Raechel Harding

Behind The Scenes: Blocks 11 and 12

Hey guys, time to take another walk down memory lane (well overdue as usual I'm afraid). We finished up principle photography back in March 2013, which feels like an eternity ago now. The last two days were incredibly challenging, but they were also incredibly memorable. Here's some BTS pics and some reminiscences.

Play It Safe - Picture Lock

This week we hit a massive milestone: Play It Safe is officially picture locked! After about a year and half of editing (and three and a half years since I first started the project) I now have a final edit sitting on my computer!

Mantra – The Fear: Behind The Scenes (Part 2)

As promised, here's my second post looking behind the scenes on my recent video for Mantra's "The Fear". If you haven't already, check out the first post here which takes a look at the clip's development and first day of shooting.

Mantra - The Fear: Behind The Scenes (Part 1)

A few weeks back we launched the video for Mantra's latest single The Fear (check it out here if you haven't already). Mantra not only acts in Play It Safe, but has also put a lot of work into the film's soundtrack, so it was a real pleasure to be able to continue collaborating with him. A lot of Play It Safe's core creative team (including DP Sherwin Akbarzadeh and editor Raechel Harding) also came on board with this video, so it was very much a family affair which was great.

Act 1 Roughcut Screening

Last week we hit another milestone in post-production as we screened the first half hour of Play It Safe for some our key team members (including cinematographer Sherwin Akbarzadeh, music supervisor & AP Oscar O'Bryan, and my good pal & longtime-collaborator Maia Tarrell). This was the very first time anyone other than Raechel and I had watched such a large chunk of the film which made the event equal parts exciting and nerve wracking. It was all smooth sailing once we got going though, and Rae & I collected a boatload of really valuable feedback. We're already back hard at work tweaking the edit with the aim for all five of us to reconvene to review the entire film within the next month.

Behind The Scenes: Block 08

Apologies (again) for the lack of updates folks. Raechel and I are still busily working away at the edit, and on Thursday night we'll be holding our first review screening of the film's first act with some of the key members of the creative team. More news about that should hopefully be coming later this week. In the meanwhile, let's get back to our retrospective behind the scenes coverage.

Review of First Assembly

I am very happy to announce that after more than two and half years we now not only have a film "in the can", but we have a film that can actually be watched!

Behind The Scenes: Block 07

Back in early February we had what was almost certainly the challenging and intense weekend of shooting of Play It Safe's entire production. The scenes we shot are from the very end of Play It Safe's first act, where (the protagonist) Jamie's band has their final gig. We had a massive amount of coverage to get, there were three different musical acts to film, three dialogue scenes, a buttload of extras to manage, and to make matters worse we were forced to find a new location only two days before the shoot! I can safely say that this weekend was definitely the most stressful one I have ever encountered.

Quick Update: July 2013

Welp, I'm ashamed to say that this update is very much overdue! A massive amount has happened since my last proper post in December last year, and while I often intended to write updates I've unfortunately found myself much too busy. However, the good news is that I've been busy working hard on Play It Safe! So much so that we wrapped up principle photography in early April, AND now we are only a couple of weeks away from having our first assembly!