British comedy series about becoming a surrogate for your gay best friends

Fyrian Films bring you their first project - The first British gay web series and winner of Raindance’s Best Web Pilot Competition in 2011. The Vessel features a young, talented British cast: Phillip Whiteman (InkHeart), Lily Brown (The Friday Night Project) and Giovanni Bienne, with guest star appearances from Robin Soans (The Queen) and Louise Jameson (Dr. Who, Eastenders) as well as award winning stand up comedian Shazia Mirza. "I saw the pilot of The Vessel at Raindance late last year and for me it ticked all the boxes: a persuasive story line, commanding performances and created with a cheeky style that has 'Raindance' all over it" - Elliot Grove, Founder of Raindance Film Festival Synopsis: Rory and Mike want to have a baby together. This is where their best friend Kim comes in. Over ten episodes and nine months we follow Kim as she helps this unconventional family bring a new life into the world. But with boyfriends, exes and conservative grandparents on the scene plus some fiery pregnancy hormones – will Kim come to regret her decision? Is she really ready to give up her body, career, love-life, tennis lessons and, of course, the baby…? The series embraces the topical subject matter of same sex parenting and surrogacy and is filmed ‘Peep Show’ style from Kim’s (the surrogate) point of view you get to see all of the action through the surrogate’s eyes never getting to see her face or reactions. We want the audience to be able to identify with what must sound to most of them like a very alien experience. To make this look as natural as possible we decided to film every episode as a single continuous take – a snapshot into the lives of these three complicated characters. To maintain this sense of reality every episode is shot as a single continuous take and the dialogue stays fresh and spontaneous through improvisation. Web series continue to proliferate and challenge the popularity of their television counterparts. This medium provides a platform for independent producers and writers to create their own work free of controlling studios and commissioners - no matter how small the budget or how crazy the idea. Producing the series in this way certainly brought its own challenges but it allowed us the freedom to tell a different story in the way, we think, works best. We invite you to take a look through the eyes of The Vessel. "The Vessel is original and genuinely funny." - Rupert Bryan, CEO Motion Picture House Broadcast Schedule: - Episode 1 will be released at 8pm on Sunday 21st October. - Each episode will be released weekly on Sunday nights at 8pm from the above date with the season finale on 23rd December - just in time for Christmas! Please place links to our website social networking sites: www.thevesselseries.com, https://twitter.com/thevesselseries, http://www.facebook.com/TheVesselSeries For any producer, director or cast interviews and photos please get in touch here: info@thevesselseries.com