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.