‘SIDES’ IS A SMART WEB SERIES WITH LOCAL ARTISTS ‘CRANKED UP TO 11’
What happens when four struggling actors seek side jobs at a restaurant? That’s the premise of “Sides,” a web series created by six talented artists from the San Diego theater and filmmaking communities. The episodes available so far on the “Sides” YouTube Channel were written by Jordan Jacobo and filmed by Michael Lewis Foster at the Brew Bar in Chula Vista, and they star Jacobo, Eric Casalini, Allison Pearce, Beth Gallagher and Mike Sears.
“Sides” is a collaborative project that sprang from a discussion Casalini and Pearce had at Lestat’s Coffee House.
“Allison wanted to get some screen time,” Casalini recalled. “Michael and I had been working together on previous projects, and Jordan is a mainstay of San Diego storytelling on screen. It started with Mike Sears and I doing some scenes to get content for our respective reels.”
Once Gallagher was on board, “We all started coming up with stories together,” said Casalini.
The “Sides” characters are not unlike the actors who portray them … sort of. “They are versions of the types we usually play,” said Pearce, “the types we usually get cast as.”
For comedy’s sake, “it’s us cranked up to 11,” added Jacobo.
The series’s budget is virtually nil, but you wouldn’t know it. Credit Foster, whose 2018 film “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This” starred Casalini and Gallagher, for the web shows’ crisp look and brisk pacing.
With “Sides” itself being just a side project for all concerned, how long will episodes keep being produced?
“My sense is that we’re going to gauge the response to Season 1 and hopefully start writing Season 2,” said Gallagher, whose character has all the scripts’ straight lines. “As long as we’re all available, I’m happy to keep getting together with these hilarious people and being not quite as funny as them.”