FCJ College video produced by Benalla filmmaker goes viral

By Simon Ruppert

Jul 2, 2024

The FCJ College band 1972 (back) Josiah McGuigan, Mabel Tilton and Riley Toms, and (front) Lilly Ramsay, Fredrick Hamill and Michala Joyce in Forever Young. Photo: Christine Knight

FCJ College is known for producing high quality, Hollywood level film clips to accompany its Let’s Find Our Voice Concert.

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And this year’s Forever Young is notching up the views daily.

Produced and directed by Benalla’s Christine Knight, who was also responsible for the college’s popular lip-sync videos, the narrative takes a step back in time.

“It’s a creative retelling, almost like an origin story of the Let’s Find Our Voice Choir, intertwined with a slight narrative, inspired by real life events,” Ms Knight said.

“The film begins in the 1970s at FCJ College, which was fun to recreate, and follows the story of an ambitious young student auditioning for the school band, whose sights are set on winning the local talent show.

Katie Breheny was one of the stars of Forever Young, playing a ballerina as well as choreographing other ballet scenes in the production. Photo: Christine Knight

“Flash forward to the present day, and we are introduced to the Let’s Find Our Voice Choir Program, inviting Benalla residents to join in a choir venture with the students.

“We see a certain familiar young singer, now grown.

“At the choir’s finale concert performance, an unexpected event takes place as we are whisked back in time to see the fate of the school band, and our hero singer at the1972 Talent show.

“How do these two moments in time parallel? You’ll just have to watch the clip.”

FCJ College student Pavneet Kaur performs in Forever Young. Photo by Contributed

Ms Knight said, after meeting the students, she was sitting on the bank of lake Benalla, listening to music in search of the perfect song.

“As soon as I played Forever Young, I knew it was the one.”

Ms Knight said it had been a break of six years since she had produced her last lip-sync for the college, Shake a tail feather.

FCJ College students performing in Forever Young. Photo: Christine Knight

“The lip syncs were quite the spectacle and drew a lot of attention,” she said.

“And I was wondering how I could top them?”

She said as the concert has evolved she has tried to evolve the video clips with it.

A still from the film Forever Young by Christine Knight.

“I wanted to shine a light on its sentimental side, a creative narrative and retelling of the ‘choir program’ like a creative ‘origin story’ music video and I felt this was the way to go,” she said.

“It was just a feeling I had, something I needed to do.”

Ms Knight said seeing the smiles on the kids faces as they watched the clip for the first time made it all worthwhile.