Leesa Dean: Adventures of a Web Series Newbie

Chapter 44 – The Shoot, Part 2
by Leesa Dean

I’ll cut to the chase: It went well! Really well. I, of course, am talking about the shoot with the celeb for the TOP SECRET PROJECT.

This time around, I was the first the arrive. I made a point of getting there around 15, 20 minutes early in case the celeb arrived before I did, so the guy who owns the studio was still setting up when I got there. It actually gave us a chance to chat, which was kinda cool. The studio is small and the guy who runs it is a shooter/editor on the side. So it was interesting talking shop with him.

My producing partner, his friend who was helping us out as a grip and the A.D. arrived exactly at the same time. And the celeb and his girlfriend showed up about 5 minutes later.

After running the lines during a couple of tech rehearsals, we started shooting. And every take was great/useable. I like to shoot a lot to be on the safe side and to give us room to play while we’re in post, so that’s just what we did. But we were done in about an hour and a quarter. He was such a pro and so into it, everybody was just buzzed.

He left and we broke down the set and spent the rest of the time yaking, talking cameras and backing the footage up to drives, laptops, etc.

It really was a different experience doing this shoot, now that I’m a bit more educated about the technical side of cameras. I can’t wait till I plunge into it fully and start shooting myself. Every day, I’ve been allocating about an hour to go to “film school”, meaning learning all this stuff from tutorials on the web. A lot cheaper than NYU Film School! It’s opening up a whole new world for me and is adding a whole other level of depth to not only directing, but producing. Frankly, in this digital age and the way things are going with tv/streaming, understanding it is necessary.

For people interested, we shot on two Canon EOS 7D’s (the same camera Lena Dunham used to shoot Tiny Furniture) tricked out with Magic Lantern, had full kino lights and used a boom and lav through a Tascam TD40 for sound.

If anybody had suggested I start doing this a few years ago, I wouldn’t have taken it too seriously. Now I now can’t imagine why I didn’t start learning it sooner.

Author: ChilltownTV

I'm primarily a writer. Sold a few series to tv networks and production companies but never had anything get on the air. So I taught myself how to animate and completed 3 digital series, launching two. The first, Chilltown has been named one of "Five Web Series That Should Be on Your Radar" by ABCNews/Univision and a "Show to Watch" by Tubefilter. The second, Lele's Ratchet Advice Show, garnered a fanatic cult following. As a result, I now do Lele's 60 Second Wrap Up, a weekly comedic entertainment report (which I write & perform) that airs on urban radio stations Rhythm 105.9fm and the Just Wake Up Morning Show on WWRNfm. View all posts by ChilltownTV