January 2010 the narrative short film
The Mailbox, which he wrote, directed and acted in, premiered at Atlanta's
Landmark Art Cinema and won a
Redemptive Film Festival Redemptive Storyteller Award. A tag-line for the movie was "A young boy learns the meaning of the old saying 'You only get to keep what you give away.'" Smith described the film as "sort-of a parable". The majority of the story takes place in rural Georgia during 1947 and centers on a family's mailbox, which the mother paints a bright yellow. The yellow mailbox is the origin of the name for Smith's own film production company, Yellow Post Pictures. In March 2012, Triple Horse Studios (which had announced plans to "build a Hollywood-style film studio in Covington, [GA], ultimately investing $100 million, with the goal of solidifying Covington's position as the 'Hollywood of the South.'") concluded a deal with Smith to co-produce
The Engagement Ring, a feature-length movie that he wrote and was slated to direct. A romantic comedy, the story takes place on the campus of fictional Mountainview College in north Georgia. Smith had a commitment to movies set and filmed in his home state. He planned to shoot
The Engagement Ring entirely in Georgia. Smith also had several more movie projects in various stages of development, including
Trouble in the Plate (a suspense comedy) scheduled for release in summer, 2014; and
First Georgia Blue, a
Civil War drama which he hoped to release as part of the sesquicentennial commemoration of the conflict. ==Personal life==