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By James Tatter, Staff Writer

“We talkin’ ’bout practice?”

Many people recognize this quote from the viral internet clip of an interview with basketball great Allen Iverson. And yes, we are most definitely talking about practice.

In this case, “Practice” is a film Eric Perini is creating that is based on his experiences playing soccer at Reynolds High School. Perini, now a junior at New York University, played soccer at Reynolds before graduating in 2010. The film focuses on a fictional character named Aaron Watkins, who is a sophomore fighting for a starting spot on his school’s varsity team.
While people won’t recognize the names of the players, Perini hopes they will be able to relate to many of the struggles faced by teenagers in high school. The players in the movie are loosely based on people Perini played with while growing up.

“The general feel of the (film) attempts to capture what it was like growing up in a city like Winston-Salem,” Perini said. “The film is coming right out of Winston-Salem in a way.”

Perini began brainstorming for this project about five months ago and decided to use his soccer experience to tell one teen’s tale.

“The soccer team ended up being the right moment and the right memory that would make sense for this,” Perini said.

He spent the summer writing a script and putting together a crew of 17 others. The crew then set out to fill the cast of 16 actors by the end of September.

The main character of the movie has many obstacles to overcome. This closely parallels what Perini experienced during his sophomore year as he tried to earn a starting varsity spot.

Reynolds soccer coach Adam Gal, who was the Demons coach during Perini’s junior year, described Eric as “very hard working. He was that type of guy who always did his best at every practice and game.”

Also contributing to this film is another Reynolds graduate, Justin Morris. Morris is collaborating with Justin Hrabovsky to write and record a song for the film. Morris, who now attends the University of North Carolina at Asheville, was very involved in music during his time at Reynolds. He was a member of RJR Acafellas and a member of the local band Graham and the Crackers. He has previously worked on soundtracks for two short films, and for one of them he captured an award for best score.

“I really enjoy (working on film soundtracks), as it’s fun to match the emotion of the story and the visuals with sound,” Morris said.

Fundraising has been an important part of Perini’s project so far. He turned to the fundraising website Indiegogo, which collects donations for projects in return for small non-monetary rewards, as he tries to make the $5,000 needed to fund the project. Online fundraising closes Oct. 7.

Perini and his cast and crew are filming over a weekend at the Joe Palumbo Soccer Academy in Putnam Valley, N.Y. They hope to finish the movie by Oct. 14 and plan to release the movie at film festivals starting in mid-December.

Anyone wishing to contribute to the film can visit http://www.indiegogo.com/Practicethefilm

And just for the fun of it, you can view Allen Iverson’s classic interview by clicking on this link! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGDBR2L5kzI&safe=active

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