It tells the story of one of the USA’s most successful rugby clubs, the Bay Area Touring Side, through conversation with the players about the life of a rugger and their memories of some of the “first” experiences that made the team so notorious… and much, much more.

The B.A.T.S. were formed in 1967 in San Francisco, by many of the players from the Olympic Club team, and the club ran until 1994 with over 600 playing members, including many who also played for the US Eagles. They were the dominant force on the US competition rugby scene during that period, and introduced US “gridiron” rugby to the world as they toured to play the best club teams in every part of the globe.

The “host” of the film is Thia Markson, whose father was the trainer for the team (as well as the Olympic Club teams and the US national team, the Eagles) while she filled the role of assistant trainer from the age of 13 to 19.  This film has been a bucket list project for Thia for many years, with much of the original shooting taking place in 2011.

This is a short clip from the film as a little taster.

Chris Layhe and CLAi were asked to come on the production team for the film around about five months before it was released – my job was simple, just create the sound design, shoot the footage of Thia on our Arri Alexa, sort out and animate hundreds of photographs and newspaper clippings, manipulate 8mm film and SD video footage into decent images, work out and partially script a new film flow, edit it all together and then color grade the film and mix the audio to create multiple final masters.

That wasn’t exactly the original brief, but let’s just say it’s lucky that I loved playing rugby in my day and understand the significance of what these great men did for the US sport.

For more details about the producers and the production, plus the B.A.T.S., of course, go to organizedmayhemmovie.com