Dinner with the Woodburns <\/em>(Best Comedy) at the AAHSFF, he scored a multitude of contacts. While he was told \u201cnot to name-drop,\u201d he essentially began the dream of many writer\/directors: pitching to various production companies. Though many recognized his talent, no one was grabbing at his offerings, so he began the tradition of many high school seniors that is applying to college.<\/p>\nUSC, UCLA, and Chapman were the biggies he was aiming for, each SoCal institution internationally recognized for its film schools, the homes of George Lucas (USC), Francis Ford Copolla (UCLA), and Cynthia Pascoe (Chapman\u2014and in case you didn\u2019t know, she\u2019s only the Executive Director of global promotions for 20th Century Fox).<\/p>\n
Having applied in the fall, the documentary series follows Stephen as he receives his acceptance and rejection letters from February of this year until May.<\/p>\n
![\"Boyer02\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Boyer02.jpg\")
\u201cThe rejection letters weren\u2019t fun to sift through,\u201d Stephen said. \u201cI even tried to appeal to USC but got rejected. The reasoning I will never know\u2026 It reminded me of my Dad\u2019s predicament. He\u2019s an accomplished musician, straight up writing full orchestral music when he was about to attend college\u2014and they rejected him. Some 20 years later, after he built up a career, some of the higher-ups at the school told him, \u2018You were talented but your style wasn\u2019t what we were looking for.\u2019 So I like to think they knew I was talented and 20 years from now, I\u2019ll have someone walk up to me and tell me why. Until then, I will always hypothesize.\u201d<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t to say he failed entirely, given he opted for CSULB\u2014y\u2019know, alma mater of that other<\/em> director, Steven Spielberg. But the battle of deciding whether college was even worth it still lingered for Stephen, during the seemingly-endless period all college-bound students have to endure while awaiting responses from university admission offices.<\/p>\nHis AAHSFF contacts haven\u2019t left him entirely, though; one of his backers is currently working closely with the teenager to formalize a pitch-able pilot in the next few years.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, there was no alternative besides college\u2014and I\u2019m happy for it,\u201d Stephen said. \u201cI had done some work during the summer as a production assistant here and an assistant director there\u2014but nothing of substance. I don\u2019t have the resources and now, I have time and resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plus he strolls into the golden halls of academia this fall with something few students have: the experience of having worked with and having had a major television network document his life. Not only did crews occupy Stephen\u2019s home, director Gibney handed a camera to the subjects of his series so that much of the visual content, including Stephen\u2019s segment, comes from the teenagers themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I think about college and whether I made the right choice, I have to say I did,\u201d Stephen said. \u201cI can\u2019t speak for anyone else because everyone is different\u2014but generally speaking, it\u2019s a good idea to go to college. Unless you have some great connection or prospect or opportunity, then go to college. Because if you use your resources right at college, you\u2019ll have more connections than you can imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephen Boyer\u2019s segment on <\/em>Edge of Eighteen (Episode 5) will premiere on October 5 on Al Jazeera America at 6PM PST. The series will premiere September 7.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Confused and admittedly hurt after receiving rejection letters from multiple colleges, CSULB freshman Stephen Boyer began to question, like many teenagers, whether college was even worth it. This predicament is exactly why Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney chose Stephen and 14 other teenagers transitioning to or away from college to focus on for his Al Jazeera America series, Edge of Eighteen<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":68481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[926],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","tag-documentary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3212"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3212"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n