Rewriting the Script A Profile on Katie Boyden
by Willem Geier
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wenty-four Hour Fitness is, in fact, open all hours of the day. Oddly enough, people like Katie Boyden use it for that long as well. Boyden was in the middle of her workout when her producer emailed. Sitting on one of the weight lifting benches, she received emails from her work about an image that needed to be edited and sent out to some coworkers at Yahoo. Having not exercised for the past few weeks, she needed to get this workout, but she also had to complete her work for Yahoo. Forced to manage the situation, she decided to finish her work while running on the treadmill. She adjusted the speed using the few buttons on the treadmill, then got to work on the email. Running at jogging speeds, she was able to crop the photo with her phone using one of the photo editing tools, and resend it to those working on the project. At her very core, Boyden is a teacher. Nearly everything she does stems off of her want to enlighten others. When she studied at UCLA, she was profoundly annoyed by the fact that her professors mostly have intellectual discussions with those already in their fields. They do not particularly try to spread their knowledge to the public, as they mostly write in intellectual journals to each other. Boyden wants to fix this knowledge gap by teaching in a more widespread and digestible way; she teaches in two methods, writing and documentary filmmaking. She has been exceptional at writing at a young age, and has used this as her preferred medium to teach others. As a writer, she writes articles and essays that can
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be shared with the rest of the world, educating those across the globe. However, with the rise of social media, people are less willing to read long articles. Large social media websites like Buzzfeed and Facebook are a lot more motion picture heavy. To adapt to this change in general information intake, she took up documentary filmmaking. Documentaries in a sense, are more digestible pieces of writing that people who do not specifically enjoy reading could themselves watch. “This
“She wants to teach, write, and tell stories in a mode that will reach more people, in film.” -Diane Boyden is a new era for documentary films and as non-fiction filmmakers we are reaching larger audience. Documentaries are making more money than ever before. There are entire networks with portions dedicated, for the first time, to non-fiction programming. And there is this new generation that is stepping up to the plate and bringing it with hard hitting, entertaining and political films to audiences”(Barbara Kopple). Boyden is part of this new documentary era, having worked on several professional ones so far. Being very well spoken, she almost always has the upper hand in any discussion
or argument with people. Knowledge is power, making Boyden a very powerful woman. She does not let any of this get to her head however, as she is constantly humbled by her work. Born in 1985 at Stanford hospital to two loving parents, Boyden grew up with her sister Jenny in a sheltered life. Ever since Boyden taught herself to read, she wanted to write. The more she read, the more she wanted to be able to write well. This passion for writing later fueled and aided her want to teach. She went to Saint Francis High School, graduated as Valedictorian of her class, and gave one of the greatest commencement speeches of her school’s history. Boyden’s mother described it as one of her proudest moments of her daughter, “this wasn’t some speech for the parents, she spoke to the kids and really inspired them.” This bent for communication is one of Boyden’s greatest assets to teach. Later she attended UCLA and got her degree in writing. During and after college she came out as gay, and dated around. Currently she is in a relationship with Ashley Power, who is working to become a flight attendant at Virgin America. The two have just celebrated their one year anniversary, but due to their busy schedules it was a pretty casual celebration. Boyden, because of the nature of the film industry, works as a freelancer, and is currently working a job at Yahoo as a production coordinator for a film shoot. as this role she has to coordinate film shoots and interviews all around the world for a Yahoo corporate video. Before her job at Yahoo, she was contracted by an ophthalmologist to produce a documentary in Kenya
“T.S. Elliot said ‘do I dare disturb the universe,’ so that’s what I intend to do.”
about a non profit organization. Work as a freelancer is very inconsistent as it has a bad tendency of flooding her with work to the point where she has to reject job offers which is followed by periods of unemployment. This leaves her life extremely busy during cycles of work. She is kept grounded in life after a hectic day of work by Ashley. The two mutually support each other as both of their jobs are mentally taxing. The film industry does not provide the most stable source of income, as almost
all jobs in the industry are freelance jobs. She sometimes worries about her current situation and how it is not currently financially stable, especially when most of her friends have already settled down, gotten married, and have steady nine-to-five jobs. This is rather daunting to her, since she is so busy all the time. Boyden is battling time, but at the same time is accepting of it. This makes an interesting dichotomy with Boyden that has physical manifestations that follow her throughout her life. Like the ongoing struggle between
good and evil, light and dark, her ambitions battle a pressure for complacency placed on her by her friends and colleagues. One of the things she fears the most is a desk job, but she also envies the stability it ensures. This conflict sometimes leaves her worrying if she has done the right things and made the best choices. One day at work while Boyden was talking to one of her coworkers, Ana, who was the interview director of the production at Yahoo, they got onto the
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topic of Boyden’s relationships. Ana had just asked Boyden about any guys in her life, and was shocked to hear that Boyden was gay. She later exclaimed to Boyden how “It would be a sad day for humanity” if she did not have any biological children because she is so beautiful. Boyden later described this to be a rather “backhanded compliment.” Boyden also says that she gets this kind of reaction quite often when she comes out to people. Documentary filmmaking is one of her passions. This too is ultimately another method for her to teach, but on a mass scale; she usually likes to make more educational documentaries that shed light on current world issues that do not get much needed attention. In Boyden’s most recent documentary, she traveled to Africa to document about a blindness epidemic that has been affecting thousands of Africans throughout the continent. She started this project after meeting Dr. Thomas Tayeri, an ophthalmologist and founder of the Fiat Lux Foundation, a nonprofit that reverses blindness in patients around the world. After Dr. Tayeri met Boyden and found out one evening that she is a documentary filmmaker, he immediately asked her if she could travel to Kenya and produce a documentary for the foundation. She agreed and flew to Africa – she was on a mission. Very little would have stopped her; even the fear of the ebola outbreak that made several crew members turn back failed to make her reconsider. After spending months with just her director of photography in Kenya, interviewing patients and hearing locals’ stories, she
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returned to the US with the footage. When discussing production money with Dr. Tayeri, she underestimated the budget for the film and has been back funding the documentary for a lot of money. This is very problematic given the rather money scarce nature of documentaries,“Sometimes they lowball their budgets. The thinking is that if I come low enough then maybe they may be more likely to fund me, so i will cut this and that and make it look doable. That is a mistake...”(Morrie Warshawski). She still does this because she has a drive to finish the documentary and do it well; she has a need to do justice on the film. Boyden is editing the documentary to this day. Boyden doesn’t yet know what to do with her life. It consists of short to long bursts of intense work followed by periods of not being able to find a job.
“If I’m learning something new that I could teach the world, and put out there in the form of video, I’m doing what I want to be doing.” -Katie Boyden
At some points she even has to turn freelancing jobs down because she is so booked, but after those are done, people just are not hiring in her line of work. During these periods of work, she has little time to think about her future and what lies ahead of her, however, during the times of unemployment, she worries about her financial stability. Sometimes she wonders if she even made the right choice of choosing to work in that industry, seeing all of her friends in stable desk jobs. This creates an odd relationship with complacency: she wants to do what she loves for a living and follow her ambitions, but she is in a seemingly constant state of motion that allows her little time to breathe. When she is not worrying about how she is going to manage crews all over the world, she is fretting about what she will do next. Being terrified of an office job, she wants to keep making films for as long as her youth allows it. When she ages, she plans on going back to teaching or writing. Boyden plans to stay with Ashley for as long as possible, and the two are very happy together. Once Ashley lands her job as a flight attendant, the two plan to travel the world together as one of the perks of that job at Virgin America. The two, however, have to be apart for several months because Ashley is based in San Francisco, and Boyden is based in LA. It will be tough for them to pull off a long distance relationship, but they know that they can do it.
“She’s someone that helps you grow. She is constantly teaching you things” -Ashley Power Boyden’s Girlfriend
WORKS CITED Jolliffe, Genevieve, and Andrew Zinnes. The Documentary Film makers Handbook. New York, NY: Continuum, 2012. Print. Boyden, Boyden. Personal interview. Sept. 2015. Boyden, Ken. Personal interview. Sept. 2015. Boyden, Diane. Personal interview. Sept. 2015. Luzi, Evan. “7 Unrealistic Expectations of Film Industry Jobs.” The Black and Blue. N.p., 08 July 2011. Web. 09 Sept. 2015. Simens, Dov. “How Filmmakers Make A Living While Trying to Make It - Raindance.” Raindance. N.p., 27 May 2013. Web. 09 Sept. 2015. Power, Ashley. Personal interview. Sept. 2015. Vorstenbosch, James. “How to Date a Film Maker.” Film Army. N.p., 6 Oct. 2010. Web. 09 Sept. 2015. Wow, Johnny. Personal interview. Sept. 2015.
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