Today we’d like to introduce you to Olivia O’Hara
Hi Olivia, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’m an East Coast transplant, originally from northern Virginia. In 2014, my love for storytelling took me to the Savannah College of Art and Design, then on to Brooklyn four years later, and finally Los Angeles, when COVID was waning and the work-from-home vitamin D deficiency set in.
I am a technician and an artist. I’m passionate about both, although it’s taken a while to stitch the two worlds together. Right now I work at Seth MacFarlane’s production company Fuzzy Door, as a product manager for its tech division. Before college, I had a STEM background at Virginia’s Mountain Vista Governor’s School, learning research and teaching myself HTML and CSS. But I was equally compelled to pursue the arts: I wrote poetry, prose, short scripts and my first feature. At SCAD, I directed many of those shorts, winning awards from CLIO, Red Dot, the AAF, Young Ones ADC, and more.
For a while it felt strange trying to externally reconcile these very competing interests, like I needed to justify not being able to “just pick one.” It began to click these past few years. Right after college, I started working with the Fuzzy Door team on seasons two and three of The Orville, where I jumped into VFX for the first time. Then, while researching hacktivist communities for a feature in 2021, I wound up earning two CVEs (an international ID number for software vulnerabilities) for discovering security loopholes in Keybase, a messaging service I was using to talk to my new hacker friends. That little trick caught some attention, and when Orville wrapped, I was asked to stay with Fuzzy Door to develop its flagship product ViewScreen®, a software which lets you visualize CG characters and environments in the camera, in real time.
On my tech journey, I’ve explored a lot of digital subcultures, mostly on the internet. It’s amazing how colorful these communities are, and our broader society really doesn’t understand them very well: you read a lot of articles about how new tech changes our lives, but I’ve found that the values, ideas, and people that connect around the tech all make a much bigger impact. I have a story to tell about that world, and it’s been a fun challenge figuring out how to make it work in a traditional cinematic format. How do you visually represent such a huge, borderless culture where no one ever speaks face to face? I haven’t seen a ton of stories that handle it in a satisfying way.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No road is smooth, but I’m grateful for the opportunities that have come along. I’m very fortunate to be where I am. That sounds media-trained, but it’s sincere!
Back in college, a roommate of mine told me very bluntly, when I would wallow in personal issues, that “everyone’s got stuff.” She meant that the emotional playing field was level: everyone has things to overcome, so now what? What are you going to do about it? It annoyed me, but it stuck. No matter what life throws my way, the external rollercoaster never seems to present as big of a challenge as does the task of fixing my mindset, attitude, or self-discipline. My biggest obstacle is usually myself.
I realized that in a new way this summer, when a colleague told me about the concept of “normalization of deviance.” Basically, if you go through a stressful situation, your brain is very good at adapting to that situation to let you continue to function and survive, but after some time that adaptation can hold you back from growth. Your brain becomes accustomed to accepting a subpar environment, and you have to work to recognize that and change it, like breaking up scar tissue from an injury so that you can move freely again. I think nearly every day about that conversation, and how I need to keep evaluating the standards I’m holding myself to.
Community also plays a big role in self-improvement. I’m lucky to be surrounded by skilled, wise, and upstanding people who set good examples to follow, every day. Los Feliz and Hollywood specifically have inspired me—there’s a strong neighborly atmosphere everywhere you go, and the run clubs are plentiful!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m most proud to continue pushing myself. Having been in the Fuzzy Door ecosystem for nearly my entire post-college career, it’s been an eye-opening journey. Going in, the stakes were known. Seth’s shows have a massive reputation and broad acclaim, so expectations are high, and I’ve had to put serious effort into ramping up to speed on VFX and virtual production. Four years ago, my day-to-day responsibilities didn’t exist yet, because the tools we’re building now didn’t exist.
The past year in particular has been a whirlwind: we launched two products, debuted alongside the premiere of the Ted TV show, pitched countless demos around town (which won us a major movie and a TV show this summer and fall…both in production at the same time!) And I was grateful to rekindle my director’s role earlier in the year, when Fuzzy Door tapped me to direct a short using our tech.
While I’ve accomplished incredible things alongside this team, I keep developing my own work. It’s the itch that never goes away, and there’s nothing like being able to champion a project that is truly yours, a story only you can tell and that you know better than anyone else. I’ve been chipping away at my second and third feature scripts all summer, and will finish drafts these next few wintry months. I’m excited about the coming year.
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
Building forts in the woods with my friends! Short and sweet, baby.
Thank you for having me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://oliviaohara.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oliviaohara/
