Finding Tyler

The opportunity to follow Tyler’s footsteps on the island of Corsica, a self-proclaimed “island of secrets,” has been one of the most rewarding experiences of our lives. In the process of making FINDING TYLER, we found ourselves firing shotguns off of misty mountaintops, rifling through hundreds of pages of redacted FBI documents, shooing wild cows away from our equipment, and hiking some of the most beautiful terrain we’ve ever seen.

The film’s concept began as a modest cinepoem, pairing select journal entries with vistas of Corsican landscapes. It was a great excuse to travel to a new place. As a matter of due diligence, we began contacting the list we had put together over ten years of research. The response was overwhelming: within two days of our initial phone calls we had a week’s worth of interviews booked. Just days later we received a response from Tyler’s mother—a year after we reached out to her through a family friend—expressing interest in the film. This was a film that was meant to be made.

The people we’ve met along this journey have been memorable as well. Filming in France required some cultural training (and producing strains), as we quickly learned that each interviewee required an hour-long chat over coffee before any formal filming began. While the Producer in us wanted to ditch the coffee and get on with it already, we quickly found the trust earned was worth any schedule adjustments.

FINDING TYLER accomplishes our goal to tell a story of an epic event that leads to an unpredictable existence, and to shine a light on an dynamic individual who lived life at the extremes.