‘The Ocean – Five Years’ represents the culmination of the McCutcheon family’s experience with the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
In 2017, 19-year-old Ryan McCutcheon, a freshman at Robert Morris University, died in a car accident. An accomplished percussionist, he was headed home after coaching a band festival.
Left to navigate the loss, his brother Brett McCutcheon, then a sophomore at North Allegheny High School, and the rest of his family waded through the heaviness of death. Five years later, Brett, now a 23-year-old band director at Mt. Lebanon High School, released an album of songs he wrote about the grieving process — something he hopes will help others, too.
Flying Scooter Productions, a Pittsburgh-based film company, documented the McCutcheon family’s journey in a 40-minute short film, “The Ocean – Five Years,” the same name as the five-track EP Brett released in 2023. The movie and the album both represent the culmination of his family’s experience with the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
“Grieving looks all sorts of ways,” Brett said. “There’s not one way to do it. There’s not one way it’s going to happen. There’s probably not one way to prepare for it, either. But I do know that everybody will go through it in some way shape or form.
“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.”
He said that if you allow it to, music heals no matter the age. He was 16 at the time of his brother’s death.
“Some people don’t think that children are old enough to grieve, and that’s the opposite of the truth,” he explained. “The truth is that anybody who is old enough to love is old enough to grieve. So essentially this is a love story about the people that we all know and I hope that it opens up the conversation for adults but also for the kids to really process that grief.”
In addition to being the composer of the music, which is featured as the soundtrack of the film, Brett also serves as the documentary subject. He said this required him to be incredibly vulnerable to effectively capture the story.
Jennifer Schlieper, who directed the film and co-owns Flying Scooter Productions, has been working with the McCutcheon family since Ryan died. She said “The Ocean – Five Years” documentary was originally a music video for Brett’s album, but after Schlieper listened to the EP’s contents, she decided the film needed to be much more.
“I got off the phone with them, listened to the music, and couldn’t get through it,” she said. “It’s very overwhelming, it’s beautiful, it’s haunting and gorgeous and it really hits. Anybody who has experience will relate to it as it’s absolutely relatable and beautiful.
“I called them the next day and said,‘I think that if you’re willing, we have an opportunity to hold space for people that have experienced grief and I think that your story will resonate with everyone because it’s a universal story’.”
So far, that story has made itself clear. The movie has received accolades from a variety of film festivals around the world, including selection into seven international film festivals and two awards: Best Documentary at the Vienna Independent Film Festival and the Best Documentary Short Audience Award at the Three Rivers Film Festival.
At the Three Rivers Film Festival, live performance of the music behind “The Ocean – Five Years” by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Mt. Lebanon High School Wind Ensemble and vocalist Chris Jamison accompanied the film’s screening.
Flying Scooter Productions is also “actively looking” to distribute the film to further spread its message surrounding the grieving process, Schlieper said.
“For us, for me it was to allow the story to tell itself and don’t try to do something that’ it’s not supposed to do,” she explained. “It was extremely important for us that we were honoring who they are and how they conduct their lives.”