Photo: Michelle C. Smith
Michelle C. Smith uses a lightsaber online, and does stunts with it dead list It teaches people how to perform tricks with employees.
She is from Vancouver.
Smith has built a huge following on social media (with 1.4 million followers on TikTok, along with hundreds of thousands on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook) thanks in large part to her viral videos spinning the acrobatic spotlight, which garnered her Millions of views (along with the interest of many in the film industry).
She says, “On the internet, I’ve been called the ‘Lightsaber Lady’ or sometimes on TikTok they called me the ‘Mother of the Lightsword’.
It is no coincidence that she ended up here.
Kid Acrobat to Vancouver
Smith’s path to online gun tricks can be traced back to when she was five years old in Red Deer, Alberta. I then started spinning the wand, as a mathematical attempt, and took it; At the age of nine she was competing at the national level. At the age of eleven, she was representing Canada on the world stage.
“I don’t know why I started but I did and it became my life,” she says. “My priority was rather than high school.”
When she finished her studies, rather than retire, she decided to take her physical skills to the coast and moved to Vancouver at age 19. At the time, though, she wasn’t looking to use her clubbing skills.
“I was trying to dance for the Backstreet Boys, but by the time I got here, they weren’t cool anymore,” she says.
Instead, she joined Underground Circus, where she made connections to the film industry since there was some overlap between stunts and circus professionals.
“I didn’t know stunts were a thing until I met stunt people in the industry,” she says.
From there Smith made her way into the industry. At the time I noticed there weren’t a lot of resources for people working on stunts, so a lot of them were self-directed. But for someone with a lot of athletic talent and experience, besides time performing, there was a natural progression. And when it came time to learn martial arts, her baton training came in handy.
blast the internet
As she progressed as a stunt worker and became more confident, Smith found that she enjoyed teaching and helping prepare actors for their stunts. She also started posting videos of her training online with employees.
“Posting on social media was a thing for me because it really owned who I am and what my skills are,” she says.
Her club and weapon skills were unique and attracted her some attention in the industry beyond the usual stunts. At the same time, her videos were also making headlines on social media with creative sessions and tutorials.
“I wasn’t worried about numbers, just pushing my own creative limits,” she says. “I used it as a lab.”
In 2017, she got a lightsaber to play with (no, not real with a super-heated blade that cuts things, but actually lights them up), which she added to her video lineup. The lightsaber videos have proven to be very popular, with one of them becoming “going viral” and garnering millions of views across different platforms. Wired even Star Wars star Daisy Ridley interacts with.
Now her videos regularly get millions of views.
At the same time, she has expanded her online educational efforts, “nurturing and nurturing” those who follow her and encouraging those who learn the skills she masters.
“I really try to make my own way,” she says of her educational efforts. “I innovate as I go, and it’s really good considering a lot of people don’t know they want to do it until they see it.”
And while she’s never worked on an official Star Wars project, she’d like to, either as a combat coordinator and designer (an area where she works more these days) or as an actress.
“I really love that I’m training the actors to do some badass lightsaber fights,” she says. “And really help them with their lightsaber training.”
While some lightsaber fights have seemed heavy and slow in the past, she wants to bring her acrobatic, flowing style to the Star Wars universe.
“It’s a big open world and there’s room for choreography,” she says. Especially with the use of force.
@michelle.c.smith I made 2 of these. Which one do you like more? #saber_staff #light sabers #michellexsmith #dartmaul #starwars? Original sound – Ali Easton