Senior Spotlight: Grace O'Brien
By Alex McArver
Grace O’Brien is a Public Relations major with a minor in Film. Within DKA, O’Brien served on the chapter’s Executive Council as head of Public Relations for all of her junior year, and in the fall of her senior year, she wrote and directed the fraternity’s semester production, Ash Wednesday.
Initially, O’Brien admits, she had no desire to be involved in production, as someone who hadn’t taken production classes she felt intimidated and wanted to remain under the label of a writer. She said, “When I got to go on, honestly, any sets it was a huge learning opportunity. I was on a few Prod 2 sets where I learned leaps and bounds.”
At the end of her junior year, O’Brien decided, just for fun, that she would pitch her script, Ash Wednesday, as DKA’s next semester short film. When it was chosen, though, O’Brien was unsure about directing it and asked her roommate, and fellow DeKA, Shayna Smith. O’Brien explained, “I was saying to her, ‘I don't know, I've never done Prod 1. I've never done a production course. I'm unsure.’ And she said, ‘I think you're capable of directing this.’ And that kind of instilled a sense of confidence in me, where I thought I should try it out.”
Grace (left) directing two of Ash Wednesday's actors Leah Del Rosario and Maia Sanna
O’Brien feels she learned a tremendous amount while working on Ash Wednesday because it was a project she was so ingrained in and it put her in charge of such a large creative team. O’Brien explained, “It taught me how to be a better communicator, it taught me how to be a better leader. And it made me a better artist because it honed creative elements in myself that I had never really tapped into, like learning how to direct.” She explained that through this experience she learned a ton from her fellow DeKAs, like her Producer Zoe Moore and Director of Photography Melanie Menkiti. O’Brien said, “I feel like once I pitched it, it was no longer mine. It was everyone else's film…And I feel so lucky and blessed that everyone liked what I wrote enough that they wanted to be part of making this and be part of the journey. That meant so much to me.”
There was a lot of uncertainty surrounding college during the pandemic when O’Brien first arrived at BU. O’Brien admits, “I feel like I didn't fully start going to BU until my sophomore year when everything came back, because even though I was on campus, there were no in-person classes, you had to take Zoom classes in your dorm.”
Grace checking the viewfinder to see actress Emma Weller
Along with DKA, O’Brien also honed her writing and leadership skills as a writer and editor for the BU satirical publications, The Bunion and The Pinky Toe. O’Brien’s advice for anyone just coming to BU is to visit Splash, the student club fair, and figure out what niche thing interests you. O’Brien said, “Join an athletic organization, if you can, or like an intramural. I wish I joined it earlier, I took a lifting class…you get to make friends and also get jacked.”
When asked about leaving BU, O’Brien explained that what she’s most nervous about is adjusting to being without a central community like DKA. “I say there's a thing where you'll see three DeKAs a day on average,” O’Brien said, “Just walking on the street, or especially if you dare to enter the GSU.” O’Brien admitted it will be an adjustment not having that sense of community all the time, but she knows that if she looks for jobs in cities like LA or New York she will find a web of older DeKAs who she can reconnect with.