Paul Regan Swadel[1] (23 October 1968 – 18 March 2016)[2] was a New Zealand film director and producer.
Swadel nurtured a filmmaking partnership with James Cunningham that spanned fifteen years and four globally successful short films.
Paul and James developed an indie performance capture driven CGI film Marshal with Mark Ordesky, executive producer of The Lord of the Rings.
Their proof of concept short film Poppy, was shot on the Weta Digital motion capture soundstage.
These range in subject from Plácido Domingo at the New York Metropolitan Opera, The Understudy, to an award-winning six-hour series on the history of New Zealand Art, The Big Picture presented by Hamish Keith, which garnered three nominations at the 2008 New Zealand Screen Awards, and won Best Series and Best Music awards.