Ava on Season 3 of Summer Break

Haven't Heard of Summer Break 3? Here's Why You Should be Watching the YouTube Series

Everyone wants their summer to be unforgettable, but when you're about to leave all of your high school friends behind and head out into the real world, there's even more pressure to cram all kinds of adventures into three short months.

Luckily for us, the cast of Summer Break 3 is more than up to that challenge. The YouTube reality series follows a group of high school seniors through their final summer together – and all of the drama that comes with it. And judging by the answers they gave in our Summer Break superlatives game there will be plenty of drama to go around (check it out above).

Despite the promise of hookups, breakups and even a few dust-ups, the show's main focus is on the friendships between cast members. It was those bonds that helped the show's producers pull this group together in the first place.

"One of the other boys who's on the show, Noah, he was brought in for [an] audition, and he put down a list of people he thought would be good on the show, and I was one of them," reveals Ava Sambora (yes, daughter of Richie and Heather Locklear) of the audition process.



Her co-star Yahn had a similar experience: "I got to Santa Monica High School, and a lot of my friends, who are seniors this year, such as Dash [Dobro] and my friend Jacob, are also on the show. He was in my Spanish class and he actually referred me. So I came in, did the whole interview process with the videos and everything and then I got picked."

Dobro was cast the old-fashioned way: By auditioning and interviewing for a role after spotting an ad online, back when the producers were casting season 2 last year.

Even though Summer Break has a lot of similarities to a traditional reality show, the cast promises that everything fans will watch over the next few months is 100 percent real.

"We create the situations ourselves, and I don't feel like it's staged at all," says Dobro. "It brings out all of the emotions from us, and it brings out all of the real situations."

Sambora believes that the quick turnaround from filming to posting (new episodes are added every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday) adds to that feeling of authenticity. "In reality TV, things are lagged. You film something and then it's on TV a couple months later. This is real time, so we do something on a Tuesday, and it's out that week. You're really keeping up, and one of the things I think is interesting is that you film the show, and while you're filming, you're still watching. You can find out things that are happening that you didn't know, and continuously play off of them."

Airing episodes in "real time" also allows fans to interact with the cast on social media as the events of the show are unfolding, which gives Summer Break a level of interactivity that most TV shows lack.

"This kind of thing hasn't really been done before, which is cool," says Yahn. "You can actually check in on the people you've grown attached to by watching and you can see what they're saying, what they're posting, what they're doing day-to-day."

"The fact that it's on the Internet, we can actually interact with the fans," adds Dobro. "If they have questions about anything, they can Tweet at us or Instagram us, and then we have the capability of responding to them, which you can't do on any other show, because it's already filmed. The fans actually have the power to change which direction the show goes in, which I think is phenomenal, and which keeps bringing fans back to watch the show."

But even though the fans hold a great deal of power on Summer Break, the stars have their own plans for how their summers will go. "I hope to just have a memorable summer, and meet these lifelong friends and beautiful girls," admits Dobro.

Yahn has similar goals: "For me, the biggest thing is the adventure and experience aspect. I like to try new things and I think the show's gonna give me a great opportunity to try a lot things that I haven't gotten into or would have been able to do this summer."

Sambora is also interested in adventures, but experiencing her summer to the fullest carries a little more weight for her, as she'll be moving to Manhattan in the fall to start college at New York University. "I want to spend my last couple of months really having the Southern California experience. I grew up here, so I want to do all of those things that I've never gotten to do, like go on trips, but maybe go paintballing and have different adventures too."

At the end of the day, isn't that what we all want from our summer vacations?

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Ava Sambora ‏@avasamboraxxoo

.@summerbreak is over but these friendship are forever thx 2 @att …