''The Ocean - Five Years' to have its public premiere on WQED

By Samuel Long / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pittsburgh-based Flying Scooter Productions has found a place for its documentary about the grieving process, “The Ocean - Five Years.”

The film will have its public premiere at 8 p.m. Thursday with a repeat showing at 4 p.m. Friday on WQED-TV Channel 13. 

“The Ocean - Five Years” is directed by Flying Scooter Productions co-owner Jennifer Schlieper and features music by Brett McCutcheon, the subject of the story. The 40-minute movie is followed by an interview with the production crew. 

The film follows Brett McCutcheon and his family’s experience with loss after losing his brother Ryan in a 2017 car accident. Ryan was 19 at the time and Brett, who was a sophomore at North Allegheny High School, wrote music to help himself grieve.

Brett is now a band director at Mt. Lebanon High School. In 2023, he released a five-track EP, also called “The Ocean - Five years.”

“I would say composing the music was cathartic for me in the sense that I was able to guide myself through my own thoughts and emotions through composing the music, through performing it with others and a community, other musicians, and just working on the project in general really opened up the conversation for grief — my grief and other people’s grief,” Brett told the Post-Gazette in December. 

The documentary uses the same music performed by musicians from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. It has been accepted to nine film festivals, including the Three Rivers Film and Short Festival, where it won an audience award.