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The Indiana Daily Student

arts

IU’s McKrill breaks out on ‘Breaking Bad’

CAROUSELentBreakingBad

AMC’s acclaimed original series “Breaking Bad” ends at 9 p.m. Sunday after more than five years on the air. For IU alumnus Chelsey McKrill, the series finale is old news.

After graduating with a degree in telecommunications from IU in 2012, McKrill has gone on to work on not only the set of “Breaking Bad,” but also “Porter Ridge,” a Discovery Channel reality show set in Spencer, Ind.

A native of Bloomington, McKrill got her first break with television when she was a senior in high school. MTV reality show “Made” came to her high school and featured her in an episode.

McKrill said the show attempted to “make” her into a rock star with Yellowcard frontman Ryan Key as her mentor. She said her time on the show wasn’t without embarrassing moments.

“I’m a really, really bad singer,” McKrill said. “I was basically declared tone deaf on national television.”

McKrill said she befriended her field producer while on the show, who convinced her she had an eye for video production. She enrolled in the telecommunications program at IU the next year.

McKrill said she got a lot out of working collaboratively with other students while she was at IU. She was a member of GameZombie TV, a student group that produced videos and multimedia related to video games.

“I really, really got to be hands on with different equipment and working with people in kind of like a real life studio model,” she said of her experience at
GameZombie.

McKrill said it was professors such as Susan Kelly, Steve Krahnke and Jim Krause who inspired her and the way she directs and
produces.

“They were all about story, how can you tell a story visually,” she said. “I think that whole idea is really what made me passionate about making movies.”

After graduating from IU, McKrill worked a couple of internships before working on “Porter Ridge.” After filming a couple of episodes, production stopped with a plan to pick up again summer 2013.

McKrill was working at Nicks’ English Hut on the side to save money for a car. She got her big break when fellow IU alumnus and “Breaking Bad” star Jonathan Banks visited the restaurant.

“He was signing the famous wall that we have,” she said. “I’m, like, a huge fan of the show, it is, like, my favorite show, has always been my favorite show, and so I freaked out when I saw him and asked to get a photo with him.”

To pay him back for the photo, McKrill said Banks asked her to convince his daughter, Elizabeth Banks, to come to IU. McKrill said she and Elizabeth hit it off right away.

“She said she wanted to study production, which is the same thing I went for,” she said. “We talked on the phone a couple of times and emailed a couple of times, and she’s going to IU now.”

A few months later, McKrill got a call from Jonathan saying he wanted her
résumé.

“I didn’t really expect anything of it,” McKrill said. “And then he called me and was like, ‘So I can’t promise you anything, I don’t know if anything’s gonna come of this.

But I’m friends with the production manager of ‘Breaking Bad.’ I really appreciate everything you did, so I called him and emailed him and hopefully he’ll hit you back.’”

After a month, McKrill said the production manager finally called, only to let her know there were no positions available.

“He stayed on the phone with me for a half hour and just gave me some really good advice, like if I wanted to produce, here are the ways I should go about doing that,” she said.

Another month passed before McKrill said she had a major revelation.

“I was like, ‘I was talking to the production manager of ‘Breaking Bad,’ and I didn’t get a job, what’s wrong with that picture?’” she said. “I emailed him again and was like ‘Look, I’ll do anything to be on set. I’ll be your assistant’s assistant’s assistant.
Basically, I’ll be your bitch. I’ll work for free.’”

Her persistence paid off — two weeks later, she was offered a three-week trial run on the show, which went on to become a full-time job that lasted until the show’s end.

McKrill said coming on board to such an established show was intimidating, but she was grateful for the experience.

“I did get hired in an unusual way, so I didn’t know how the other PAs would feel about me,” she said. “I was pretty green, so I relied on them a lot to learn. Everyone was incredibly nice, from the actors to the people who have been there since the beginning. All just really fun to be around, really good energy.”

After filming on “Breaking Bad” wrapped, McKrill returned to “Porter Ridge” as its talent coordinator. She said the contrast between that show and “Breaking Bad” was drastic.

“That show is completely different from Breaking Bad in so many ways,” she said. “The mode of production, the way the crew works and the director works, the goals of the people to budget, to actors. It’s like a complete 180.”

McKrill has a couple more shoots for “Porter Ridge” next month, but as far as the future goes, she said anything could happen — including working on the newly-announced “Breaking Bad” spinoff, “Better Call Saul.”

“I am going to try to work my way on there,” she said of the spinoff. “It’d definitely be something I would try to do. Right now, everything is up in the air.”

Follow reporter Carolyn Crowcroft on Twitter @carol_crowcroft.

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