Leesa Dean: Adventures of a Web Series Newbie

Chapter 46 – Tightrope Dancing
by Leesa Dean

This past week has been intense. Aside from a lot of people who were all HUGE inspirations passing away (RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman, Maggie Estep, Sid Caesar), after finishing shooting and starting editing the footage with the celeb on the TOP SECRET PROJECT, my producing partner got a call from an even bigger celeb whom we had been trying to reach for a while. We had originally made plans about a month or so ago with this guy and they fell through cause a lot came up for him. My producing partner knows him, he happened to call, ask about the project and guess what? He’s in.

Which means, we’re now dealing with his incredibly crammed schedule and squeezing in a shoot in two days. Which also means I had to drop what I was doing (once again, Season Two of the Lele Show gets slightly backburnered *sigh*) and write some custom sides for him (sides for non-tv/film people are script pages). My producing partner loved them. So did the celeb. Only caveat? He doesn’t have time to rehearse. And his plans have been known to change on a dime. On the bright side, he’s doing it for free cause he believes in it (and probably cause he realizes I’m broke!)

So, this is the plan. I’m bringing the sides, both in script form and blown up like cue cards, so he can read/memorize section by section at the shoot. Yes, at the shoot. Welp. Also, my producing partner suggested I bring about ten questions and let the celeb ad lib. He’s REALLY funny and my producing partner feels the celeb and I (in character) can ad lib/improv a scene. And we can splice it together/create something in post.

Did I mention I’ve never done anything like this before? I’m too excited to be scared. Well, at least it’s the opposite of insanity, if insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The shoot’s Sunday. Wish me luck!

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