What's Your Passion Project?

Filmmakers and film students have passion projects. They may not make money, but they are something that appeals to your creativity, sense of beauty, life purpose or adventure. It may be a long-held dream of yours, or something deep within you that you've just uncovered that needs to be expressed or built. It's something that captures your imagination. It won't be birthed without you making it happen.

I suspect that the movie Boyhood, currently being honored in movie award season, was a passion project for both it's director, Richard Linklater, and the cast who worked 12 years to capture the essential changes a boy goes through growing up as he matures and adjusts to his family divorcing and moving. He considered it a "once-in-a-lifetime" film making experiment. The writers wrote 12 scripts for the film, one for each year's filming.

The film Boyhood, while fictionalized, was adjusted to follow the developing personality and life changes the lead actor, Ellar Coltrane went through from age six through high school graduation. There were significant challenges getting the production team and actors to be available to work on the film for such a significant span of time. Linklater created continuity between the 12 sections of the filming in keeping a consistent tone, weaving in his own take on life experiences and memories. He wanted the film to unfold, much in the way our lives do. The result of Linklater's passion project is a moving film that makes you reflect on the elusive nature of memories and trying to remember what you felt at any one time in your life. It's an emotional illustration of the power of time passing. Don't miss it.

How about finding a passion project of your very own? Perhaps you have an idea, or you may want to allow yourself to germinate some ideas about what your project might be that would make your heart happy.

A passion project could be to start a group, begin doing photography or art, volunteer to help a cause you care deeply about, or build something. It's possible that at watershed moments in life, you may realize that you have finished a passion project and need to develop a different one. I'm currently counseling people who are navigating the significant life change of launching children and moving on, rebuilding a life after losing a partner or retiring from work that was fulfilling. These are all especially good times to develop a passion project.

You might consider what makes you come alive and how you can utilize your own gifts to create change. You will need a vision and a mission. You can have a vision at the micro-level which will just impact you or your family, or you can have a macro-vision which will help create positive change beyond your personal world. Your mission can help you claim your power to engage your passion and build a purposeful life.

A passion project doesn't have to develop into a business, although it could. It's a way to satisfy a deep desire to create something. It can't be done for the money, fame or recognition. It's got to purely motivated to express or create something and to share it with others.

Give yourself some blank sticky notes or a journal and let the ideas begin to germinate about what you can be passionate about creating. When people are dying, they don't ever regret the time spent with loved ones or the time invested in passion projects. It's what gives our lives meaning and significance.

This past fall, I have been progressively losing someone close to me from terminal cancer. It's been a small passion project of mine to be creating an English garden that is becoming a quiet sanctuary, a connection to nature and flowers that I share with my family and a peaceful gathering spot for close friends. It's been very meaningful to be creating and building concurrently with the journey of losing a loved one. I can't wait for the roses to bloom in a few months. It's time to begin considering a different project soon.

What's your passion project? I feel sure there is one or two of them out there for each of us if we can quiet our lives and our minds enough to reflect on it. You don't have to have attended film school to have one. Find someone you can talk with about your passions, and how you could give them life.

Boyhood

Childhood is made up of little moments that get all strung together, like Christmas lights. The new (2014) film Boyhood by director Richard Linklater will make you reflect on your own childhood, and your own journey as a parent. The film is unusual in that it has the same cast, but was filmed over 12 years. We get an intimate view of Mason (Ellar Coltrane) growing up from age 5 to age 18. This film is not to be missed as it brings all of it to you from the child's view.

The story includes many ordinary days, as Mason deals with his parent's divorce, bullies at school, moving and leaving friends, a bad haircut, horrible stepparents, first love, heartbreak, a sometimes difficult sister, camping with Dad, Mom dating, first days at new schools, and a first job. You get to witness Mason growing up, with all the physical and emotional changes he goes through in those 12 years of childhood. Mason is beautifully played by Coltrane. The director's daughter, Lorelei Linklater, is wonderful and very natural as his sometimes annoying sister.

The film is touching. It reminded me of how vulnerable children are to whatever other stressors and challenges are going on in their parents' lives. Children are trying to grow up amidst the drama, changes and challenges. It reminds us as parents to keep our children's childhood as stable as we possibly can, and to be as present as we can no matter what unexpected things come up.

In Mason's case, his mom (Patricia Arquette) is a struggling single parent, trying to finish her education and provide some stability for her two children. The results are often chaotic, as she completes her education but her poor relationship choices impact both her and the children. The family moves multiple times, and the film captures the loss and longing the children feel as they watch the old home disappear from the car windows as they drive away, leaving behind friends each time.

Arquette is superb as Mason's mother. She loves the children, but is busily multi-tasking her education, financial struggle and problematic love life the whole time the children are growing up. She always thought she had more time, but suddenly Mason is heading off to college. She wonders aloud about what's left for her with the children gone. How can childhood be over so soon?

Ethan Hawke does a wonderful job portraying Mason's sometimes immature but loving father. Early in the film, Hawke is irresponsible and often missing. Later he visits the children more frequently, and tries to condense his fathering life lessons into his every other weekend with his son and daughter. The film captures some authentic moments where he tries to get the kids to share more and open up, talks with them about sexual responsibility, discusses breakups and love relationships, and teaches them (while bowling) that in life there are no bumpers.

There are some bittersweet moments that feel honest as dad thanks mom at Mason's graduation party for doing a great job raising him mostly on her own. Dad seems to evolve over the twelve years we follow him, and it seems sad that the timing was off and that he didn't evolve earlier so that they could have raised the children together. Just like in real life, it's a lot about timing sometimes. It also reminds us that while parents can divorce, parenting continues and it's better for the children if you can accept whatever positive contributions the other parent can make.

The unique way in which this film is made and edited over such a long span of time allows us to remember these years,too. We see Mason attend a Harry Potter book release signing all dressed up and excited to get his book. We see him go with his sister to plant yard signs for Obama/Biden and help steal a McCain sign at Dad's direction. The film is edited and mixed with songs from these same years, from Coldplay to Arcade Fire. It will make you remember these years, too.

Boyhood is a must see film, which will remind you of how swiftly both childhood and parenting passes, and to make the most of all the little, ordinary days with our children. As difficult and overwhelming as parenting can be, you will miss this chapter when it is gone. It's beautiful the way this film artfully captures the internal emotional experiences of childhood. It's a rare opportunity to watch a skilled ensemble of actors age gradually and be invited into their maturing. It made me reflect on my own childhood memory fragments, and made me wistful about how swiftly my girls grew up into the adult women I love.