Watch The Bondi Hipsters’ Nick Boshier Play A Terrifying Ice Addict

Back in late 2012, I saw comedian Sam Simmons at the Town Hall in Newtown and told him that I was going to make a feature film. His reply was as follows: “Oh yeah? As in, you’re going to sit in a cafe and talk about how you’re going to make a feature film? Sounds great. Let me know when you don’t make it, Latte Boy.” 

Sam’s not exactly Anthony Robbins, but this was the best motivational coaching I’d ever had. Until that moment, I’d been meandering through rewrite after rewrite of my 90-minute black comedy Ad Nauseam (originally entitled Sellout C–ts, but later renamed by the marketing department, aka Mum).

The story was about two friends who worked in viral advertising and had lost their grip on morality, dignity and their own sexual health as they plumbed the depths of the branded content industry. Yes, it was semi-autobiographical, apart from the poor sexual health bit (I’m straightedge). I’d spent a full year tweaking the dialogue, rearranging the scenes with the seriousness of Ed Harris in Apollo 13, and ruminating over whether the finished film ought to premiere at Cannes or Venice. I could well have continued to do that forever. 

To be lampooned by a guy who once hollowed out some loaves of bread and put them on his feet while singing “I’ve got my bread shoes on” was the bucket of cold water over the head that I needed. It led to an ecstatic realisation that I had to make the film. I had to make it, or forever be Latte Boy, who sat on a milkcrate and never actually did what he said he would do, and be teased by comedians. 

I was already a member of an electro band. I already worked in advertising. And I already lived on Bourke Street. But to add “filmmaker who hasn’t made a film” to my resume was a hipster proposition my stomach couldn’t handle. I wanted to play my movie for my grandchildren and tell them “Grandad wrote, directed and exported that using Compressor, and no one can ever take that away from him”. In other words: fear was the decisive factor. 100% undiluted, no pulp terror about an unfulfilled life. I’m not saying that I wasn’t excited, passionate and joyous about the film. I was! But it’s easy to be those things without doing anything. Whereas fear – well, fear is primal. It makes you RUN. 

When I contacted Pedestrian to see if they might be interested in a piece about Ad Nauseam to coincide with its local release, they told me that the most engaging angle was not the film itself but that I’d managed to make it at all. “Write about that,” they said and, I have to admit. I’ve found it quite difficult to do that without sounding like a complete tosser.

So, all I can say is this – I was just a guy, standing in front of a script, asking it to strike terror into him. And it worked.

Making a film, or doing anything really, is a massive logistical challenge. It takes your dedication, an enormous group of enthusiastic collaborators and the willingness to spend all your money. Literally, all of it. But none of that is really that hard. I’m not trying to be facetious or sound like Robert Rodriguez. It is fucking hard. But not that hard. What is hard is make a good film. Or a good anything, in fact. But you can’t make an omelette without making a bunch of shitty omelettes first.

I have no idea what kind of omelette Ad Nauseam is but I’m sure Dan Hong would chuck some sriracha and coriander on it and charge $35 dollars for it. So, the fact that it’ll be on iTunes for $7 is a flippin’ bargain.

Turns out he not only made the film but got Simmons to star in it, sans bread shoes.