Small-town life inspires film

UCLA is known best as a research university, meaning that the faculty get their hands dirty with their own projects. While this conjures up images of chemistry professors in the lab, this trend extends all the way up to North Campus, where it’s about creative output as well as research.

Film professor and veteran television director Becky Smith is clearly a part of that tradition, with a Web series and documentary just completed, and her first feature film “16 to Life” in postproduction.

“16 to Life” is a coming-of-age story about two teenage girls working at an ice cream stand in Iowa.

Smith originally hails from the honest-to-god small town of Okoboji, Iowa, on the Minnesota border, current population: 820.

Naturally, the plotline of the film hearkens back somewhat to Smith’s past in Okoboji.

“I see all the ideas that people here have about small-town life. I know what it was like, and in some ways it doesn’t fit the stereotype,” Smith said. “I was intrigued in showing small-town people with their idiosyncrasies, knowing each other too well, but being aware of the outside world more.”

As many small-town residents do, Smith grew up dreaming of the larger world due to the insular nature of her hometown.

“Believe me, there was no theater locally,” Smith said. “I had to go to another town to go to the theater. … Even the theater in the nearest town was an X-rated theater.” Despite the lack of a local theater and any point of reference to the film industry, Smith retained an interest in the arts by being involved in theater and interested in photography. “No women I knew were in film. The film industry was pretty exotic,” she said.

Smith eventually enrolled in Stanford’s film school and was able to gain employment right after graduation, working on documentaries and other projects. She migrated to Los Angeles and began working heavily as a television director, including a 14-episode stint on Bravo’s makeover show “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”

Around this time, Smith began teaching at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television, which afforded her a coveted benefit in the industry.

“Teaching gives me the luxury of turning down the jobs I don’t want to do,” Smith said. “I get offered some jobs that are really silly.”

Aside from the benefit of selectivity, Smith also believes teaching is more intrinsically beneficial. “I’m always very intrigued in how I would explain the basics to another person. I think teaching ultimately makes you better at what you’re doing,” Smith said. “It makes me articulate what I like about what I’m doing.”

In addition to teaching, Smith’s current undertakings are widespread and all have a certain connection to her past.

Smith just finished a Web series for Nikon cameras called “Look Good In Pictures” that starred previous collaborator Carson Kressley, the style guru from “Queer Eye.” The series, which just finished, is meant to give the average person tips on taking pictures, as well as appearing in them. “I was excited to do something from Nikon because I am so interested in still photography,” Smith said. “Another reason I took that project, I wanted to do something Web-based, everything I’ve done has been for TV.” The Web-based format allowed Smith a different experience from her previous work. “You have to be smart to know how to shoot it. There’s a very fast turnaround. I directed and cut 35 episodes in a two-and-a half-month period,” she said. “That’s a crazy amount of product.”

Smith also just finished postproduction work on a documentary titled “The Daring Project,” the story of a ballet dance company putting together a show from start to finish. Smith met the choreographer of the company, the eponymous Daring Project, while teaching at Colorado College and was fascinated by the creative process of the company.

“I think that the choreography was interesting. She was using four Ella Fitzgerald songs. They were dancing to jazz with classical ballet steps.” Smith was also intrigued by the personas of the dancers themselves. “I also thought that dancers would be very quiet, shy, express through dance. I was 100 percent wrong. They’re usually very, very talkative people. They were so interesting and had so much to say about dance,” Smith said. “I really love going into something I don’t know about and … getting people to open up to you.”

Although it seems there might be little overlap between Smith’s work in academia and film work, besides their common subject matter that is, her film career has influenced her teaching, and surprisingly, vice versa.

“16 to Life,” for example, was partially inspired by a remark made in one of her own classes at UCLA, where a student balked at another student’s script of a boy and girl falling in love as being too unrealistic.

“I was interested because I feel the opposite,” Smith said. “I feel like I’ve had a lot of really magical wonderful things happen. I thought it was interesting that you would think that you couldn’t have things happen like that. … I don’t like being cynical and I feel more positive about what’s possible.”

Currently, Smith is editing “16 to Life” for an unlikely deadline: a screening in Beijing in March. Smith surmises that Chinese audiences became intrigued when they found out the main character has a fascination with the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which leads to a dream sequence with Chinese actors.

While “The Daring Project” awaits an airdate on television and “16 to Life” is being furiously cut, Smith is currently enjoying her dual role as educator and filmmaker.

“I think faculty getting engaged is ideal.”

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