Avance Smith
- Additional Crew
Avance "Smokey" Smith grew up with John Singleton in South Central, Los Angeles. He was John's best friend, his older cousin, his eyes and ears on the streets. The stories and life experiences that informed John as a filmmaker were ones that John and Smokey experienced together as inseparable family. For three seasons on Singleton's series, SNOWFALL, Smokey has learned the craft of filmmaking by the side of one of the most important voices in the African-American film community. Smokey has a deep, almost cellular knowledge of the tones, moods, and shifting landscapes of Inglewood, Watts, Gardena, Hawthorne, East L.A., Boyle Heights, and Downtown Los Angeles. His high situational awareness is coupled with a reservoir of empathy, a perspective gained from experiences both inside and outside the justice system, and long-term incarceration in the prison system. Unbeaten, un-bitter, Smokey has the humor and humanity of a born storyteller. Practically, he is the ultimate insider/fixer. When it happens, he knows it. If it needs fixing, he fixes it. He is reliable, steady, courageous, and ferociously loyal.