I was fortunate enough to be ale to attend the second live-audience filming for Bella Thorne and Zendaya Coleman’s new Disney Channel show “Shake It Up!” yesterday, July 27th, in Los Angeles, CA.
For those of you unfamiliar with how a filming works, I recommend you stop and read the recap of the first filming I went to before you continue reading this post.
We where seated in the audience area a good hour before the actual filming started. During part of this time, they showed us the pilot episode. For those unfamiliar with TV terms, the pilot is a single episode they film before a show is picked up for a full season. Because actors are sometimes re-cast and sets are changed, pilots are rarely if ever shown to the public at large. The first episode broadcast in a season is typically a re-shot and slightly reworked version of the pilot, although the actual plot can vary significantly.
In the pilot we are introduced to best friends CeCe Jones (Bella Thorne) and Rocky Blue (Zendaya Coleman). The show opens with the BFFs panhandling on the Chicago metro using their impressive dance moves. And they do a great job, until a transit cop shows up! After After receiving a ticket made out to “Mrs. Justin Bieber” we join your heroines at home and we meet CeCe’s little brother Flynn Jones (Davis Cleveland). After an eh, interesting, breakfast scene, the three kids are off to school. At school, we meet Deuce (Adam Irigoyen), and he lets us in on all the concert tickets he can hook us up with. He also had an important gift for the girls, a flier with the info to audition for a dance show called “Shake it Up Chicago.” Rocky is reluctant, but CeCe insists that they give it a try – it is their dream to be professional dancers after all. We also met sibling duo Gunther (Kenton Duty) and Tinka (Caroline Sunshine). Think Ryan and Sharpay from High School Musical, except they’re, well, I think they where supposed to be Swedish. Anyway, CeCe and Rocky audition for the show and through no fault of her own CeCe is eliminated. Rocky makes it, but doesn’t want to go without her BFF. CeCe insists that Rocky follow through with her dream and marches her to the studio – with Rocky still in her pajamas. This next segment was very Hannah Montana-esque as CeCe helped Rocky change into her dance clothes during the love show. Fortunately, the host though more of it than I did, because instead of firing Rocky, he asked both girls to stay on the show. And that is how these two best friends ended up on TV.
Now, it’s tough to objectively grade a pilot because it’s primary focus is to introduce the show and characters. It sets up the show and isn’t the best refection of what will actually happen in it. this show is clearly about dancing, there’s a lot of it, and it’s done very well. The humor fell a little flat, especially the breakfast scene I mentioned. the plot was predictable, but that again has to do with the constraints of it being the pilot. Using my normal scale, I think a 3.5/5 would be appropriate.
Now that the pilot was done with, we could begin the actual filming! Episode #102 is titled “I Could’ve Danced All Night” and opens with a pretaped scene where we see CeCe’s dream. “If this wasn’t a dream, then why where you kissing Robert Pattinson before you came out here?”
It turns out CeCe is obsessed with getting the “Spotlight Dance” on the show. And when they announce a special charity event the next day, Rocky wants to enter to help their local senior center. CeCe could care less, until she learns the winner also gets that week’s spotlight dance.
CeCe buys a bunch of energy drinks to help them stay awake for the event, but Rocky refuses to let them drink them. She compares them to steroids and how that temptation will take them to dark places… “then you get kicked off the show, expelled from school, your mom kicks you out, you’re living behind a dumpster, and you can’t plug a cell phone into a rat’s mouth!” Needless to say CeCe is convinced. But her brother, well, he’s find the discarded energy drink and likes it, a lot.
Meanwhile, Deuce stops by with some new outfits designed by his cousin. He offers them to the girls for free… they just gotta wear them of the show for a little free publicity. He explains that they’re fine couture, “my cousin explained to me that that’s a french word that means fancy clothes. I thought it meant lady parts.” LOLz. Rocky doesn’t care for the clothing deal either, but eventually relents. The girls go back inside to find CeCe’s little brother bouncing off the walls. They try to catch him, but he wind up keeping them up all night before the competition.
Fast forward a few hours and it’s time to dance! And the girls can barely keep their eyes open. Somehow they make it until it’s just them and Gunther and Tinka and the host calls a break. At this point Rocky’s older brother Eddie (Max Ehrich) who had been watching CeCe’s little brother arrives on set after realizing that the donation he had pledged was per hour. And the girls had already been dancing for four hours! He decides it’s time to end things and demands that the girls quit immediately, or even better if they can “find a way to quit four hours ago.” Deuce will have none of this and pinches CeCe to wake her up. A short pinch fight ensues and the girls get back up on stage where they ultimately win the competition and $5000 for the senior center! But before CeCe can collect on her spotlight dance, they fall asleep on stage and her brother ends up stealing the show.
This was a good, solid episode. Well written, well paced (although that’s hard to say just from the filming), well acted, and just plain entertaining overall. A definite 4/5 just on my first impression.
My friend J had asked for a brief description of the sets, so I’ve decided to draw a diagram.
I got mad paint skillz. 
The filming photos from last week show a little bit of the Shake it Up Chicago studio and quite a bit of the home set.
Following the conclusion of the filming, the cast signed autographs. They didn’t announce that they would, so a bunch of people just left. But those of us who knew how it usually worked lined the railing and eventually got to talk with the cast. I brought a photo of Bella & Zendaya and another paper for any other cast members I talked to.
Kenton Duty (Gunther) was nice enough to sign that paper for me…
Like my Shake it up sign? I made it the night before so I could get the attention of the audience warm up guy and tell everyone about the site. I printed two copies – Kenton signed one and I gave the other to Bella. She was very excited about my shake it up fansite: DisneyShakeItUp.com! She literally jumped up and down with excitement and proceeded to show it to her cast mates, never mind the fact that I was still talking to her about the site at the time! She came back over of course and I was able to finish my 15 second pitch. And of course, She and Zendaya both signed that photo I brought.
Isn’t that just the coolest thing? These girls are gonna be big. Disney casting rarely, if ever, makes mistakes and a few hours with Bella & Zendaya convinced me that as usual Disney knows what they’re doing. I know I’ve said it before, but I know that Bella’s gonna be the next Miley (and I mean that in a good way)! And I for one feel quite honored to have been there at the beginning.
