Feature film Sweet Rhythm to premiere in June

Now, at the age of 21, the Peel local has just wrapped up filming his first feature-length musical film full of local talent and filming locations.

Sweet Rhythm is a time machine back to the 1970s which follows central characters Jennifer, Dani and Stephanie as they navigate young adulthood.

With musical numbers spanning across three genres - jazz, rock 'n' roll and disco, the film combines Dylan's love of music, theatre and film.

"I fell in love with movies through my dad - both of my parents love movies," Dylan told the Mail.

"Dad is a big 80s movie fanatic, so films like Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club and The Goonies."

Dylan's childhood skits moved into the realms of stop motion, documentaries and eventually short films, with various projects filling his teen years both in and out of school.

After he graduated high school, Dylan joined Mandurah's community theatre scene - and then in 2021, he debuted his first professional short film Get the Girl.

"I wanted a film in cinema by the time I was 20, so I completed that first dream that I had," Dylan said.

The ambitious endeavour of a full-length feature musical was inspired by a rut he was experiencing at university.

"I was having a tough time at uni. My ideas weren't being seen by my lecturers and classmates," he said.

"When I made Get the Girl they were saying 'it's a romcom set in the 80s, no one's really going to like that'."

Getting a solid reception from those who saw the film, Dylan decided to show the naysayers something even bigger.

"I just said - I'm going to make a musical."

Dylan sat down and wrote a 60-page draft of just the script and dialogue, writing 'song here' where every musical number would appear.

He said the show was inspired by the first line of the song Hotel California by the Eagles, 'on a dark, desert highway'.

The main character works at a diner in the middle of nowhere, an image Dylan had firmly in his head from the beginning.

After the initial draft, Dylan called on his friend and collaborator George Burton, who would eventually co-direct the film.

"I brought them in to work on it with me because they are a music wizard when it comes to production," Dylan said.

"After the first 60 pages, George said 'okay, we need more of the dramatics'."

Dylan said he loved comedy and action while George was more down to earth and apt with formulating character and family drama.

"It's always good to have someone else's input and someone telling me to reign my ideas in a little bit," he said, laughing.

Auditions saw 65 actors reading the script and bringing their own interpretations of each character.

Unique in the film world, Dylan said his approach was being open to building characters around actors and their unique strengths.

The audition process even led to rewrites of characters and additional songs.

"During callbacks I actually rewrote an entire character based on the actress I wanted," he said.

"The dialogue, character mannerisms and songs were based on the actors we chose."

The songwriting process was divided up between Dylan and George, with composer Chloe Lockyer adding music.

Dylan said the size of the project and its ambitious nature deterred a lot of grants and donations, but the belief he and his team had in the film pushed the creation forward.

George was in charge of the jazz songs while Dylan took on disco and rock 'n' roll.

When it came time to film Sweet Rhythm, many familiar Mandurah locations hosted scenes, including Mandurah Performing Arts Centre, Pop's Diner and Peel Manor House.

The setting of the film was an important element to Dylan - a fictional city called La Vista Hills.

He said the city was fictional for a specific purpose.

"I had a diverse range of actors and actresses interested in the film and with the multicultural accents I decided that it would be awesome to set the film in a place where it didn't matter where you were from," he said.

"This gave us a huge challenge in changing all the names of the places and giving our own artistic flare to the world around us. This also requires us to build sets, use CGI to create a fictional city and streets and create a world free of our world..."

George said at the heart of Sweet Rhythm was a sapphic love story, but that the team tried hard to "subvert the expectations of what a normal sapphic love story looks like on screen".

"Sweet Rhythm doesn't follow the route of any overt sexualisation nor does it focus on the traumas of a queer story," they said.

"It simply wishes to exist to represent a happy queer relationship, to show representation in a kind, respectful and enjoyable way."

George said queer stories at the forefront of the media tended to have some sort of traumatic experience behind them, but that Sweet Rhythm's goal was to show a "beautiful and wholesome queer love story that everyone can watch and enjoy".

"Sometimes people want representation that isn't the focus of the story, in which the characters have a sapphic relationship but it's not the be-all-end-all of the plot...

"We aim to do what many films before have failed to do, and that is to show honest, fun, queer representation in film."

Sweet Rhythm will premiere in June, more info can be found at www.facebook.com/SweetRhythm.