After 25 years of running a successful manufacturing business, Vince O’Connell and Kathy Swanson could have retired to a life of leisure. Instead, they decided to head back to school.
They closed their company, VOmax, and then pursued a different business altogether: filmmaking. Together, they completed a one-year film-production program at Selkirk College in Nelson, British Columbia.
“We’ve always been interested in making things, and film is a project-oriented thing,” Swanson said. “If something is challenging, it’s worthwhile for us.”
While it was spontaneous, the couple’s love for filmmaking was instantaneous as well.
“We were retired and were looking for something to do,” O’Connell said. “This became a very fulfilling creative outlet.”
Having made almost 20 short films together, they both decided that, in their 50s, they would apply for Ohio University’s MFA School of Film program. They were accepted, and less than 24 hours after they made their move to Athens from Northampton, Mass., they started their first classes.
“It’s more out of our comfort zone, but we like that,” Swanson said. “It’s a very nice lifestyle here, and Athens has been very welcoming to us.”
Although they are older than most of their peers, Swanson said she doesn’t believe it affects her interactions with them or her learning experience.
“When you are in a situation like this, you are all students,” she said. “You don’t see it any different.”
The two filmmakers work together on both writing and directing their projects.
They each admit, though, that Swanson is “more comfortable” as a writer and O’Connell prefers the technical side. They have already made narrative, documentary and experimental short films, but they both wish to expand into narrative films.
O’Connell described their narrative stories as “quirky and humorous films that tend to be satirical noir pieces.”
Although they are still first-year students, Swanson has already begun work on writing the screenplay for the thesis project, which Swanson and O’Connell will work on together.
Natives of Craftsbury, Vt., O’Connell and Swanson were already able to form a quick and surprising connection with a professor. Tom Haynes, an assistant professor of post-production, hails from the same hometown.
“What I like about them is that they come from the professional side of work,” said Haynes. “They are able to understand this business from a different angle.”
And while they are still settling into their new home and life in Athens, they both say they have been keeping up with their work and are happy with their decision.
“Every day, we say it was so the right thing to do,” Swanson said.
wa054010@ohiou.edu
