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!
I've had a lot of great moments throughout the journey of bringing this film to life, but finishing editing is definitely one of the best highlights so far. Watching the final edit back earlier this week I couldn't be more happy and proud with how it's turned out. We've managed to bring to life a vision that only a few years ago was just in my head, and in a lot of ways we've managed to surpass my wildest expectations. Right from the start I wanted to prioritise the naturalism of the story and performances, and I feel confident that we've really nailed both of those things. But on top of that, thanks to all of my amazing collaborators, we've ended up with a film that looks & sounds great, and is full of laughs.
I'm also very pleased with Play It Safe's final runtime of eighty-five minutes (which is just around where I wanted to get it). The first assembly was somewhere in the range of two and a half hours, and it took an incredible amount of work to slowly sculpt all that material into the film you'll see in theatres/DVD/BD/online. A lot of babies had to die to make this film guys! I had to make some incredibly tough choices and delete some of my favourite moments from the film, but ultimately it was all for the good of the final product!
From here on, we are well and truly on the home stretch. Creatively, the last remaining steps are doing the colour grade and the sound design before we send the film off to festivals around the world. Unfortunately, those things are actually the most expensive parts of the whole process (at least for a film on this scale) so I will be also be spending a lot of time over the next few months trying to promote the film and raise some money. If you have a few spare dollars and would like to help us get through the last few steps please check out this page.
Massive thanks to all of the cast, crew, and supporters who've been with me along this amazing journey. This film wouldn't exist without all of you and your incredible generosity!
