A Heartbeat Away: Smells Like Teen Spirit
From Nirvana (and Isabel Lucas) fans to seventy-year-olds, Gale Edwards’ debut feature A Heartbeat Away targets an unusually wide demographic. Miguel Gonzalez reports.
Originally titled Montague Municipal, the script was submitted by a Queensland Investment Corporation equities dealer, Julia Kincade, to an initiative set up by the PFTC and Pictures in Paradise to find new writers.
“New writers come up with fantastic ideas and they’re very open to changes, which I’m not sure more experienced writers are. The downside is that it can sometimes take a long time, because they’re not full-time writers and they’ve got other jobs,” said producer Chris Fitchett.
Two scripts from that scheme were soon made into films, Blurred in 2002 and Under the Radar in 2004, but the process for this one would be much slower. Chris Fitchett was working on the film as script editor with Brown producing, but both got distracted by other projects.
A Heartbeat Away came back to life years later, when Gale Edwards – director of stage musicals such as The Boy from Oz and Sweeney Todd and winner of an Emmy for her TV version of Jesus Christ Superstar – became attached. Brown raised the original $8m budget, but some of that money disappeared with the financial crisis, delaying the shoot and ultimately leaving the film under the $7m mark. It was funded by Screen Australia, Screen Queensland, Cutting Edge, Quickfire Films and distributor Hoyts. Arclight Films is the international sales agent.
Brown became an executive producer, and Fitchett took on the producer role.
HERE WE ARE NOW, ENTERTAIN US
The story is about an aspiring rock guitarist (Sebastian Gregory) who is forced to take over the direction of his father’s (William Zappa) marching band four weeks before a major competition. If they lose, they will not only relive the traumatic defeat they suffered 20 years ago; they will also lose the town’s community hall to a greedy developer.
The film was shot mostly on location northeast of Brisbane Airport, using Panavision’s Genesis camera. It was Edwards’ first time directing a film, and she embraced the possibilities of the medium with open arms.
“Whether the medium is the theatre or film, a good storyteller is a good storyteller. I felt completely at home; I love the process of shooting a film, the possibilities the camera offers, and the degree to which you can control the storytelling. It’s not a permanent wide shot like the theatre; you can control the audiences’ eyes, start on somebody’s finger tip tapping on a glass. That’s very thrilling,” said Edwards. “It was a wonderful learning experience to see how a quarter of a second more or less of a shot actually affected the scene. [Editor Matt Villa and I] continued to finesse the cut, incorporating feedback from audiences and producers.”
According to Edwards, A Heartbeat Away is a story about the power of music to divide and reconcile people.
“It’s very charming and archetypal. I shot my original vision, what I believed the movie should be stylistically, and I think that’s pretty brave, because I set out to create a modern day fairy story, deliberately steering from Australian naturalism. I pushed the design, the colour, and the performances so there is a heightened reality in the style of the movie, but it’s not a caricature and it’s never pushed into the ridiculous. I hope it’s totally moving and amusing.”
Music is so important that it was the only aspect not to be affected by budget cuts.
“We put a lot of money into the music; it was one of the things that we protected. We shaved the shoot from eight to six weeks; everything got reduced except the music,” explained Fitchett.
Music supervisors Mana Music licensed the rights to the songs that define the different generations in the film, Richard Harris’ “MacArthur Park” (1968) and Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” (1991). New York-based Sean O’Boyle was the film’s music director during production, and award-winning Guy Gross wrote a number of original pieces for the film’s score.
“The score needed to be funny, exciting, lyrical, moving and beautiful. Guy achieved that; the best comedy is the one that moves you to tears, and his contribution to that is enormous,” said Edwards.
According to Fitchett, the film is aimed at an audience ranging from 12 to 70, and while the March 17 release “might not be a wide release [as originally announced by Hoyts], but
it will be one that fits the bill.”
A Heartbeat Away will be released on March 17.
Kurt Cobain would be rolling in his grave…while Courtney Love rolls in his money..go figure?
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Looks like they were spot on with their target audience – between 12 and 70 people.
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