"A Shot at the Big Time" by Janet van Eeden Harrison
A Shot at the Big Time - feature film
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Jimmy’s family has personal crises instead of family holidays but he finds his soul in his music. Until the army sends him his call-up papers. He has to choose between following the rules or following his heart. He decides to sing his own tune. He steals a rifle and goes AWOL. Back home he gives the performance of his life, alternating guitar riffs with rapid rifle fire. Until he hears the sound no musician wants to hear: the cries of a dying woman. It seems the army will take its pound of flesh. Even if it costs him his life.
Petrus is a township boy who whose family is trapped in the poverty of Apartheid. Petrus’s friendship with Jimmy opens his eyes to a potentially better life, one which has music and lyrics. He plays with the band whenever the authorities aren’t looking and dreams of the big time. But a freak accident makes him decide there is only one future possible: he chooses to fight for freedom against white men. Men like his former friend, Jimmy.
Our Story
A Shot at the Big Time is a film inspired by the true story of my brother, Jimmy, who took his own life rather than fight in the Apartheid Border War, a war he didn't believe in.
I've launched a crowd-sourcing campaign on Indiegogo.com to raise production funds for this film after the conventional fund raising platforms didn't work. This film is timeless, about the young men who gave up their lives to fight in a war many of them had no desire to fight. Every white boy in South Africa in the seventies, eighties and early nineties, was conscripted into military service. After three months of brutal basics they were spat out onto the border to kill their so-called enemy.
A Shot at the Big Time traces the life of my brother and one of his friends who just happened to black in Apartheid South Africa. They had no interest in waging war against each other - they just wanted to be rock stars. Then Jimmy received his call up papers. Forced into the brutal regime of the military, with a sargeant who had it in for him, he went AWOL. A fatal accident sealed his fate and blew up any chances Jimmy might have had to have a normal life. He had a mental breakdown after this and was removed from service and placed in a mental home to recover. Just as he was finding his feet again, the army declared him "fit for service", and drafted him straight into armed combat on the Angolan border with the instruction to seek and destroy "the enemy". His broken heart couldn't do this. So instead of fighting, he released the bullets from his rifle, walked straight into the line of enemy fire, strumming his gun as if it was his beloved guitar.
This film has taken me nine years to write. Now I'm ready to put it on the big screen. A number of songs have been written by Jonathan Handley of the Radio Rats who was so moved by reading the script that he recorded songs you can see on this website. Strum My Gun was inspired by the film's ending.
Writer/Producer/Director
Janet van Eeden Harrison - I've written eleven screenplays to date as well as six stage plays, which I've produced (directed two) and taking to the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, with funds from the National Arts Council every time.
I co-wrote an award winning screenplay White Lion which premiered around the world in 2010.
I run an online scriptwriting course on http://www.janetvaneeden.com/OnlineScriptwritin...
I'm producing A Shot at the Big Time, a feature film about my brother who died on the SA border rather than fight what he believed was an unjust war.
You can find out more about me on http://www.janetvaneeden.com/
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