, and my marketing background told me we could make something people would comment on and come back for.

It meant meeting people where they were already watching, for free, in their feed. For us, that was a better bet than spending months on a short film that might not break through at festivals.

Q. Since the first episode dropped in 2024, it has become a breakout success. What was the growth trajectory like, and at what point did you realize you had created something that really resonated with people?

We hit 100k followers in the first three months. After our first season finale and a few viral episodes, we realized the show was taking on a life of its own in our comments and DMs.

It's still a surprise every time a total stranger messages us about the impact the show has had on their life and relationships.

At the end of 2025, we hosted a sold-out screening of 250 people for our Season 2 finale. Watching a room full of people whooping and hollering at an episode we made was the moment it felt real. It was incredibly fulfilling to finally meet people we'd only known online.

Q. In what ways have you been able to monetize the show?

We have nearly 1,000 paying members on Patreon, have done two partnerships, and run a very under-loved (by us) merch store. We're also in conversations to license the show to vertical streaming platforms, and we plan to host more ticketed screenings for big season moments, with early access for our community.

Q. Could you share some behind-the-scenes on your creative process? How do you and your team develop each season?

Our process is constantly evolving, which means we're always outlining. Things are always in flux: actor schedules, audience sentiment, partnership opportunities. Any time we plan too far ahead, something changes, so we've learned to stay nimble.

That said, we have a clear sense of where we want the show to go: the broad themes and character arcs. We leave the details open for improvisation, and we keep a big bank of ideas to pull from when we need them.

Once we agree on an episode idea, we start talking it through among ourselves and write down the most compelling points verbatim. We challenge ourselves to understand every perspective on the episode's theme. Once we've exhausted our points, we assign those opinions to the characters, making sure each one has a unique perspective.

Then we refine the script until it's down to two pages. We put a lot of emphasis on the first three seconds, because on social that's all you get before someone keeps scrolling. Everything in the episode has to serve that opening premise.

Q. Looking back to your education at JPCatholic, what classes or experiences were most influential in preparing you for your career as a filmmaker?

The most valuable classes were Directing I and II, taught by Nathan Scoggins. We had to make a short film every week, which taught me to keep moving instead of waiting for perfect. Building that muscle is why Eavesdropping can keep a twice-a-week release schedule when we're in season.

Q. What advice would you give to current JPCatholic students working toward careers in filmmaking, directing, and digital media?

People always ask this question in hopes of finding an answer that they can apply. The truth is that everyone’s path is different. However, stories have structure. And I find that usually the structure goes like this: Someone was putting a lot of effort into creating their own work and sharing it with the world, and eventually they found themselves in the right place at the right time.

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Watch the show:

Instagram: @eavesdropping.show

TikTok: @eavesdropping.show

YouTube: @eavesdropping.theshow

Offical Website: eavesdropping.show