Smith Studio

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0809913/

Working creatively whether in film, writing or art. These are my loves to which I am devoted...

Currently, I teach art through VSA ARTs of Alabama to individuals with disabilities.  I also produce theater and teach acting to all ages.

Overview  demonstrated success in development, production and implementation of  programming, with a primary focus on theater, film and video, for non–profit organizations.  Managed multiple programs to develop acting, communication, and technical skills to create changes in destructive behavior in the lives of young people through theater, film and art.

Professional career in theater, film, radio as an actress, director, writer, and artist commercially and artistically, in NYC, Los Angeles, North Carolina and Alabama.

FILM Current projects film:  In process is a documentary on Iraq and a second on the adults recovering from mental illness that I work with each week.   I have a Cannon AG1 and Final Cut Pro Studio.

GRANTS, FILMS, and TEACHING/DIRECTING EXPERIENCE

Individual Artist  Grants  

The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, $7,000.00 Emergency Fund, NYC, NY April 2004

The Artist’s Fellowship, Inc. $2,000.00 NYC, NY December 2003 

Theater, Film, Radio and Video Production

A Foot in Two Worlds, The Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama , filmmaker, ethnographic film about the search for identity within a Cherokee tribe, created through the UAB Ethnographic film class 2006. Screened at the McWane Center IMAX, May 2006 and accepted into the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival September 2006. Shown in Dublin, Ireland for a Global City Media Conference 2007.

Our Mockingbird, a documentary by Sandy Jaffe about the influence of Harpers Lee’s book, To Kill A Mockingbird. Research and Production Assistant. 2006-2007

A Fine Layer of Dust, stage play, writer, one woman’s mythic journey through breast cancer and back. Staged reading February 2007 and October 2005. Jamie Lawrence, director.

The Absence of Breathing stage play, writer, A short play chronicling my father’s life and death while struggle to regain his identity after being shot down over Germany in WWII and becoming a POW. 

Into the Mystic, producer, writer, director, a two and a half hour weekly public radio show for WBHM, Wilmington, North Carolina which incorporated music with talk interviews and dramatic performance programming. 1994-1996.

SCRIPTS A note about my scripts. They are surreal in nature. Often they have a mythic quality and are non linear.  

Background

Moving home to Alabama in the mid 90’s, from LA, I had to find ways to make a living.  Union acting gigs were scarce and I needed work.  I told a potential employer that I could make films and the next week I was the Director of Video Production for Girls inc. of Central Alabama. I figured all the years I spent on film sets, I must have learned something. So I landed the job teaching script writing and video production to inner city youth.  I quizzed every filmmaker in Birmingham that I could find.  And through the school of hard knocks, in a five year period, we made three full length features, written, directed and shot by the students.  Many of these films placed well in student categories from first place in The UNA George Lindsey Television and Film Festival, student full-length narrative, 2002. To a rap video in The Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, 2002. And a film on high school drop outs took second in the  BIEFF/Alabama PBS student competition. When all was said and done at the end of the grant period we had won ten awards and were selected as for the Excellence in programming award by the National Girls Incorporated office.  

After our grants were cut I went back to school and studied with Michele Forman ,an associate of Spike Lee, who had returned to Alabama. She was teaching an Ethnographic film class at UAB and I decided it was time for me to get some formal filmmaking guidance. So my film partner and I made the film about The Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama.

GRANTS, FILMS, and TEACHING/DIRECTING

The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, $7,000.00 Emergency Fund, NYC, NY April 2004

The Artist’s Fellowship, Inc. $2,000.00 NYC, NY December 2003 

Theater, Film, Radio and Video Production

A Foot in Two Worlds, The Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama , filmmaker, ethnographic film about the search for identity within a Cherokee tribe, created through the UAB Ethnographic film class 2006. Screened at the McWane Center IMAX, May 2006 and accepted into the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival September 2006. Shown in

for a Global City Media Conference 2007.

Our Mockingbird, a documentary by Sandy Jaffe about the influence of Harpers Lee’s book, To Kill A Mockingbird. Research and Production Assistant. 2006-2007

A Fine Layer of Dust, stage play, writer, one woman’s mythic journey through breast cancer and back. Staged reading February 2007 and October 2005. Jamie Lawrence, director.

The Absence of Breathing stage play, writer, A short play chronicling my father’s life and death while struggle to regain his identity after being shot down over

in WWII and becoming a POW.

Into the Mystic, producer, writer, director, a two and a half hour weekly public radio show for WBHM,

which incorporated music with talk interviews and dramatic performance programming. 1994-1996.

The Snapshots Project, $175,000 grant for 1998-2000, $190,000 grant BYOG 2001-2003,  Girls Incorporated of

. Director of Video Production/ Media Specialist, and program development 1998-2003. An innovative approach to working with inner city youth, through teaching the art of video production.  Funded by the Department of Health and Human Services through Emory University

1998-2000 and the US Department of Labor Youth

AWARDS: RED LIGHT GREEN LIGHT, first place The UNA George Lindsey Television and Film Festival, student full-length narrative, 2002. EYE MISS YOU, rap video, finalist short cut, The Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, 2002. DROP OUT, Teens speak up about dropping out of high school, second place BIEFF/Alabama PBS student competition, 2002.

Selden (Sally) Smith

(SAG/AFTRA/Equity elg.   

Height: 5’6”