Olive

Olive is my love letter to Aaron Sorkin, David Fincher, and the kind of storytelling that doesn’t just entertain—it unsettles. Nearly 15 years ago, I sat in a theater watching The Social Network, and its opening scene floored me. Just two people talking, yet it was gripping. Razor-sharp dialogue, surgical precision in direction—it was everything I wanted in a film.

Most of my work has been driven by visuals rather than dialogue, but pushing toward a feature, I wanted to break that mold. So I pulled out an early draft of Olive—written 12 years ago—and rebuilt it from scratch. The result is something raw, something uncomfortable. A film about the consequences of neglect—personal, medical, emotional. About a system that medicates instead of mends. About relationships shaped more by control than by care.

We shot 33 pages in two relentless days. The cast performed the entire scene like theater, start to finish, five full takes. Post-production stretched over 16 months as we shaped the final cut, chasing precision in every frame. Olive was never about pleasing a broad audience to help reach, or elevate selection rates—it was about making something I’d want to watch alone in a dark theater, a film that lingers long after the credits roll. At our world premiere at Austin Revolution Film Festival, that’s exactly what it did.

I’m beyond grateful—to the team at Seed&Spark, to everyone who backed this project, to my producer Ben Richardson, my tireless cast and crew, and every single person who gave something—time, money, energy—to make this happen. And to you, reading this now—thank you. Thank you for watching.

This film, this experience, has meant everything to me.

-Paul