UCLA alumna’s collaborative short film with James Franco airs

UCLA alumna L.A. Ross entered James Franco’s film class with plans to produce a short film. Little did she know that a clip of her film would be screened at “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Oct. 21, when Franco appeared on the show.

Franco chose to show the clip on air because Jimmy Kimmel is one of the actors in Ross’ film.

Ross, who graduated from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s Producers Programin June, had the opportunity to work with Franco over the course of the 2012-2013 academic year through a series of courses that took her film from a screenplay to a finished product.

Franco’s class consisted of eight writers, directors and producers who worked together to create short film adaptations of stories from Robert Boswell’s book, “The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards.” Ross and her team, including writer Roxanne Beck and director Shadae Smith, based their film, “Miss Famous,” on the story about a woman who fantasizes about becoming a famous writer.

Throughout the process of creating their films, Ross said Franco gave students his undivided attention during class meetings despite his busy schedule.

“We didn’t really have an idea of what we would get going in, but he cares about every single project that he does,” Ross said. “From the very beginning … he had very astute observations about what we needed to work on. That’s the kind of advice that you can only get from somebody who’s been in the industry as long as he has and worn all the hats that he’s worn.”

In addition to providing feedback on his students’ work, Franco also helped them find actors for their films.

Actress Kristen Wiig and comedian Jimmy Kimmel appeared in Ross’ film, and Beck said working with professional actors was one of the most exciting aspects of the filmmaking process. While Wiig had her lines memorized prior to the three days of filming, Kimmel had not.

“As he admitted on his show, (Kimmel) didn’t know his lines at all when he came because Franco had told him he could just improv it. But he got there and (Wiig) knew her lines completely. Because he really respected the script, he didn’t plan on (improvising) much,” Beck said. “He was very embarrassed, but in the end he ended up doing a really good job. I think he was really right for the role and it was fun.”

Barbara Boyle, associate dean of entrepreneurship and special initiatives at the School of Theater, Film and Television, said this project with Franco was a perfect fit for UCLA’s film program because it encourages students to work together throughout the filmmaking process, just as they would in a professional situation.

“Everything about film and television and visual arts is collaborative,” Boyle said. “Even though you may take a class together, nothing to me engenders collaboration other than working on a project together. That’s the best.”

As a director, Smith said collaboration is precisely what he learned the most about by working on “Miss Famous.”

“I learned a lot about working with a team, which was probably a little difficult at first,” Smith said. “But that difficulty went away very quickly and we were able to listen to what everyone had to say. … As the director, it was about making sure that all the pieces came together.”

Smith also said this was his first experience working with big-name actors, but Wiig and Kimmel were very easy to work with.

Now that each of the films has been completed, Ross said Franco plans to eventually screen them together and promote the students’ work. Beck also said she hopes to reunite with the cast when the films premiere.

Ross said that for her, the most rewarding part of this whole process was her role in making the movie and seeing it finally come to life onscreen.

“Each of the producers were individually responsible for scheduling their shoots, getting all the permits, getting all the actors where they needed to be – just producing the movie,” Ross said. “That was probably the best part of the whole experience – just making the movie … that was me in charge of getting all the pieces in place.”