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Mine and Emily’s thesis film Boyhood is in the finishing stages. In layman’s terms, that means the picture edit is locked, the sound design and coloring are underway, and the musical score will soon be delivered. These elements will all be married together in a matter of weeks and then, a little over a year since we first start developing the idea, we will have a finished film. I liken this project to an old timepiece.

I am a story guy. It is the part of producing that drives me; the part of producing that I have most devoted my studies to; and the part of producing that I am best at. Relationship management is the other side to the producing coin; it’s a two way street that demands not just the ability to effectively communicate, but also the capacity to listen and empathize. Being a jack-of-all-trades helps; playing piano gives me an understanding of music and rhythm and allows for more engaging conversations about tone and emotion with the music score; picking up and reading American Cinematographer in my downtime allows for a greater fluency with cinematographers. This more encompassing understanding of all departments greatly helps, but ultimately, creative producing comes back to story first. Boyhood is a coming-of-age story about a young boy dealing with first grief, through the loss of his childhood fort. It’s inspired by events of my youth, and together Emily and I crafted the story and put in on the page.

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I’ve had many watches, my favorite being a matte silver Diesel 5-bar that my sister bought me some years ago. It’s beautiful; equal parts sleek and solid. The name of the model, 5-bar, is in direct reference to its level of waterproof. One bar is normal atmospheric pressure, or about 14.7 pounds-per-square-inch, so underwater my watch should withstand five times normal pressure, 73.5 PSI, or a depth of approximately fifty meters. I learned that science stuff when I got my diving license in Thailand some years ago. Fortunately, I never dived so deep that I damaged my watch. Similarly, with the films I’ve produced before this one I feel as though I’ve mostly just scratched the surface, but with this project I reached depths like never before. Effectively, Boyhood has allowed me to dismantle an old timepiece down to its most minute cog. That level of thought that myself and Emily put into each and every element of this project, and demanding that same level of detail from each department, has surmounted to both a learning curve and a final product unlike any that I have previously experienced.

My working relationship with Emily has proved one of the best I have yet experienced. Maybe the single best decision we made along the way was one way back at the start of the journey; if we were at any point getting on each others nerves we made a pact to say ‘you’re pissing me off, let’s go for a beer.’ Despite the odd hangover, the greater result is a film we are both hugely proud of, but perhaps more importantly, an invaluable education in both collaboration and compromise.

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