Shhhhh! Don’t tell anybody, but there are real-life superheroes in this world, those who bravely defy obstacles and make life more fun and spectacular for the rest of us. Kai Soremekun is one these individuals who is using her special secret powers to produce CHICK, the indie soap that inspires and challenges its audience to tap into their own super power strength. In this interview, this inspiring talent will share with us how CHICK evolved.

We Love Soaps: Before we talk about CHICK, I’d like to go back a bit. Where are you from?
Kai Soremekun: I’m originally from Toronto, Canada. I grew up there, and came to the states to go to the American Musical & Dramatic Academy in New York City.

We Love Soaps: What caused you to move to Los Angeles?
Kai Soremekun: I was focused on acting, and they said to come out to L.A. for pilot season. When I got here I realized that as far as work in television the opportunities were ten times more than they were in New York City. In my second year I booked a series regular role on the Fox network show, MEDICINE BALL [1995]. It was exactly GREY’S ANATOMY, but unfortunately we did not do as well as GREY’S ANATOMY. We aired for nine episodes, but it was a great experience, and the reason I went back to school to study filmmaking. I had worked so hard to realize the dream of being a regular on a TV show. Then when I got it, it was a little disillusioning. I guess I envisioned a lot more freedom, and it was exactly the opposite. Once you are of value to someone on a TV show they want to keep the reins on you.

You can check out the rest of Part One here.  Part Two.  Part Three.

Kai and CHICK were featured in an in-depth article on ustownhall.com.

We introduce to you Kai Soremekun, an established actress living in Hollywood who has decided to chart her own course and create her first ongoing web series, simply entitled CHICK.  CHICK follows the journey of Lisa, played by Ms. Soremekun, a person much like you or anyone you could know: bright, funny, insecure, determined, complex, contradictory, and hopeful.  However, Lisa has one tiny little quirk that sets her apart from the average boy or girl next door:

She wants to become a superhero.

And, fashioning a costume for herself and naming herself Fantastica, she sets out to do just that.

As the series creator herself puts it, CHICK “uses the superhero as a metaphor for exploring human potential.”  Can Lisa be successful in her pursuit?  Will she give up and just go back to her philandering boyfriend?  And what are the underlying root causes of Lisa’s desire to pursue such a seemingly off-kilter goal?

Read the no-holds-barred interview below to gain more insight into both CHICK’s creator, Kai Soremekun, and her character, Lisa.  After which, we’re sure you’ll catch the chickspirit and want to follow Kai’s ongoing project, the innovative new web series, CHICK.

You can check out the rest of the article here.

CHICK was nominated for five awards including Best Indie Soap and Kai took home the award for Best Directing.

We are thrilled to have been included amongst the many other talented nominees.  Congrats to all the nominees and winners.  And a special  thanks to the Indie Soap Awards for putting on a great show.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out Kai’s fun and very original acceptance speech, here it is…

Web TV is an exciting new platform and CHICK is proud to be a part of this burgeoning landscape.

Can you shower us with some CHICK love by helping us recognize many of the amazing people that shared their time and talent to make CHICK possible?

You can show your support by voting every day until January 22nd.

There are many categories CHICK is eligible for but if you only feel like voting in one category please vote for us for BEST NEW WEB SERIES.

If you’re feeling extra generous vote for us in other categories too!

• Best New Web Series: CHICK
• Best Comedy Web Series: CHICK
• Best Directing for a Comedy Web Series: Kai Soremekun
• Best Writing for a Comedy Web Series: Kai Soremekun
• Best Female Actor in a Comedy Web Series: Kai Soremekun
• Best Cinematography in a Web Series: Sandra Valde
• Best Art Direction in a Web Series: Kimberly Huie
• Best Sound Design in a Web Series: Michael Kao
• Best Visual Effects in a Web Series: Justin Herrmann
• Best Original Music in a Web Series: David Raiklen

You can submit one vote per day, per category by going HERE.

We are grateful for your support and look forward to bringing you new episodes of CHICK starting January 5th, 2010!

She was calm and supportive even as I fought moments of fear and uncertainty with the stunts. Below is a short interview I had with her and Josh Bradley our assistant stunt coordinator. Josh kindly demonstrated all the falls for me before I did them myself…it helped so much.

If you want to know more about Jeri and her husband Jack’s gym check out their site.

I’ve also included the only two takes we got of me falling into the dumpster. That’s all we shot before someone complained and we had to stop shooting.

We set up two ladders right next to the dumpster, just off screen, and created a scaffolding between them for me to stand on. Jeri and Josh set up a landing area with cardboard boxes and a pad on top of them right behind the dumpster. So what you see is a bit of an optical illusion. I don’t actually land in the dumpster, I did a suicide jump and landed behind the dumpster. If you don’t get it, you’ll see what I mean when you watch the uncut takes.

Enjoy!  And don’t forget, episode four premieres next Tuesday.

Episode Two was the most challenging episode to put together but also the most fun.

It all began after brainstorming with a writer friend of mine.  I came up with the idea of Fantastica killing herself like the Samurai do when they have been dishonored.  Stabbing herself didn’t seem very exciting visually, so I went with jumping to her death.  Yeah that would be exciting.  One problem…no money.

What I love about low budget filmmaking is it forces you to really get creative about how you’re going to accomplish things.

As I’m pondering how to pull off this fall I come across these photos and thought “Hey!  Maybe I can shoot a still sequence and put it together so it looks like she’s falling down the side of the building.”

BEFORE

So first, I had to figure out how I was going to get shots of Fantastica falling.  I hooked up with a friend of mine, Mark Paskell, who happens to be a magician.  He swore me to secrecy before sharing some magical secrets about how he could make me levitate as we shot the stills.  After talking it through we realized it wouldn’t work.  We’d loose the effect falling would have on my body and clothing.

Take 2.  He called some of his circus friends to see if we could find a trampoline to use.  No luck.

Take 3.  He called his friend Jeri Kalvan to see if she would let me do the fall in the back of her house where she had an all purpose gym she and her husband built.  Jeri is a kickass stunt woman.  More on her in part two of behind the scenes.

Jeri’s gym offered me two choices for my fall; a thirteen foot ledge or a five foot ledge.  Immediately I lean towards thirteen feet.  That isn’t much of a drop.  I can do that no problem.  Well let me tell you I never even got to the thirteen foot ledge.  When I stood on the five foot ledge I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to jump from that!  There’s something about falling and the psyche that don’t mesh well.

Now let me preface this with I’ve never done a stunt fall in my life.  Jeri quickly realized she couldn’t let me just show up and launch myself from her ledge.  I’d probably end up seriously injuring myself.  She had me come in the day before we shot and trained me for a couple of hours.  We also choreographed how my body would fall through the air so we could capture the different positions during the photo shoot.

AFTER (WE FLIPPED THE IMAGE)

Without Jeri I couldn’t have done it.  I was scared to death the entire time.  She gave me a sense of safety but still I had to psyche myself up before every fall.  I literally kept thinking… “This is it I’m going to die.”  Then I’d shake it off…and leap.  The next day I felt like I’d been in a really bad car crash.  My body ached all over.

I wanted to show you some footage of the photo shoot but due to a technical snafu it pains me to say I lost all the video footage.

Instead, I’ve put together some of the original still sequences from the shoot so you can have a better idea of what we did.  I took these photos, created a mask of Fantastica’s body for each still frame and then picked various building shots Sandra (the D.P.) and I shot to place behind Fantastica.  Once I finalized the sequence Justin Herrmann, our amazing visual effects wizard, stepped in and polished it all, making everything match and adding the feel of motion to the sequence.

What I learnt from doing this fall sequence is anything is possible if you put your mind to it.