The Three Rivers Film Festival concludes tonight with the debut of The Ocean – Five Years, a documentary following Mt. Lebanon High School Band Director Brett McCutcheon and his family as they navigate the loss of their brother and son, Ryan. Brett was a sophomore in high school when Ryan, his brother and a 19-year-old student at Robert Morris University, died in a car accident on his way home from coaching a band festival in 2017. Brett remembers growing up with older brother Ryan as “having a close best friend with me all the time.” They shared a love for music, both playing integral roles in marching band.
In the years following Ryan’s death, Brett created The Ocean EP, five deeply personal songs that represent the five stages of grief. “It was an emotional journey,” said Brett. “It was tough to go back into those memories of grief, but also cathartic.” The music provided an outlet for Brett and his parents to talk about pain and loss in a healthy way, he said.
Brett graduated earlier this year from Slippery Rock University with a bachelor’s degree in music education, then began his career as band director at Mt. Lebanon High School. He said that as a teacher, he realized many children and teens go through grief but don’t know how to express it — one of the main reasons he wanted to create The Ocean – Five Years.
In 2023, Brett and his dad, Bob, called producer and film director Jenni Schlieper with an idea to turn Brett’s album into a two-minute animated film. Schlieper countered with another idea: a documentary following the McCutcheon family, using music as an outlet to navigate profound loss and childhood grief. The family agreed without hesitation.
“It’s a love letter to him [Ryan] in a way. He was a sweet, funny, charismatic, brilliant, wildly talented musician and percussionist who had an incredible vibrancy for life and for the people he loved,” said Schlieper. “ It was extraordinary for this kid who was 19, to have that amount of impact on so many people in such a short amount of time.”
Schlieper co-owns Flying Scooter Productions with Courtney Gumpf, the female-owned and operated film studio that produced The Ocean – Five Years. The film received four awards at the Milan International Film Festival and tonight will close Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Film Festival, aptly on the eve of Children’s Grief Awareness Day. At the premiere this evening, Brett’s students in the Mt. Lebanon High School Wind Ensemble will perform alongside Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and singer Chris Jamison from The Voice.
Schlieper and Brett both hope that the documentary helps normalize loss, something each of us inevitably face. “The grieving process never ends, but you can use your pain of loss and turn it into something to help people,” said Schlieper. “We are more alike than we are different.”