Young Einstein - Production

Production

Serious first became interested in Albert Einstein when he was travelling down the Amazon river and saw a local wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a physicist on it. The image was that of Einstein sticking out his tongue, taken by photographer Arthur Sasse.

On returning from the Amazon, Serious adapted a previous screenplay called The Great Galute which he had written with David Roach. It was a story about an Australian who invents rock and roll. The two developed The Great Galute into Young Einstein.

The film was created on an extremely low budget, so low that Serious sold his car to generate funds, cameras were borrowed, and his Mum cooked for the crew.

Serious managed to get Australian Film Commission support for the movie. By March 1984 an hour of the film had been shot, partly by the AFC and partly by private investment. Serious was then able to pre-sell the film to an American company, Film Accord, for $2 million. This enabled him to raise the film's original budget of $2.2 million. The movie started filming again late in 1985 and went for seven weeks, from 23 September, taking place in Newcastle and Wollombi, near Cessnock in the Hunter Valley, with second unit at various locations throughout Australia. A 91 minute version of the film was entered in the 1986 AFI Awards where composer William Motzing won Best Music.

In 1986 Film Accord sued the production to recover its distribution guarantee and the rushes, claiming the film delivered was not the one it had contracted to but. The dispute was settled out of court.

Serious was unhappy with his first version of the film. Graham Burke from Roadshow saw it and became enthusiastic about its possibilities. Roadshow bought out Film Accord in March 1987, persuaded Warner Bros to take on the film for international distribution outside Australia, and financed re-shooting, re-editing and re-scoring, resulting an hour of new material (including a new ending) and new music score (including the addition of songs by bands such as Mental As Anything). This pushed the budget of the film up to $5 million. Warner Bros contributed A$4 million to the full version of the film, and would go on to spend 8 million on marketing the film in the United States alone.

Serious' key collaborators in the movie were co-writer David Roach, co-producer Warwick Rodd and associate producer Lulu Pinkus. He says it helped they all shared the same vision for the movie which got them through the long production process.

Serious refused to consider making a sequel to the film, as he stated in interviews that he was opposed to them in general.