1.6M Instagramer Produces Hilarious Webseries

Squad Issues, a Curb Your Enthusiasm-esque series starring 20 to 30-something Angelenos, is becoming Hollywood insiders’ cult favorite for the pending 2020 Webseries Emmy. I had a sit down with the producer and lead actor, Krystle Lina.

Tell us about your show.

Squad Issues is a comedic webseries about four dysfunctional friends trying to avoid the pitfalls of pursuing success with the odds stacked against them in a town called Hollywood. Our show doesn’t have a traditional script, we set up the scenarios for the scenes but the actors are improvising which made filming a little more exciting.

How have people reacted to your show?

We’ve had a ton of awesome feedback! People love the chemistry between the four roommates. It’s fun to watch the rivalry between two of the roommates Vee and Mason. Dani and myself are constantly finding ourselves in awkward situations that get us into trouble.

Tell us about your guerilla style shooting tactics.

Shooting guerilla style was a little nerve racking, particularly shooting episode two. I don’t want to give away what happened in that episode because you really need to watch it but I will say that I borderline worried we might get arrested. Ha!

Where did you come from and what is your background?

I grew up in Southern California, I’ve worked in Entertainment for close to 15 years. I’m a social media influencer with 1.6 million followers on Instagram and 300k followers on Facebook. I started off as a model, and began exploring different areas of entertainment from Red Carpet TV Hosting, to working with SIRIUS Radio, I studied acting at Lesly Kahn and improv at The Second City in Hollywood and have worked on various comedy shoots with other influencers. At 28, I became a photographer and shot some LA’s hottest models, along with celebrity clients. In 2015 I was discovered on Instagram by the owner of GUESS and invited to test as a photographer and I’ve been freelancing with them since. I’ve always had a passion for acting, and I knew I wanted to pursue something in comedy but I had no idea I would be producing my own show.

Tell us about your actors.

I have so many good things to say about our actors I don’t even know where to begin. I still can’t believe how lucky we were to find them. Steve Royall (our very talented director) said he’s never worked with a cast that had as great of chemistry as our cast. I have never worked with such a down to earth group of people, we literally shot our show with a one-man crew and our cast was quick to help lend a hand when needed. As far as talent, we hit the jackpot with our actors, they exceeded our expectations on how well they came into their characters, even our supporting actors were amazing. I’m very grateful to have worked with all of them.

Tell us about Steve.

I met Steve on set of another project, he and I clicked right away and he invited me to work with him, so I threw out the idea for this show. Steve has over a decade of experience working in Entertainment. He has a strong background in film working both behind the camera as well as in front of it. He also has years of comedy experience which is a bonus because he really helped me put the story together and he was very good working with the actors. What I liked about working with Steve is that he has a very strong character and work ethic which is hard to find in LA.

What were some of the difficulties you had to overcome?

We had one negative situation a cast member. He wasn’t a main character, he was on one episode and he thought he was more valuable than the rest of our cast. He agreed to work on our terms and then came back with something different later after the scene was shot and edited. We decided to reshoot his scene with another actor. It worked out because we rewrote the scene entirely and I ended up liking it better than the original version.

What were some funny surprises?

I ended up doing stand up on one of the episodes, which was really fun. It’s always been a dream of mine to try it, I wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to pull it off shooting guerilla style, but we did. We also discovered during the course of the show Vee’s passion for ice cream, haha! You definitely need to watch.

Do you have a favorite episode?

There are all my favorite but if I had to choose, I would say episodes 4 and 5.

What are you hoping for the future of the show?

If we can raise enough money to film a second season, I would like to make it a SAG Project, hire a few name actors to join the squad, and I would like film it with the proper equipment to be eligible for all major platform submissions. It would also be my dream to submit for the Emmy’s and be nominated for 2020!! We just launched our Kickstarter and are hoping to get funded. Please contribute here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krystlelina/squad-issues-season-2?ref=

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