What is 'Soap'?

Date: 25/01/12
Author: Peter

Well, things HAVE been busy!

I realise I never properly clarified what ‘Soap’ is for the three people who read this blog (and probably know anyway, because they’re my mum, Alex Boundy, and that weird fangirl (stalker) I met in Edinburgh....)

About a year and a half ago, Adam Hicks, a 29 year old electrician, who’d come to Bournemouth to retrain in Forensic Science, sent me the manuscript of an unfinished novel he was working on. It didn’t have a name, and was a rough early draft, but it was clear that this particular story was funny, sad, honest, and deeply personal. A year later I adapted what he’d done into a screenplay, and from there the two of us met up regularly to discuss and re-write.

The story follows John, a man living off the state, who has reached his late twenties and done next to nothing with his life. Dependent on cannabis, he more or less uses the addiction as an excuse not to sort himself out, until one day it all sort of hits him. He wants a girlfriend, a job, friends, a life. And he’s running out of time, after wasting his youth in a haze of smoke and pot noodles. The film follows John as he attempts to better himself, with mixed results....

The film is certainly semi-autobiographical for both of us. Obviously, as a writer, you discuss what you know within your work, and often the situations a character finds themselves in are similar to those you yourself have encountered. The context changes, and it’s safe to say that I’ve never been a drug addict, but a lot of the themes, characters and emotion behind the film come from reality. And it was obvious from the start that Adam was the only person who could play John.

In late September, we brought a group of people together who I’d worked with previously, and wanted to have involved with the project. Everyone seemed excited about it from the start, and before I knew it we were into production in late October/early November.

Since then, we’ve filmed over about 7 weekends, the last being this one coming. Then we’ll leave the project until May, where we’ll kick off with the last 50 minutes of the film.

So yeah, that’s it, in about 400 words. I’ll try and keep this more up to date, but the majority of photos and updates can be found on the facebook page.

Here’s a short funding trailer to give you an idea of the ‘flavour’ of the film.

If you want to get involved or help us with funding, please do get in touch.

Cheers!

Oh hello again!

Date: 01/04/12
Author: Peter

Well.
It's been a while. 4 Months and 7 days, to be precise. My last entry was candid and odd; an obvious signature of Edinburgh's build up of negative mental effects and extreme-emotional highs and lows. It felt like a smiley face painted onto a corpse.
Don't worry; this entry won't randomly turn into an overly-sentimental look at the ins and outs of a 15 year friendship (with absolutely nothing to do with 'Mechanical Tiger'!), or self indulgently over-analyse a fictional character.

I should probably fill you in on what's gone on since the 26th of August, 2011, then....

It's probably not my place to fill in the others' lives for them, but I'll give a quick (and mostly fictional) breakdown;
Chris Cosentino's comedy career has blossomed, and he's through to the next round of this year's Laughing Horse New Act competition. He's also currently designing MT's Chelsea Flower Show entry for 2012.
Tom Harrison has become a popular R&B singer/songwriter, tossing the writing of various shorts and a feature film to the back-burner. Here's a short video of Tom in action- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shltkq0cBVI
Sam Hutchinson recently invested a small fortune of $68 into a series of erotic-dancing videos and now plies his trade on the streets of Plymouth. He also shot his new web series in late November, which will be online sometime soon!
Matt Lavender disappeared in October following an odd spate of LOL-cat videos (bordering on animal cruelty), appearing on his youtube account. It's rumoured he's living in downtown LA and working on his latest feature script, under the pen name 'BigBoi'.
After furthering his stage-lighting and script-writing careers (respectively), Lloyd Morgan finally succumbed to his secret desire to become a character in an American Civil War/Star Wars mash-up manga novel. His weekly adventures can be read up on here(?)
Sophie Petzal has gone from strength to strength, and is now the world's second strongest woman (after Jodie Marsh). Nah, she's working for the Beeb now, and practising her bicep curls in time for the Olympics.
For legal reasons, I can't divulge any information on writer-director Josh Vince. His name, details, and past, will soon be wiped from existence (as demonstrated in this handy 'how to' video)
And as for me?
I was recognized as the next face of Vogue, and my latest photo-shoot can be seen here....


The boring truth?
Well, I came away from Scotland on the 29th of August with moobs, a genuine career worry, and an alcohol problem. A few weeks later I was somehow lucky enough to begin temping at a well known production company in Soho. After going back to Bournemouth to complete my third year of University, I was very kindly offered a role in a professional production of A Streetcar Named Desire, and was then given representation by Poole based agents, Dramatic Productions. Meanwhile, I tried to get a feature script off the ground with a group of pals on TV Production, and we began shooting what became Soap. Which is what I'll be writing about on here from now on. I was also offered a nice little job with online company streamuniverse.tv, and spent December battling exhaustion and a few other personal demons left behind by the Edinburgh experience.

Now, in 2012, I'm fatter, happier, and sober (for now).

So, Soap....

Agh, I'm all written out. You can read up on 'Soap' on the facebook, or wait 'til next time.

Happy 2012!

Broken Boots, Creepy Clowns and Fecal Incontinence....

Date: 16/08/11
Author: Peter

My poor old boots are broken.

This happened about a week ago, as my strenuous moments of stage violence proved too much for their poor leather souls (see what I did there??), and they ripped themselves apart as I leapt around like a madman.

Today I discovered they were beyond repair.

I went to the Cobblers earlier, and asked the large moustached man behind the counter to repair them-

(In my nicest middle class English accent) ‘Hello fine sir, please can you fix these boots?’

‘No.’

I looked at his stern face and laughed nervously- ‘Really?’ I thought he was messing with the English kid, a favourite past time for so many of the locals here.

‘No.’

‘Seriously??’ I looked over to the man next in queue for some form of comforting smile. He looked away.

‘Cannae be done’. The old Scot’s eyes met mine. They seemed empty, sad. ‘Sometimes you’ve just got to let em go’.

I nodded, and promptly left.

Rather than listening to this sombre message I went over the road to Timpsons. This time the man was more friendly, and smiled as he told me the job wouldn’t be a problem. Until he looked at the rips along the back, and frowned as a piece of rabbit poo fell from the bottom of a boot onto his counter.

‘Well, Can you HEEL them?’ I said with a grin.

‘No. That’d better not be shite on ma counter.’

RIP expensive leather boots. You served me well.

Since this downbeat news, I’ve actually managed to keep my chin up and get some work done. And so, I’ll share with you a few brief snatches of my brilliance* (*incredibly average ramblings)

Here are three lines from ‘Soap’, the feature script I planned to finish last week (oops)....

JESS

(holding back giggles) Nope....

LOUIE

(confused) Winston Churchill....?

John drunkenly slaps the air-

JOHN

Jammy fucker!

What a work of sheer beauty.

I’ve recently managed to catch up and coming Spoken Word artist Harry Baker’s show (a young man who will no doubt be more likely to be performing at ‘Pleasance’ this time next year, with Beardyman as his warm up act), a new adaption of ‘Titus Andronicus’ (which my friend Jake hated, but I really enjoyed. A sex fuelled orgy of violence. YUM), and ‘Sheep Ahoy!’, which is the kids show normally on right before ours. As it was our day off, and he’d made the effort to watch us, I thought I’d stroll down to the Three Sisters to catch Phil’s one man extravaganza. It was brilliant. With an audience of around 60 parents and children, he captivated them entirely, and showed off a variety of skills, from illustration to comedy puppetry. AND, he has this impeccable and rare skill, of which very few can boast: The ability to be a children’s entertainer without being immensely creepy. Here’s an example of three of the more sinister variety-

1. Ronald McDonald

2. The Head 

3. This guy-

I’ll leave you with a very short extract from the short story-thing I’m trying, and failing, to write-

The inevitable knock-knock-knocking she’d told herself not to dread. Echoing up and down her spine. Don’t sweat, don’t burst into tears, don’t shit yourself, you look great. The last thing they’ll want to see is a wet faced little girl with the contents of her bowels running down her legs. Especially if THEY are a her. Obviously, it’d suck if THEY turned out to be a cute guy, but between young women turd-related bitchiness could be the wildfire of next week’s Fresher’s fair. Especially when the girl in question is, what the Year 13 yearbook described as, ‘fit’ (well, ‘2nd most fit girl’. Rosie Sutton got first. Supreme breasts). It’d be like that incident involving the light rouge puddle left on the floor of the assembly hall on the second day of the Easter term in Year 8 all over again. Bugger.

KNOCK-KNOCK (‘anyone in?’ it seemed to say. Obviously.)

She’d never known herself to lose control of important toiletry functions before, and now didn’t seem like the day she’d reach an early state of Parkinson’s based fecal incontinence. She was a mere 18, not 80.

With a scraped on smile and rapid bra-not-on-show clothing check the door swung open.

‘Alright?’

A broad grin, sparkling brown eyes, a Bieber-esq fringe. All in all, he was insanely, annoyingly, cute.

She very nearly shat herself.

So there you go. A bizarre bodily fluid related paragraph from a story you’ll probably never read. I should probably spend less time on that and more time on ‘Soap’ to be perfectly honest….

I’m off to buy some glue and gaffer tape. These boots shall live on I tell you. As God is my witness, I shall wear them again! Yeah.