There we are, in that picture, doing some seamless introductions. The screening had been a long time coming, with quite a lot of prep work going in before we felt we were ready to showcase the new episodes. The crowd who came to the screening were particularly lucky (that’s right, lucky) because they got to see episode five, which we don’t plan on releasing for a little while yet. So let’s hope no one leaks the spoilers out to the press because there’s twists and turns that would make The Sixth Sense soil itself. Rich and I were really happy with how both episodes screened and we can’t say enough good things about everyone who pieced it altogether, so we didn’t bother. With these episodes we wanted them to almost play out like a feature film, with the stakes at their highest for Rich and Luke, a pumping soundtrack and some cinematic shots that web series often sacrifice for the sake of turnover time. What pleased me was that the feedback on the night seemed to reflect and praise all those things. It was particularly pleasing for me as this is a script I wrote with many nuances and homages in, so seeing the audience pick out some of them was a nice relief.

As well as showing the new episodes, Rich and I also threw in some surprises along the way, most notably starting the screening with a live sketch that we had prepared only days before. It was good to try it out, as our intention in the future is to slowly create a portfolio of sketches that work in a live environment that we can perform at various nights. The sketch we opened the screening with is also going to be performed on the 9th June at The Camden Head (free entry), so if you missed it, write that in your calendar…with blood.

Rich interviewing one of our stars of the new episodes, Dolores Reynals after the screening

We also debuted a new addition to Muzzle The Pig, a sketch show that we hope will act as the perfect foil to All in the Method. Whilst, our web series takes a long time to prepare, film and piece together, the sketch show dynamic we have set out to do should allow us to deliver more content to you guys on a regular basis. Expect to see the opening sketch online sometime in June. Finally, we showcased several other sketches including ‘F.C.A.J’ (which can be seen on our youtube channel), a short film Rich wrote and starred in and a sketch by another comedy group, Hard Comedy.

All-in-all it was a fantastic night and thank you to everyone who came along, we’ve even been asked to come back to the Drayton Arms to do another show.

Our camera assistant on AITM and director of the sketch show, Mike Histon and our sound man, Mark Williams

So what happens now?

Well Episode Four is going to go live very soon, and when I say soon, I’m estimating within 24 hours (today is the 21st May), so look out for it. Actually, you probably won’t have to look out for it as you’ll probably get it slammed into your retinas on every social network Rich and I can blast it onto. After that is up, expect to see releases of our new sketch show, Episode Five and that drama short we shot a few months back. On the filming side of things, Rich and I are planning Episode Six as we speak as well as continuing work on the oft-talked about feature film that I’ve held back just a little bit in order to get things right.

Until then, don’t be a stranger -

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I’m a good sleeper. If I had to rate myself I’d give myself a B+, losing marks for a not-too-regular event where I leap up and shout rapidly, terrified and frightened. The few times I’ve done that, haven’t actually meant much for me, I mean I’m sure it was horrible at the time, but people who have witnessed it have said I instantly fall back to sleep like one of those creepy-ghost-riddled children in those religious spurting, paint-by-number horror films. The real victim, when I scream as if the four horsemen of the apocalypse have just taken it in turns to introduce me to their horses sexually, are those who are around me when the shit hits the fan. From ex-girlfriends (I should point out none of them left me over this), to friends who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, I’ve managed to wake them up with so much fear in them that they’re the ones who spend the rest of the night not sleeping. One particularly unlucky friend, was sleeping in a bunk bed below me, in a log cabin, in the middle of a fucking woods. You can only imagine the visions he was left to lay awake with as the foliage rattled outside and the mutated wolves moved a little closer.

Don’t even try asking it what the time is.

So for that, I give myself a B+. I don’t struggle with sleep, unless I’m on a plane because who knows what could happen? They may need me in the cockpit! I’m also not one of those who gets grumpy if they don’t sleep and I certainly don’t fire off about all the pointless, meandering dreams I have to anyone who I meet in the morning. So for that, I give myself a B+.

So how to improve? How do I desist from occasionally rising up like a Mummy and wailing at the top of my lungs? How do I become the best at sleeping? The answer? It’s impossible, but only because it has become apparent to me over the last few years that I’m being set-up. I’m being set-up by the bloody World because when I sleep, I sleep in fear of what I’m going to wake up to (and no, I’m not getting drunk at a Susan Boyle’s lookalikes convention every night).  Confused? Then let me explain.

These last few years have seen me wake up in the middle of various events, some I’m sure you’ve experienced yourselves, others, I’m not so sure. For build up sake, I’ll start at the lower end of the Richter scale, with a few things that I expect some of you have had to endure or wake up to.

SLEEP PARALYSIS

Oh you motherfucker. For those that aren’t in the ‘know’ and I can’t think why you’d want to continue reading if you aren’t, sleep paralysis is the state of awakening but being unable to physically move. I’ve heard people have doubled up on this and actually had visions before them as they lay there, awake and completely paralyzed, like a statue watching a pigeon approach with its latest offering. Thankfully, I’ve only ever experienced this without the hallucinations, but it still means I’m lying there thinking that I’ve lost the feeling in my whole body. This is more terrifying than being Luis Suarez’s dentist.

THE NOSE BLEED

Now this is a strange one. I think most people here would have suffered a nose bleed in the middle of the night and woken up slightly dazed and had to run downstairs to the bathroom. I on the other hand, managed to suffer a nose bleed and stay asleep all night. This resulted in me waking up like Dexter in his shipping container.

Love the new carpet.

Now obviously whenever someone wakes there’s a level of disorientation while you gather your thoughts and check you haven’t slept with that girl who told you she loved sharing needles. So put yourself in my position here as I casually wake up without looking at the bed sheets. I stand, walk over to the door and go to twist the handle. It’s then I see part of my hand is a little off colour and raise it to my face to see my entire hand looks like the skin has been ripped clean off. That’s because there’s so much dried up blood on my hand that the colour ‘pink’ doesn’t factor on my hand’s palette anymore. I raise my other hand and it’s the same deal, if I wasn’t such a slick sleuth, I may begin to think I’d gone a bit Jekyll and Hyde and in the middle of the night my other ‘self’ had risen to do some dirty work. A real impressive thing here was my face was completely clean, meaning I had perhaps unconsciously used my hands as a shielding device throughout the night. But enough of this, let’s get into the real meat and gravy -

THE WASP

I used to have a friend in secondary school who, upon seeing a wasp in the vicinity, would pick up whatever weapon he could find and proceed to move around like a cross between that bug alien in ‘Men in Black’ and a child dancing at a wedding (you know the kind, they’ll slide all over the place). From afar, it would look a bit similar to a survivor fending off a zombie attack, he would scamper around, yelling, occasionally rubbing his arms to make sure he wasn’t getting stung and flailing around wildly with his weapon hoping to kill it. He had such a problem that even in a classroom, in front of a group of fellow students who had all gotten an A+ in the art of ‘pisstaking’, he’d still go through the motions of zooming in and out of the desks like it was a Formula 1 party.

That’s who I imagined shortly after my brain recovered from waking to find a wasp tucking into a juicy sting on my arm. Not only did I wake directly looking at the event going down, but the wasp also got stuck, a bit like the way Siberians do when they chose to lick a lamppost in minus 30 degree weather. This meant that my panicked attempts to swat the assassin did nothing but wobble it around on my arm, a bit like how a plate turns in a microwave. It just stayed lodged there, like a tortoise on its shell, until I summoned the courage to rescue it, pluck it by it’s small body….and then crush it to death with a book.

What’s that you say? That’s happened to you as well? OK…

WINGS

Picture this. I’m laid asleep in my rather narrow bedroom, the morning sun has just begun to hit my room through a tiny gap in my curtains and I’ve got my window open by the slightest of margins (we’re talking wide enough to pass a thin book through). Then, there’s a noise – a thump followed by the most insatiable panic – led by a cacophony of wing fluttering and scratching. All these noises I’ve heard, but I’ve not yet opened my eyes, I’m just coming round now and….holy-fucking-shit there’s a crow in my room. And it’s mental. Now that wasn’t my initial thought process, my initial thought process, because remember, I’m still coming around from my slumber, was there’s a giant, winged beast going mental on the other side of my curtains here to gouge my eyes out like in The Passion of the Christ. OK, maybe not that much, but I was still very much going with the winged beast thought.  As I went to stand, it discovered the gap in the curtains giving it full access to my room.

I am 100% certain this is what would’ve happened if I didn’t wake up.

Naturally, the reason it was rushing around as if it was being spun on a fan was because it was scared shitless, but that is neither here not there, think about me for once, God. I was jumping around like anything, I didn’t know what was going on. After around twenty seconds of blind panic, it all started to make sense and I slammed open the curtains and windows and it homed in on the sky like a…pigeon. I tell you, if you struggle to get up for your alarm in the mornings, just purchase a fucking bird and have it in a cage with a timer set to release it, that will get you out of bed.

WOMAN

OK. Most of us, men and women, would’ve woken up alongside a woman in our time. Sometimes, you’re waking up beside a woman because you’re a lucky so and so. And other times you’ll be alongside a woman because it’s a sleepover and you’ve laid awake with a boner all night. Now if you’re trying to get ahead of me here, as I’m sure you’re cause you strike me as one of those who tries to guess the twist of the film before it happens, then let me stop you. I’m not about to tell a story about how I got drunk and woke up with a random female in my bed. God no. I’m going to tell a story about how I went to sleep perfectly sober and woke up with a random female in my bed.

Some of you may have responded with things like, ‘Awesome’ and ‘Why can’t that happen to me?’ and these are all fair comments, but really think about this…

You’re on a ‘lads holiday’. You’ve gone to sleep, the doors are locked and you’re on the 13th floor of a hotel in Spain. You’re in a single bed and I stress this because really try to imagine the space in the bed for this woman to have the audacity to do this. In the middle of the night you’re woken up by your roommate coming home and falling on the bed next to you, you check he’s OK for five minutes before returning to the land of nod. You wake. You wake with the sun beaming down on you, it’s hot, and you’re really feeling it. Then a voice that sounds a little different from your usual interior monologue confirms it’s hot, ‘It’s so hot’ the voice says. You start to come around, you realise that voice wasn’t your voice, it was a female voice, it was the voice of the woman whose arm is laid across your chest. It is the voice of the woman who is curled up next to you in bed, it is the voice of a woman you have no idea how they exist.

When this went down, I didn’t actually panic in the same sense as I did with the crazy crow, rather I adopted a strange, fast-thinking 20 questions with myself remaining absolutely still, a bit like someone with sleep paralysis would, because I suppose I did feel a little paralysed…with fear.  Naturally I began to think I had gone a little insane. How did I not remember this girl from last night? Who the hell is this? What is going on? How did she get in? Why is she in this bed? Did I miss a day? Am I the guy from Memento? Do I have tattoos all over my body? Is she awake? Does she know what she has done? Has she done anything? Have I done something? Is she a murderer? That’s 13, but I’m sure you get the picture.

Is she horny?

For those twist guessers, no it wasn’t a prank played by my friends, it is instead just really rather creepy.

I did eventually slip out of the bed and examine my surroundings. My room mate was asleep, covered in sand and sick. My other room mate was in the living room, sipping a mug of water, hungover and oblivious to my confusion. It was then that I had my first Sherlock moment. I had seen this woman before. On a couple of nights she had chatted to our group but never actually hung out with us longer than a handful of minutes. So why the hell was she here? Well you see, the only logical reason we could come up with was that she had followed a few of my friends home. When I say followed, I mean she had actually followed them to the 13th floor of our hotel. Seriously. My friend who had arrived in the middle of the night had then opened the door and left it open, leaving her the perfect opportunity to wander in uninvited. He wasn’t with her, because remember I had woken up in the middle of the night and checked on him, meaning she had to be outside…waiting. The ultra creepy bit here (as if it isn’t already), is she then wandered into the room and just thought it would be OK if she got into bed with me.

To this day, even if I explain it in the detail I have above, I don’t think anyone truly appreciates just how terrifying it was to wake up with someone almost completely alien to me, having gone asleep alone. In many families, a young child who’s had nightmares may surprise their parents when they wake to find them at the bottom of the bed, but the parents can always logically work out what has happened. When I woke in that bed in Spain I had not the slightest clue how any of that could have transpired.

After around 30 minutes of laughing about it in the living room with my mates, another of my ‘posse’ walked in, heard what had happened and then proceeded to clap loudly at her telling her, ‘it was time to go’. She left without saying a single word, probably pretty embarrassed and I’m HOPING, really confused, cause if she had an inkling of what she was doing that night then I worry.

So to summarise, the reason I probably jump up in a fright from time to time is because my mind is now waiting, waiting for the next random thing for me to wake to. I’ve already called it. I’m going to wake up with one of those fucking harlem shake things going on in front of me.

Though this one wouldn’t be too bad.

All In The Method Episodes 4 and 5…

…are coming in May. I promise, please stop urinating through my letterbox, there’s only so many times I can pretend it was me sleepwalking. We have rough cuts of both episodes and there’s now some serious fine tuning and music composing going on while Rich and I stand around pointing at things to try and seem important.

Yes our episodes that have a slight Mexican vibe are getting closer to appearing on a  screen near you* alongside a flourishing fleet of other cackling comedy talent. Alliteration masterclass.  The screening will most likely fall in mid-May so clear the entirety of May just to be sure, if that means informing your sister that you can’t come to her wedding and letting Peter know he won’t be getting your kidney then so bloody be it. You will really want to come to the screening because we’ll be releasing the episodes differently with regards to putting them online, so ponder that for a moment. Hopefully we’ll get all the cast and crew down to the screening as well so afterwards, once you’ve had a few bottles of 8% Moonshine you can tell them what you really think of them.

*This is assuming you live in London

The Future of All In The Method…

…has no future. I jest of course. Rich and I are tippy-tapping out episode 6 and I can’t really say anymore than that as it could spoil what may happen in episodes 4 and 5, because Rich could’ve lost an arm or became a zombie.

Pills… 

…is a short film that I wrote and then co-produced with the lovely people over at Initiative Film & Television and is also at the stage of a rough cut. A few weeks ago I sat down with the editor and kept checking the football scores as he plucked out the takes of ‘Pills’ where I don’t look too ridiculous. Pills will be entered into the Virgin Media Shorts that open in a few days time and then a longer cut of ‘Pills’ (because a VM Short has to be 2:20 long max) will be knocking on some festivals doors and asking if it can come in. If it’s rejected then I’ll take some pills myself. A lot of them. Pills is different to usual Muzzle The Pig tipples because it’s not a comedy and has me looking really thuggish because Rich shaved my head over a bin.

Pictured: Menace 

Rich and Luke’s new sketch show… 

…is something else, something new, something more frequent. We want to get more content out to everyone and capture a bit more of the stuff that we have done on stage in the past, and will be doing a lot more of in the future. So over the next few weeks Rich and I will be filming some succinctly written sketches and getting them out there far quicker. Also be sure to look out for maybe some appearances of us in London fringe theatres over the Summer performing the finest in sketch comedy. We may need to plant someone in the audience to clap and laugh to simulate the effect of it being the finest in sketch comedy.

And when I say look out for us, you’re probably going to get bombarded by both of us with invites as we’re desperate to not end up performing in a theatre whose only audience members are a man and his wife who want to invite us back for a sex party.

ANYWAY – the big blog post comes next. The first details on the feature, A.K.A, the thing where I lose the will to live. You don’t want to miss that one, oh boy, oh boy.

All In The Method episode four and five are now in the edit suite and will soon be getting a bit of sound design. While that is enriching itself like a fine wine, we’re already making plans for episode 6 that we’re hoping to film maybe towards the end of April or perhaps in May, we don’t know, we can’t predict the future (though a soothsayer did once say I would lose some of my self-restraint and that became true because I started eating chips again soon after).

But this blog isn’t about All In The Method, nor is it about soothsayers with an eye to get me back on the booze, this is about something much stronger, specifically it’s about ‘Pills’ (not that kind). ‘Pills’  is a short film script that I wrote in November 2012 and now we’re preparing to shoot it this coming weekend. The script is a deviation from the comedy genre with us trying to move you with the power of moving image. We hope you watch it and go,  ’Oooo, that’s dramatic’ and write some poetry about it. The script is also a first for Muzzle The Pig as it’s the first time we have collaborated on a project.

Because it’s late, let’s skip the main course and order up the deserts, with the cast. Joining my greedy acting self in this short will be -

Julian Lamoral-Roberts

Yes, you would’ve thought after filming with us for the latest episodes of All In The Method it may have caused him to relocate his entire life and have face altering surgery so we could never ask him back, but that somehow never happened.

Jennie Lathan

Jennie rounds up this compendious examination of the cast. This will be the first time Jennie has worked with us so we wish her all the luck in the world. She also will be playing one of the more challenging roles I have written for filming!

With the cast settled, let’s grab the bill before the usual ragtag bunch turns up, also known as our crew. Everyone but one member has worked with us before!

Muzzle The Pig/Initiative Film & Television Production -

Director: Adam Spinks

Producer: Rich Keeble, Luke Kaile, Adam Spinks

DOP: Matt ‘The Camera-nator’ Camlin

Sound: Mark Williams

1st AC : Mike Histon

And a special welcome to Holly Sermon who will be joining us as a make-up artist for the first time.

So that’s your fill for now, sorry it’s short, I’ve been a little busy you see with a certain project that I’m sure some of you have heard me banging on about. All will become clear in a few weeks I’d imagine! I also promise some more varied blogs that don’t just hammer on about what we’re filming next. Stay tuned.

Our pre-production was much more extensive, with the script calling for a lot of thought and specific styles, because wanting to shoot a double episode called ‘The Action Hero’ on a limited budget is always going to be a little touch and go. Being on a budget also makes it hard for us to be able to churn out multiple days worth of filming, meaning we only had three days to film a helluva lot of set-ups. While we would love to have more days to avoid the mass panic that was our shoot, it simply was too much of an ask. The worry here obviously, is with us having to sprint to keep up with the schedule, have we missed opportunities to gain better shots or gather more coverage for the trickier scenes? It’s something we’ll have to deal with but ultimately (and this is if we’ve pulled it off), I think people with an idea on the difficulties and complexities of film making will be mightily impressed with what this crew has achieved in such a limited amount of time. For those not in the know, on one day we pretty much filmed double the amount of ‘shots’ that Hollywood filmmakers would average in a day. And that was over the course of a fourteen hour day which, for everyone, is extremely grueling, you only have to think about our cameraman, Matt Camlin supporting a heavy shoulder rig and still having the poise and balance to deliver shot after shot.

It may not be exotic, but we roll with the punches. Pun comedy, I’ve got nothing to loo-se. 

One thing that really stood out on this production was the professionalism of everyone involved. This may seem like an expected thing and an almost cheesy Oscar-style thing to say (‘without these guys, we wouldn’t be here), but it couldn’t be more truer nor as rare. You hear horror stories of actors becoming too big for their boner-inspiring trailers and throwing sulks the size of Findus’ stables. Then there’s crew who gain work on a bigger job that infects them with dizzying levels of snobbery and ‘I-Know-Better’ twitter statements, which’ll make you spend longer wanting to break various porcelain objects on their face, than producing your own stuff. So when I say that I was impressed by everyone on this, I really mean it, what we had on set here was people who actually loved WORKING in the industry and aiding each other in producing something that I hope they’ll all be chuffed-to-bloody-bits-with. And if it comes out shit (it won’t…right?) then I’d hope (and expect) they’d all get back out there and have another try at the next project.

The cast and crew signed that t-shirt for Julian after the shoot. I expect Julian to be making a FORTUNE off that from Ebay in a few years time. 

So we have three days worth of film in the can, three days that saw us drag our actors out into freezing cold – bog ridden fields. Three days that saw us make our sound guy (Mark Williams) stand in various uncomfortable poses (not because of the boom shadow, but just because we were testing his agility) And of course, three days of making our cameraman and his assistants (Matt Camlin, Richard Osborne and Mike Histon) set-up technical shots in about the same amount of time as it’s taken you to snort that line of cocaine. There’s now one reader who was doing exactly that who’s going to have a very paranoid next few hours. I suppose the one regret Rich and I may have was not having a bit more coverage for a behind-the-scenes segment, because it’ll be good to see all our eyes roll as we prepared to set up a shot involving a van and a quiet street only for a freak hailstorm to come down.

This is me, in-between takes, searching for my acting career.

With the edit set to begin over the next week, Rich and I are now looking at screening the double-episode in London and it’ll be great to see everyone come along for that. We’d also love to share the screen with other fine work, so if you have a web series or a comedy sketch that you’re putting the final touches to, contact me and we’ll see if we can make something happen.

So what’s next in this, the busiest Muzzle The Pig year to date?

Well, very soon we’ll be releasing a little sketch we filmed back in November. We have a rough edit together and I’m sure that will be up on YouTube before the month of February is done fucking us with its snowdrops and gloomy mornings.

In March, we’ll be going all ‘funny’ but not funny as in laughing funny, more funny as in, ‘Ooo that cow is looking at me all funny’, when we shoot a new short that ISN’T a comedy. The short, that I wrote back in Autumn 2012, will, with any luck, be entered into the Virgin Media Short competition. I’m really proud of the script and we’ll be making cast and crew announcements soon. Once again, thank you to everyone who keeps prodding me with their acting/crew details, I always look through my sheets of contacts and very often it comes down to specific things. With the recent All in the Method, we needed Spanish speakers and with the new short we’re after actors who are sixty and over. So please don’t think I’m giving you some copy and pasted, ‘Thanks, I’ll keep you in mind’ and if you still do, maybe it’s time to kick that cocaine habit.

At one point someone asked to use Rich’s phone and he started raiding the cupboards for it. I guess one man can only take so many screaming female fans before he cuts the phone line.

But, THEN WHAT? I hear you scream in my ear. Well, I’ll be producing a short film in April called, ‘The Song Plays On’. Adam Spinks (the director of these upcoming episodes of AITM) is currently seeking your help in raising the funds to make it on the IndieGoGo page. Click HERE and take a look!

BUT Luke, what happens after that? I hear you seductively whisper against my neck as I yearn for more.  Then we get into hazy territory. We have an idea for episode 6 of All In The Method, I have a half written feature film that I’ll be seeking a budget for and I have a quarter-written play that I seem to be doing my best to dance around (it’s a salsa, if you’re asking) If all goes well, you should be hearing a lot more about them very soon.

Anyway, I’ve waffled on for far too long, and since this has been written at 2AM, I’m sensing this whole post may sound a little gnat-shit (a bat-shit’s replacement) crazy.

Until next time.

We’ll be staying tight lipped on the plot of the upcoming episodes for a bit longer, but needless to say Rich and Luke are pushing their method skills to uncharted and highly dangerous territories that has something to do with tequila. We’ve got three hugely busy days of filming ahead of us and we’ll hopefully get some shots of us on set, pretending to point things out, looking important and laughing as if we’re all one well-oiled-fun-loving machine trying to make you all jealous.

Our crew for these two new episodes will see Adam Spinks directing, who is just putting the final touches on his feature, ‘Survivors’. Muzzle The Pig’s connoisseurs (they exist) will be familiar with our DOP, Matt Camlin, as will they be with our make-up artist Stephanie Sorensen. Mark Williams will be tracking those sound levels, Mike Histon is our 1st camera assistant and Wiley Vreeland will be our AD.

We’ve got a great cast joining us for the next two episodes, check our their faces and some little factoids of information about them.

Rob Wainwright

Rob has previously worked with Muzzle The Pig in our frenzied fringe play, ‘A Criminal Audition’ and as a nervous long distance runner in ‘Charity Runs’. It’s great to have him back.

Jenny Gayner

Jenny has just had the premiere of her newest film, ‘The Addicted’ where she plays the lead, the trailer can be found here - The Addicted Trailer

Gloria Sanders

Gloria is an immense talent and her has one-woman show on at ‘The Clock’ at The Pleasance, Islington on the 22nd and 23rd February.

Julian Lamoral-Roberts

Julian has a wealth of experience and range of acting styles and he recently was nominated for Best Actor as the Maverick Movie Awards 2012.

Dolores Reynals

Dolores is a hugely talented bilingual actress and recently reprised her role as Esmeralda for ‘A Very European Christmas‘, the follow up to ‘A Very European Break Up’.

Tom Bonington

Tom has a CV that spans films, stage, TV and commercials. He has so many projects on the go, it’s hard to keep track. Those who watched episode one and two will be familiar with The Bonington, let’s hope he has more luck in the upcoming episodes.

Being realistic is pretty hard to do in an industry that is obsessed with reminding you to stay positive and ooze confidence. The creative arrogance that can begin to stink from you after you gather your first crew together on location and the director shouts, ‘ACTION’ can whiff you into a false security. There are many out there that believe success should just arrive when they have put a bit of effort in and they have every right to think that, as there are many an actor, director, producer, catering manager who has caught a lucky break and shot to stardom prematurely. But for every one of those, there’s sadly a couple of thousand* of us.

* not accurately researched

This is an exciting time to be a film maker, the host of options, websites, gadgets and opportunities that are laid on for us is insane. Yet, with an ease of access comes an increase of numbers, and so a once specialist skill becomes a more common component. It’s what makes clusters of actors laugh when they see a company cast for a ‘VIRAL’ because how can you be so certain your video will go viral? There’s no magic combination for it, though obviously there’s ways you can make it more likely. Take the comedy video I did for a charity, ‘Embarrassing Sex Accidents’. It’s pretty obvious why that video’s views shot up.  And thus comes Muzzle The Pig’s New Year’s resolution for 2013 and that is to get a better handle on the marketing side of things. Whilst I realise improvement is needed in all areas, I believe those improvements will come far more naturally than the ugly, barren landscape of social networking and marketing.

So how was 2012?

Thanks for opening the floor

The year was quite fruitful for Muzzle The Pig, we began the year by releasing two sketches, Charity Runs and Serial Killer Farmer. From these I learned the hidden difficulties of transferring what you see in your mind onto the screen, as Charity Runs ballooned from a sketch into a short film. We put both of the scripts together with just four team members, which goes to show what is possible if you go after it. Both scripts were written and produced by me, with Chris Chapman directing and editing. Making these films really was helpful as it gave me an insight into film production and trust me, no matter how many books you’ve read or how many people you’ve watched produce, you’ll never know the horrors that lie in wait until you take the gloves of  and dive headfirst round the u-bend to produce something. But that’s another story for another time…

 Serial Killer Farmer

In the early months of 2012 I had also been putting the final touches to my rather mental feature-length play, A Halfway House. The dark comedy initially came about with me having an urge to do something completely different from the simple, farcical structure of A Criminal Audition. Not soon after, I got chatting to a friend whose work was largely associated with addiction, and thus the bizarre idea was born. For those who didn’t get a chance to see it, A Halfway House was one part comedy play, one part sketch show, with the sketches linking into the play’s story. It saw a man at the lowest point of his life advertise for other sufferers to stop by his place to discuss their problems. Naturally, some oddballs turn up and as they chat, their stories transform into sketches, but are these people all they seem? Ooooo, they weren’t, if you were wondering. They were actors, all actors. I’ve spoiled it now. Shit.

We opened in June for a week and kicked/threatened enough people to come along to be audience members so that we not only broke even, but we also made a fair profit. Rich and I even did some promotional work with Rich dressed up in a pig outfit, I made a little video of it which can be seen here - The Pig Hits Camden

Yes, that really did happen. I wore red chinos.

I was blessed with a superb cast and crew (Rich, Megan, James, Hanaa and Eisha) and somehow we managed to get through every night, despite a few problems with the air conditioning unit! The play was a relative success, though I certainly paid for trying to do everything myself, as mentioned already, producing even the tiniest thing can escalate into the grandest problem. Compared to A Criminal Audition, I know A Halfway House was a lot scrappier in story telling and delivery, but as far as the spectacle and comedy went, I’m confident that it at least matched A Criminal Audition and if not bettered in some segments.

The play also saw me re-use the Serial Killer Farmer sketch that we had filmed and it worked just as well on stage. In fact, it is our intention to film some of the best received sketches from A Halfway House, starting with the most popular, Real Chef. With any luck, we’ll have a filmed version of that out before the Summer.

James didn’t tell Rich he would be naked for their last scene on the last night.

June also saw the release of the pilot episode of our method acting web series, All In The Method. The pilot really was a joy to make, with everyone involved being so committed and understanding. You only have to see how many times we mess up Rich’s ‘Billy Elliot’ dialogue in our outtakes reel to realise what we put people through. OUTTAKES

Another production nightmare saw us lose our lead actress one HOUR before we were due to shoot. Knowing that we couldn’t postpone the shoot as everyone was already armed to the fallopian tubes with equipment and on their way down on the trains, Rich and I were faced with a horrible scenario. Luckily, Harriett Jackson, my actress friend from university, swapped her plans around, got down to the shoot and nailed the scene. It was a small blip in what otherwise was probably our smoothest production yet, with Geraldine Brennan probably producing the best laugh for us, with her straight faced cameo as the ‘Bag Lady’ who was having a small ‘toilet’ under a flyover.

Harriett in her element.

Gold

The pilot got a great response and we loved the look of the episode which was all down to Chris Chapman and Matteo Cosorich (our DOP). Rich and I decided to stick with the series and we subsequently made two more episodes, The Acting Guru and The Resting Actor. The other two episodes were great fun to make, with episode 2 seeing method acting legend Pete Shopping put on an insane workshop that, in true All In The Method fashion, dabbled in male nudity. Episode 2 proved that if you shopped around enough you could find locations for cheap, as The Drayton Arms were so kind to us. I found The Drayton Arms not soon after a theatre company had written me a snotty e-mail after I turned down their hire offer stating, ‘Maybe you should look somewhere outside London, as you won’t find anything cheaper”. I can now attest that I did indeed find something cheaper, over a hundred pounds cheaper, thanks. The third episode saw us make a bottle episode that focused on my character wallowing in self-loathing on a sofa. Stephanie, our make-up artist did some great work on my peanut tribe face (never thought I’d say that) and Rich’s allergic peanut reaction face (always knew I’d say that).

Studied both of them at 6th form and Uni

In each episode so far we tried to experiment with comic styles and plot points, with the first episode focusing on us ‘becoming’ a character, the second episode discovering acting techniques and the third episode examining the lifestyle of an actor. After working through each episode and it’s feedback we’ve decided to really focus on us ‘becoming’ an actor, as it appears to be the one we can have the most fun with. We’ve got some great ideas for 2013 with this and we hope to raise the stakes with what we can achieve.  Look out for more details soon.

Somehow in-between all those episodes, I managed to get the gang together to film a sketch that I had written years ago, F.C.A.J. The sketch, a spoof of the stroke advert that has been on our televisions for the last few years, saw us make Rich as orange as humanely possible and have him explain the signs of premature ejaculation. Chris, once again did a stellar job in making the sketch look as ’80s infomercial’ as possible and Jodi Corpe (make-up) can attest to being the first person to ever give Rich Keeble eyebrows. I’m very proud of the sketch and if you haven’t watched it yet, I suggest you do - F.C.A.J 

I picked a still of Rich rather than me on ‘the job’

Before the year was up, Muzzle The Pig hosted it’s first social at The Barrowboy and Banker near London Bridge. The turnout was great, and it was fantastic getting some more people’s names put down on my many lists of people willing to be made up as orange as Rich was in F.C.A.J. Sadly, this was still in the era of me owning a phone that could survive a nuclear blast and I didn’t take many photographs at all, but there’ll be a next time!

We rounded the year off by filming a yet to be released sketch, You Don’t Look Like… The sketch is currently in edit and we hope to have it with you early this year!

So what’s next for Muzzle The Pig?

Well – I look at 2011 as the year we spent finding our feet and I look at 2012 as the year we honed our craft, so in 2013….we’d better fucking deliver.

First up is TWO new episodes of All In The Method. Yes, that’s right, through January and February we will be filming two episodes back-to-back that have a blockbuster story running through it. We’re in pre-production as we speak with the script complete. I’ll be announcing cast, crew and more updates very soon.

Not soon after All In The Method lands in your laps, we are hoping to get the aforementioned Real Chef sketch ready for your desert, this is barring me not being overwhelmed on a few other projects that The Pig are planning, namely a new play and a feature film (yes…worrying). The play is currently in bite size form, so don’t expect to see that until the late Summer, but the feature film is roughly 25% scripted. If I find my balls lying around, Muzzle The Pig may be launching its first crowd-funding campaign sometime this year in an effort to get the feature off the ground. I’m hoping to get as many of you involved in it as possible, as the film’s story lends itself to multiple comedy cameos, so fingers crossed.

So that’s about it – if you’ve made it this far then I’m assuming you’re either slightly deranged or you’re actually passionate about film making like me. Either way, thanks for reading and I’m looking forward to working with as many people this year as possible, sadly sometimes money and time fight against me.

Thank you to all the people who participated in Pig related activities in 2012, you seriously are immense. Spread the word.

After the social we’ve had a quiet moment to reflect on the several projects we’re lining up to do. Once again, thanks to everyone who popped along to the social last month, it was really good to meet up with everyone and I will strive to do my best to get you all involved in some capacity its just a bit difficult as film making is so unpredictable and problematic, especially at this level.

So what’s new in the Muzzle The Pig World? Quite a lot, thanks for asking.

Firstly, our bombastic web series, All In The Method will have a third episode online very soon. The episode is quite the strange one so prepares yourselves for that. It focuses on us as actors in a ‘resting’ form. Here’s a photo of Rich and I relaxing in between takes.

We have an extensive rider.

So look out for that and be prepared to ‘tweet’ it and ‘share it’ and ‘dance’ naked with it in the streets when it arrives.

On to more pressing matters, we are filming our new sketch tentatively titled, ‘You Don’t Look Like’, this Saturday. The sketch is one that I scripted a year ago now and hopefully will begin the new era of Muzzle The Pig. As usual, we’ve had a host of problems and tricky matters to hurdle to get to this point and I’m sure I’ll be documenting them soon, but for now, just know this is bloody hard to do, alright?

Some of the tip-top people involved include -

Emile Clarke – Actor -  @EmileJClarke

Adam Spinks – Director - @Adspads

Ellie Harvie-August – Producer - @makeupbylz

Richard Banks – Actor - @outkastman

Joanne Gale – Actor - @joannegale07

Matt Camlin – DOP - @mattcamlin

Jodi Corpe – Make-Up - @jodicorpe

Yes, the Deakins of the sketch World, Matt Camlin will be working with us again, no idea why. Another returning face is Jodi who done the make-up for Rich’s orange face in F.C.A.J. There’s more talented (well, I’m presuming)  crew members on board but sadly I haven’t met them yet, but I’m sure they’ll be on the ‘money’. So it’s all very exciting and who knows, I may even get to change my script at the last minute to factor in this lovely weather we’re having.

In a final announcement, I’m currently preparing ideas for next year’s play, details are hush-hush right now (mainly as I don’t want to embarrass myself when it all goes wrong) but needless to say it’s going to have you slapping your thigh and rubbing your damp eyes with laughter.

Anyway, I’ll be seeing you on the other side of the sketch filming and I may even put up some photos of us mid-shoot on twitter. How-Lucky-Are-You?

So the propaganda flyers were sent out calling for a meeting where new plans would be laid out to take new territory.  Enough of the war metaphor – so Muzzle The Pig hosted our first social evening. It was a good night and as expected with these things, my phone rattled away in my pocket with people apologizing for not be able to make it at the last minute. I’d be a right hypocrite if I complained about those kind of things though (seriously)!

The social was THIS busy.

Nevertheless, we still managed to get a decent turn out and such was the case that I barely got time to speak to everyone.  Those who I did get to speak to, I laid out Muzzle The Pig’s plans for the future and possible collaborations. The essentials will remain, the odd sketch and web series episode will be released, but it is my hope that they will be released at a much greater speed. So far this year our output sits as 2 sketches, 2 episodes and 1 play, I’m hoping to near enough double that number next year! It may sound ambitious but with more of you willing to be involved the chances are it’s very possible.

The BIG project that I have briefly mentioned to a few of you and lightly been hinting at on twitter is my feature film that I’m currently scripting. I’ve been lucky enough to meet some superb people recently and it’s my hope that down the line (way down the line) we’ll be able to put this feature film idea into pre-production. It’s going to take a lot of work but I think I have an idea that will appeal to the masses, which is quite unusual for me. Let’s not all get too giddy however, as the scripting process has a chance to completely destroy me, wiping me from existence.

Now onto the things that are actually happening -

Stuff that is more happening than what happens, in the Happening.

As mentioned at the social we’ve got some new sketch ideas that we want to get out there. Our first one has gone into pre-production and we’ll likely to be shooting in November. I would love to cast and crew everyone in these things but obviously each sketch has specific characters/looks/requirements and so I apologise if I can’t get you on board as quickly as I’d like. I am really appreciative of everyone who has been prodding me offering their talents and I’m keeping those in mind who make that effort as I’d much rather give a role to someone who wants it rather than someone who is happy to wait for me to come to them! As when I set this up it was the main aim to work with like-minded individuals getting great stuff out there (makes me sound like some kind of utopia-dreaming-hippie who wants to skip around and make daisy chains, it’s because I do, I want that). With all that said, we are currently casting a few roles and we’re deciding on a few people as we speak.

Another side-project that I’ve put into pre-production is a short, short, film (2 pages worth) that I’ve had gestating on my desk for some time. The project is very Un-Muzzle The Pig with no comedy in sight. That’s right, its moody, like combing hair over your eyes and scratching an ex’s name onto your arm. That kind of moody. As you can imagine, the project being quite small doesn’t require too many people but there are some roles needed and I’m sure I’ll be sending out things about them shortly.

Come the New Year we’re be working on episode 4+5 of All In The Method. There’s a good chance that these episodes will require a bigger cast and crew as we’ve got some ambitious ideas. So remember to pester me near December time about that!

Anyway that’s enough rambling from me, I hope you enjoyed our second episode of All In The Method. Thank you to everyone who commented and viewed the episode, I promise our third one is much shorter (about time eh?).

For now, I’ll leave you with a still from the upcoming episode.

A great effort by all involved especially since we put together quite a difficult script. We sadly had to cut down a few moments from it as it was already too long!  Maybe we’ll release some deleted scene/gag reel stuff a bit further down the line, as it would be a shame not to show Pete Shopping’s idea of leaving Georgina behind in a war situation (yeah I hope I’ve confused you).

These episodes really are put together on a budget so we’d much appreciate it if you could get over to youtube, like it, share it, and just generally help us out on getting it to a bigger audience. Needless to say, we’ve already had some lovely feedback on the episode and it’s greatly appreciated.

As far as the future of All in the Method goes, we’ll proud to announce that we’ve already filmed episode 3! I’ll be posting some stills and plot hints from the episode later in the month, and in an ideal scenario we’d love to have that episode out to you sometime in November, but we’ll see what happens. We’re going to start mixing up the style of the episodes now, with our main change being the length! As much as it’s lovely for us to film these ten minute episodes, we’re fully aware that they’re probably not ‘youtube’ friendly. We do have some great ideas coming up though, including an epic 2-parter that will truly show how far Rich and Luke are willing to go in the art of ‘method’ acting and some much shorter, ‘sketch-like’ episodes.

So what else is happening at Muzzle The Pig HQ? Well – with any luck we’ll be preparing to film a new sketch before the end of the year, it’s a sketch that I’ve been eager to get filmed for quite some time, so fingers crossed. Those who came along to our play in the Summer will recognise the sketch when it goes up as I’ve adapted it directly from the stage sketch because of the good response it got.

Finally, I’m glad to announce that Muzzle The Pig will be having our first social on the 19th October! The meet-up is mainly designed to get more people working together on our future projects as we want to increase our output and work with some more like-minded individuals. So if you’re interested in acting, writing, directing or any other crew job, then find me on twitter (@Kailester) or write me an e-mail (luke@muzzlethepig.com) and introduce yourself. I have some big ideas for Muzzle The Pig and I’m going to need all the help I can get.

Until then, don’t be silenced! Keep spreading the Pig propaganda.