Thomas Charles Hyland’s two-part documentary This Is Going To Be Big centres on teenagers living with disabilities and neurodiversity as they share their dreams and confront their challenges while preparing for their high school musical.
Their parents and teachers are with them, but the spotlight is on the teens coming of age wanting to show who they are and what they can do.
With unprecedented access to Sunbury and Macedon Ranges Specialist School (SMRSS) at Bullengarook, Victoria, the series was filmed across 2022 and 2023 against the backdrop of classes, lunchbreaks, and the auditions, rehearsals, and performances of the school’s biennial musical production.
A Fremantle Australia and Truce Films production, This Is Going To Be Big was produced by Catherine Bradbury and Josie Mason Campbell for Fremantle Australia and Jim Wright for Truce Films, with Mason Campbell and Wright also operating as executive producers, along with Abigail Hargrave for Abstar Productions.
Fremantle Australia and Truce Films partnered with Bus Stop Films, an inclusive filmmaking organisation, to develop and roll out the Disability Representation and Inclusion plan for This Is Going To Be Big, including ongoing collaboration through the production and launch strategies and a training attachment opportunity for a Bus Stop Films’ Accessible Film Studies Program student in the camera department. This Is Going To Be Big is certified as Inclusively Made.
The project received principal production funding from Screen Australia, in association with the ABC, VIC Screen, Melbourne International Film Festival Premiere Fund, and WAS financed with support from Netflix and Abstar Productions.
It will premiere on Tuesday, April 30 at 8pm on ABC.