Filmmakers live their dream
Kyle Simpson and Joel MacDonald did not plan careers as filmmakers
Kyle Simpson and Joel MacDonald did not plan careers as filmmakers — largely because people told them not to. “You do great work, but it sucks that you can’t do it here full time, because it’s just not going to happen,” Simpson recalls people saying. “We were always told that we couldn’t do this, here,” MacDonald agrees. But as two of the partners in Confound Films, Simpson and MacDonald have found a way to do what they love and raise their young families while doing it — all on Prince Edward Island. “This is not what I expected at all,” MacDonald confesses. “I feel really fortunate.” Simpson worked in filmmaking as a “side hustle” before passion for film and potential for work convinced each to put his own video production skills to work full time. Then, both Islanders joined with fellow filmmaker Nathan Sizemore in 2015 to create Confound Films. The business works mainly on commercial video production, emphasizing sharp cinematography and storytelling to deliver a more candid and engaging feel. “It’s almost like a documentary style approach to commercial filmmaking, where we try to let the story tell itself,” Simpson explains. He relishes when people see a Confound Films video and are surprised to learn it’s produced on the Island. “It’s a little ego boost,” he says. Some of Confound’s clients have included Subaru of Charlottetown, Tourism P.E.I. and Tourism Cavendish Beach, Veterans Affairs Canada, the Workers Compensation Board, Vogue Optical, the Charlottetown Airport, Holland College and the Cavendish Beach Music Festival. For his part, Nathan Sizemore says he first asked Simpson and MacDonald to join forces so they could bid on larger projects that typically went to off-Island companies. “We knew we needed to put something bigger together in order to fight for those,” he explains. Sizemore, an American-born dual citizen, has since moved with his young family from P.E.I. to Toronto. His location there gives Confound Films a base to access more work from national organizations, including those that film on the Island. “The freedom to just do what you want to do when you go to work each day is incredible,” Sizemore says. “If you’re motivated, there’s really no limit on what you can do. If you see an opportunity, you can go for it.”