The link provided by the Governor’s tweet lands on the official Virginia.gov page for a press release announcing The Hornschuch Group, producer of “highly technical films,” was expanding the O’Sullivan Films operation it acquired in March. O’Sullivan Films is based in Winchester, a piece of Virginia land in the Northwest section of the state. As promised by the tweet, the PR does indeed confirm over 170 new jobs.
While reading it, I became a bit suspicious of the tweet, especially considering I had heard of nothing like “highly technical films.” But then I thought maybe that was some jargon thrown out by some writer who didn’t fully understand the film industry and was looking for a way to spice up the article. Couple this with the fact that Gov. McDonnell was retweeted by the Virginia Film Office, the organization responsible for bringing and advertising film productions in the state, and things start to get a little quirky.
Then I kept reading and found the answer to what technical films were:
O’Sullivan Films is a recognized leader in the production and commercialization of polymer films and finishing film technologies serving the building products, consumer, healthcare and automotive markets.
I looked up the O’Sullivan Films website and the plot thickened:
Yet, our expertise goes beyond vinyls. We are also a major developer of Thermoplastic Olefin (TPO), Thermoplastic Urethane (TPU) Polymer Films, and Polyolefin Alloys (POAs).
I immediately tweeted back to both Gov. McDonnell and the Virginia Film Office alerting them of this revelation. These weren’t jobs for the “film industry,” at least not in the motion picture sense. In the words I tweeted to Gov. McDonnell, “Ive never seen a film [movie] made of vinyl!”
Seems like someone on both ends didn’t really do their homework. Oops!