Teaching the Reel Story
- Jennifer Ward
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
By Tommy Fornara
When taking a seat on the first day of your film class with Professor Lawrence O’Neil, there are three things that become immediately apparent: he has a passion for the art of film, he once was a student at Purchase himself, and he most certainly will have a hard time remembering your name.
The Purchase O’Neil experienced was quite different from the one seen today. “I got to Purchase as a student in 1985, and I sort of took the slow train,” O’Neil recalled. Like many other college students, O’Neil found himself straying away from the rigidity of the four-year college timeline. “I took some time off between my junior and senior year, and I sort of lingered editing my senior film. So I did not graduate until...I think it was 1990.”
After graduating, he stayed in New York, working odd jobs and doing gig work. “I painted houses and PA-ed [personal assistant] on TV commercials and kind of scraped around with roommates.”
After a few years of making ends meet, O'Neil had his big break. “So I wrote a script that I thought I could make,” said O'Neil, “and I mean, it was a really stupid script to try to make on a low budget because I had a million locations and it was just really difficult stuff to pull off.”
Through a stroke of luck and some fortunate connections, O'Neil was able to raise funding for his film. “The dream kind of worked in my case,” he said, “which is to say the film played at festivals and won an award. It got me a really fancy agent, and that agent started getting me gigs. I got to direct an HBO [Home Box Office] movie, and I sort of got a career out of it. That’s the dream; you make a low-budget movie that someone actually sees and likes.”
O’Neil in his Purchase dorm room. (Photo via Lawrence O'Neil)
O’Neil never intended to become a professor. “I had subbed a couple of courses, and a friend of mine needed a substitute and sat in on some senior reviews.” O'Neil never intended to stay on the campus he once called home and become a professor himself, but he found himself rising to the occasion at the request of his peers. “The chair, Iris Cahn, asked me if I wanted to adjunct on a sophomore directing course, and I did,” O'Neil said. “It was fun, and good God, that’s how they get you.”
Cahn noted how O’Neil’s hands-on experience in the film industry made him the perfect candidate for the film department here at Purchase. “Larry was someone who understood both the Film program and the realities of film production after graduation,” said Cahn.
Due to the size and slight underfunding of the film department at the time, having someone who could go beyond the role of professor and offer a more personal, hands-on instruction was invaluable. “He cares deeply about his students and over the years,” continued Cahn, “and has developed a curriculum that allows each to tell their best stories.”
O’Neil, being an alumnus of Purchase, bleeds into his classroom in a successful and productive way. Being that his directing class encourages students to go out and film in the world, his knowledge of school life and on-campus locations, although sometimes dated, helps steer his students in new creative directions.
Scott Hopson, a freshman and student in O’Neil’s directing course, goes into detail on this. “I appreciate that he has gone to Purchase because he knows a lot about the school,” he said, “especially with cool shooting locations and whatnot.”
Hopson and his peers have found themselves discovering new and interesting locations all across campus to use as backdrops for their film projects, as well as even exchanging some of their own secret hideaways with O’Neil himself.
Hopson also notes how much of an advantage it is to have a teacher who has found success in the industry he teaches is in the classroom. “I often find his anecdotes about his time in the industry very insightful,” said Hopson. “It’s nice to hear advice from someone who's actually had experience in Hollywood.” O'Neil is always willing to answer questions from his days in California, and having the answers backed up by personal success in the field helps add validity and confidence to the information he gives.
After all this time, coming back to Purchase was both nostalgic and new to O’Neil. Although many of the same buildings he once roamed still stood proudly, the passage of time had introduced sweeping changes to Purchase’s academic core. “It’s incredibly different,” said O’Neil. “When I look at specific curricular things, it’s very, very different. In many ways, much better.”
In spite of these changes, O’Neil still sees the school and the program that he fell in love with all those years ago, and now gets to participate in personally. “The DNA is actually very similar– the film department in particular,” says O’Neil. “Students still undergo that kind of transformation and discovery and falling in love with an art or discipline.”
When asked what he’s most proud of in his career, O’Neil gave two answers, instantly replying with his work as a professor, before eventually adding on his work as a director. “Honestly, there's a lot of little achievements, right? It feels great when you teach what you think is a great class,” said O’Neil, “or when you feel like a student was trying to say something in their work, and I feel like I really helped them do it. There’s great satisfaction in that.”
He then carried on to detail what he believes is his pride of personal creation. “In terms of my own personal work, I made a low-budget crime movie in 1995, [Throwing Down],” O’Neil said. “It’s a very pure expression of who I was and the way I felt at that point in time. I couldn’t make that movie today.”
As for why he won’t remember your name in class, it's a rather simple answer; while no official diagnosis, O’Neil from symptoms of prosopagnosia, or face blindness. Instead of tying your name to your face, O’Neil connects your name to the works of art that he helps you, the director, create in his class.