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As a first-time documentary filmmaker in Australia, you’d struggle to pick a topic more on the money than the one Thomas Hyland settled on for This Is Going To Be Big: a bunch of kids with intellectual disabilities stage a high school musical about John Farnham.
The 74-year-old singer – who is recovering from surgery last year to treat cancer of the mouth – was the subject of John Farnham: Finding the Voice, which broke all records for an Australian music documentary, taking $4.5 million at the local box office (eclipsing the previous record of $1.15 million taken by Mystify: Michael Hutchence during its cinema run) before drawing a national TV audience of 1.37 million when it screened on Seven just over a week ago.
Chelsea is one of the stars of This Is Going To Be Big, a documentary about the making of a high school musical featuring the songs of John Farnham. Credit: MIFF
The ABC’s autism-themed series Love on the Spectrum, meanwhile, has drawn rave reviews, spawned a US version, found a berth globally on Netflix and won an AACTA award and an Emmy.
In other words, the combined subject matter of Hyland’s delightfully uplifting film, which has its world premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival, should find a receptive audience. And yet, he insists, he set out to make neither a film about disability nor one about Farnham.
“This isn’t a story about disability, it was always a teenage story about being in school,” says Hyland. “It only is about disability because it’s part of the lives of the characters in the film, and it only is as much as they want it to be.”
This Is Going To Be Big follows a group of students from the Sunbury and Macedon Ranges Specialist School in Bullengarook, Victoria, as they audition for, rehearse and ultimately stage an original musical, written by a couple of their teachers, called The Time Travelling Trio. In it, three students go back in time and repeatedly encounter Farnham at different stages of his career.
Josh leads the troupe in a rendition of Sadie, The Cleaning Lady.Credit: MIFF
Hyland’s mother and sister both worked as music teachers, and it was after sitting in on a school production around five years ago that he started to imagine a film about a high school production as a way into a non-fiction take on a John Hughes-style 1980s teen drama.
“I was surprised by how funny and endearing it was,” he says. “As I looked around, I thought the only people here are the kids on stage and the parents, and yet I found it so compelling. I just thought this is such a good dramatic framework to tell some coming-of-age stories.”
Hyland met with around 50 schools in search of his star. Coming out of COVID, not all of them were in a position to mount a production. He was also conscious of not picking a wealthy school with an abundance of resources.
The school he chose wasn’t even on his sprawling spreadsheet to begin with. “If I’m being completely honest, it probably scared me to an extent.”
Halle belts out You’re The Voice.Credit: MIFF
Hearing that the school was planning an original show, he says, “was a massive factor”. The Farnham concept hadn’t yet emerged when he hitched his wagon, but once it did, he says, “it became pretty clear to me that something wonderful was being built.”
The real stars of the film, though, are the kids. Hyland focuses on four in particular: Chelsea, who has an acquired brain injury; Elyse, who suffers from chronic anxiety; Josh, who has an intellectual disability and autism; and Halle, who is also on the autism spectrum.
Each is articulate and compelling. “I wanted this to be told from the perspective of students, not the teachers doing the storytelling on top of them,” says Hyland. “Therefore, someone’s ability to communicate their own story becomes a criterion. I mean, listen to Elyse talking about anxiety and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen therapists not as eloquent in defining how wicked it is inside your body.”
Although MIFF marks the film’s debut to a general audience, Hyland has shown it to his cast and their families. After the screening, each of them stood up and said what it had meant to them, both to see the film and to be involved in its making. “I was very moved,” he says. “It was the best part of this whole experience, and it kind of felt like we were on the same side of the fence.”
Elyse, who suffers from severe anxiety, articulates her issues with a clarity many a therapist would struggle to match.Credit: MIFF
On a project like this, he says “duty of care was everything … I was pretty sure it was always going to be a beautiful story, but if the students and families didn’t actively want it, I don’t think I could have done it.”
But in a sense, that’s how it should be with every documentary, he argues. It’s not enough to get someone to sign a release at the beginning of the project and assume you have fulfilled your moral obligation to them. Informed, ongoing consent is critical.
“I think the right thing to be doing is to be kind of troubled, to be thinking about your assumptions,” he says. “It’s really interesting how your dramatic sensibilities or artistic intelligence of how to construct a story rubs up against what’s right.
Thomas Hyland on the set of This Is Going To Be Big, which premieres at MIFF 2023. Credit: Kelly Gardner
“I’m not sure anyone really knows what it means when you say ‘do you want to be filmed’,” he continues. “You just hope the vision in their head is close to what ends up happening. I don’t have some big sweeping statement, other than to say if you’re not wrestling with it, then you’re not aware.”
The full program for the Melbourne International Film Festival is out now. Details: miff.com.au. The Age is a festival media partner.
Age subscribers can get 50% off tickets to the Melbourne International Film Festival*. Discounted tickets are limited. Click here to get your tickets now.
Contact the author at [email protected], follow him on Facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on Twitter @karlkwin, and read more of his work here.
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