![A 30-minute preview of The Crossing documentary, last year's costumed re-enactment retracing the steps of the original 1813 explorers, Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth, will be shown at Mt Vic Flicks tonight [Wednesday July 16]. Pictured is Scott Richardson during the filming in Wentworth Falls.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-feed-data/52678d87-3f96-44e9-bd4e-b03958ce82f6.jpg/r0_0_3072_1727_w576_h298_fmax.webp "A 30-minute preview of The Crossing documentary, last year's costumed re-enactment retracing the steps of the original 1813 explorers, Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth, will be shown at Mt Vic Flicks tonight [Wednesday July 16]. Pictured is Scott Richardson during the filming in Wentworth Falls.")
It was an all-weather operation, a labour of love, that spanned about three weeks of filming in May last year and thousands of hours afterwards in the editing suite.
But tomorrow night Faulconbridge cameraman Scott Richardson and his producer wife Jenny will relax as their film - The Crossing, a costumed re-enactment of the 200th anniversary of the European crossing of the Blue Mountains - is finally unveiled.
"I did hope to finish it for the 12-month anniversary but other work got in the way," Mr Richardson, of Vision TV, told the Gazette.
The multi-award winning cameraman is friends with two of the film's stars [John O'Sullivan and Uncle Graeme Cooper] and agreed to shoot the re-enactment of the explorers difficult journey over the Mountains to find food for the Sydney colony, when no-one else was keen on the paltry $6000 budget/film grant.
"That was basically spent by the second day," he said.
He agreed to follow their journey on film because "it was important, it was history and it wasn't going to be covered otherwise".
"I wanted to make sure it was recorded. It's one of those love jobs," he said.
The cameraman and his wife even assisted with catering, feeding the explorer party for dinner on two nights when they were near their Faulconbridge home.
Mr Richardson squeezed in the documentary editing between paid TV work. He is often overseas on assignments and recently returned from filming reality show, The Amazing Race, a production so secretive he can't even reveal which continent he was filming in.
"That was a worry ... I didn't really know where he was when the Malaysian plane [Malaysian Airlines Flight 370] went down," wife Jenny, and mother to his four boys, said.
She spent a nervous day taking calls from her mother and mother-in-law until she finally received a call that he had got off a different plane and was safe.
The screening of The Crossing at Mt Vic Flicks tonight will be a sneak peek - about half of the final film. It starts at 6.50pm (after the Biznet general meeting).
At the film's preview tonight, audience members will have a chance to meet with some of the people involved in the re-enactment.
To RSVP for tonight's event contact Heather Shepherd on 4782 5307.
