How I ended up with a web series is beyond me. Well, I know how it happened, but it wasn’t part of my plan. My rockstar plan. You see, it all started when I was 11 years old. I won the Keyboard Academy Organ Solo Championship. That accolade sent my little 11-year-old brain reeling, and from then on, I made it my goal to be a rockstar. I learned how to play every instrument I could think of, moved to Vancouver in the 90s and continued to play in numerous bands, some of which had regular airplay on Muchmusic and sold out live shows.
After taking myself to recording arts school, The Art Institute of Vancouver, I set up a studio and began recording my own music in a house that I had been renting with my girlfriend. 4 ½ years we lasted in that house, until it was sold and we had to move out. It was a great little house and very cheap.
Once it became clear that we were going to have to try and find a place to live, jam and record, we decided to buy ourselves a house. And in Vancouver, that meant EXPENSIVE. We settled on a little 80-year-old house in East Vancouver and moved in December 2009. It was all very exciting, owning a house and having the freewill to do whatever we wanted with it! Though we really wanted a jam space, the first NEED was to renovate the basement suite ‘mortgage helper’.
To lighten the stress and frustration of renovating and owning a house together, we decided to have a blog/vlog and talk about what we have been doing with friends & family. Lez Renovate was born.
We started filming the very first day we arrived. With lots of footage under our belts, I started editing together some renovation tips and posting them on YouTube. I wrote the music for each episode, and it turned out these little funny tutorial videos helped get my music out there. I am so excited that our video with my original theme song is at the top of the results when you Google videos for “pony wall”!
It wasn’t until the infamous Happy Easter Neighbours video came out did we get the attention of Afterellen.com, currently the top entertainment and media website for LGBT women. They asked us to create bi-monthly episodes that would air every second Friday.
We’ve stepped up production and structured the five minute episodes in way that would keep the viewers’ attention: quick edits, funny banter, and references to other popular TV shows. Since I am editing myself, I keep the episodes short so we have time to create two quality episodes a month. Plus, I’ve made it a goal to create music for each episode, increasing my library and skills. The first season we renovated the basement got lots of attention for the July 2010 season finale.
See if you can figure out what renovation show we are parodying!
Now with the basement suite under our tool belts, we decided to build a jam space. But we ran into a snag and now are currently researching how to build a bathroom for free. And in the meantime, I launched Custom Songs, a web-based business where I write songs for any occasion.
Even though I’m coming out as a WebTV star, my first love is music!
Laura Lee Schultz
Composer/Editor/Creator, Lez Renovate
