Chip Hourihan, a film producer who is originally from Plymouth, will come to New Bedford later this year to film "Whaling City," an independent movie about the struggle that a commercial fisherman faces while trying to hold on to his boat during declining catches and restrictive government regulations. His most recent film, "Frozen River," received two Oscar nominations.
Q: What does a film producer do?
A: He finds a project, finds a script, and in my case a writer/director who has a great script and is passionate about telling a certain kind of story. And you find a way to help that story make it to the screen. When I read Jay Burke’s script I realized that he really knew New Bedford, the place and the people, and I really wanted to make that happen.
Q: What did you want to be when you grew up?
A: I was trained as an architect but in my senior year in college I finally had an elective and I took filmmaking. Making a short film, I was using both halves of my brain and I realized that this is what I wanted to do. So I dropped out of graduate school in architecture and went to become a filmmaker.