'Ping Pong Summer' Starts Filming in Ocean City Hollywood has hit the beach in Ocean City. Filming has started for the movie Ping Pong Summer.
Stars like Susan Sarandon, Lea Thompson, John
Hannah and more are in town for the film. Local actors were cast,
including an Ocean City girl, Emmi Shockley.
The actors were ecstatic to be in Ocean City,
some for the first time, all said it was a welcoming place with a
unique sense of charm.
"It's crazy, there's so much character, so
many funny places," said Thompson. "I love our hotel, I love the beach,
I've been swimming and saw the dolphins this morning. It just seems like
a really fun place with a small sense of community."
Alongside the big names on screen is local
star Emmi Shockley, who is a 10th grader at Worcester Preparatory School
in Berlin. She grew up in Ocean City and landed a lead child role.
"I am extremely proud that they would choose
to film it here, and they are casting it in such a great light that it's
awesome," she said. "And we'll be filming somewhere that I am used to,
so it's so great."
The movie features iconic sites and
businesses in the town: Trimper's Rides, Thrasher's, the boardwalk, and
the Paul Revere Smorgasbord, to name a few.
Director and writer Michael Tully is a Maryland native. He said the movie's plot will in fact be based in Ocean City.
"It will not just be another bland story that
feels personal and universal but doesn't really have a unique pulse and
Ocean City is embedded in that," he said. The movie hits home for him,
because he went to Ocean City many of his summers as a child.
Filming will continue until the end of October. The movie is set to come out next year.
Ping Pong Summer, a 1980s-set family beach comedy, begins principal photography on September 17 in Ocean City, Maryland. Academy Award Winner Susan Sarandon stars alongside BAFTA-nominated John Hannah (The Mummy, Four Weddings and a Funeral), screen veteran Lea Thompson (Back to the Future 1, 2 & 3, Caroline In The City), actress and author Amy Sedaris (Strangers with Candy) and Robert Longstreet (Take Shelter, Pineapple Express, Ain't Them Bodies Saints). Filming is scheduled to wrap the final week of October.
The 1980s-set film follows a hip-hop and ping pong obsessed 13-year old from the Maryland suburbs on his long-awaited family beach vacation to Ocean City, where he encounters both a new best friend and a new worst enemy.Ping Pong Summer is the third narrative feature film helmed by writer/director Michael Tully, who previously wrote and directed the Sundance Film Festival selection Septien (IFC/Sundance Selects), directed documentary and SxSW pick Silver Jew (Drag City), and directed the narrative feature Cocaine Angel (IndiePix), which was also a selection of the Rotterdam and SxSW Film Festivals.
Additionally, the cast will be rounded out by six teenagers discovered during open casting calls that took place throughout the state of Maryland during the spring and summer of 2012.
With the news of the
filming dates for Comedy World Cupconfirmed, it means that David
Tennant must be attending the Lords Of Time convention on Sunday 9th September
as he is recording two episodes of Comedy World Cup on Saturday 8th. Source: David Tennant on Twitter
The
organisers of the Lords Of Time Convention (taking place on Sunday 9th
September) have added a link to order David Tennant's autograph for those
people who can not attend .
An autograph costs £25. Source: David Tennant on Twitter
The Spies of Warsaw trailer
The BBC America trailer for Dramaville, which
includes clips of The Spies Of Warsaw, is now on YouTube
Source: David Tennant on Twitter
Diary dates:
Sun 2 Sep - David Tennant hosts the pilot of Comedy World Cup at RADA Studios
in London. Mon 3 Sep - Episode 14 of Tree Fu Tom (One For All) premières on CBeebies at 5.25pm. Tues 4 Sep - Episode 15 of Tree Fu Tom (Treefle Tom) premières on CBeebies at 5.25pm. Wed 5 Sep - Episode 16 of Tree Fu Tom (The Great Journey) premières on CBeebies at 5.25pm. Thurs 6 Sep
- The David Tennant read On Her Majesty's Secret Service audiobook is released. Thurs 6 Sep
- Episode 17 of Tree Fu Tom (Not So Fast) premières on CBeebies at 5.25pm. Fri 7 Sep - Episode 18 of Tree Fu Tom (Hovering Humblebugs) premières on CBeebies at
5.25pm. Sat 8 Sep - At 1.30pm David records episode one of Comedy World Cup at Teddington Studios
and at 5pm he records episode two. Sunday 9th
Sept - David Tennant will attend the Lords Of Time Fan Convention in
Birmingham. Source: David Tennant On Twitter
INTERVIEW:
Doctor Who's David Tennant Loves Spying and Shakespeare
The BBC
veteran and Olivier Award winner spills all about his new miniseries, Spies of
Warsaw, coming to the States, and why he worships the works of the Bard.
David
Tennant is one of the British stage's most popular actors, having won awards
and acclaim for his performances in such shows as Hamlet and Much Ado About
Nothing. Stateside, he is best known for his portrayal of the title character
on the classic series Doctor Who -- and will reportedly take part in the
series' upcoming 50th anniversary special next year -- and his work as
Bartemous Crouch, Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Currently,
Tennant is focusing on movies and television, and recently filmed BBC America's
two-part period miniseries, Spies of Warsaw, in which he plays Colonel
Jean-Francois Mercier, a somewhat dashing, somewhat vulnerable, somewhat tough
spy. TheaterMania recently spoke to Tennant about the miniseries, his hopes of
doing theater in the U.S., and why he loves Shakespeare.
THEATERMANIA:
How did you like playing this character in Spies of Warsaw?
DAVID
TENNANT: It was great. He's the hero of the piece, but he is very much his own
man. He's very much the military man following the orders of his superiors until
he decides that's not the course of action he's willing to follow and then he
becomes a rebel, so that's an interesting character plot to follow.
TM: He
sounds a little bit like James Bond? Is he?
DT: When the
script first came in, it was pitched to me as the French James Bond, with all
that that entails. And as with Bond, he's a bit of a womanizer. Part of the
reason for that is that he is quite damaged and quite introspective and isn't
willing to share his life with anybody, so he has a succession of brief and
uninvested love affairs.
TM: So you
are going back and forth now between television and theater. Was that always
the career plan?
DT: Yeah,
that's the dream (laughs). It's working out so far.
TM Would you
consider doing any theater in the US?
DT: I'd love
to, yes.
TM: You are
really enamored of Shakespeare's work, aren't you?
DT: I am on
the board of the Royal Shakespeare Company and a huge part of what they do is
education and outreach -- partly just to educate an audience for themselves but
also just to teach that sort of language so kids can appreciate it. I think
Shakespeare is one of those things that you get very excited about when you do
it and when you love it and when you feel like you own that language. Often
it's a difficult thing to teach to kids because it can feel like a slow and a
difficult thing, but it can be really inspiring!
TM: What
Shakespeare play best characterizes life currently?
DT: I don't
think there's just one. I think what's extraordinary about Shakespeare is just
every one of his plays seems to be eternally relevant. Maybe The Taming of the
Shrew or The Merchant of Venice are a bit harder to spin these days, but
certainly something like Hamlet feels like it was written yesterday and,
something like Measure for Measure has extraordinary questions about how we
feel about fidelity and sex. I mean, it's a very modern play.
TM: Which is
easier for you to do, Shakespeare or modern plays?
DT:
Sometimes it's easier to do Shakespeare than more modern stuff because you have
the rhythm of it and because when the language is really good, really juicy,
it's much easier to get behind it and join it up in your head. The hardest
plays to learn are badly written ones, so actually Shakespeare is not as hard
to learn as some scripts.
