Director’s Cut Radio: A Movie About Looting Your Way Through College

“The Smart Ones” is an independent comedy shot in and around Milwaukee, and released last year. The film is about a group of graduate students who rob houses and sell the loot online to pay for tuition.

Kyle Probst and Travis Torok made “The Smart Ones” while grad students themselves at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Terry Bell: Most people get a job or get some loans to get through college. Where did you get the idea to have your protagonists burgle their way through grad school?

Kyle Probst: We just wanted to have a unique spin on comedy, where they’re really not doing the right thing, but [we were] still trying to have them have some redeeming qualities and be laughable characters. It was kind of a parody of people who are struggling right now with student loans, and how they struggle to get through school. These people are taking it on themselves in a much more interesting way.

TB: That’s a neat trick to pull off – where you have people who you really sympathize with and pull for, yet they’re doing these awful things.

Travis Torok: Exactly. They need to be redeemable characters, but we wanted to show that they have an edge, and an agenda of their own, and try to get the people to sympathize with them that way.

TB: Going to college is a big-enough job, and making a feature-length movie is a big-enough job. You’re doing these two things simultaneously. What was that like?

KP: It was actually pretty difficult to juggle at first – especially working around everyone’s schedule. The majority of the actors we used were also enrolled in school at the time and we all had jobs, so the biggest task was just the scheduling. Everything else we were able to take on pretty well, with our schooling as well as the film. It was pretty much living and breathing it, making sure that we were 100-percent dedicated to it the whole way through. And it’s a labor of love, so we really didn’t think it was too much of a burden while we were doing it.

TB: And also, you got this guy….Mark Metcalf! It turns out he’s from Milwaukee, but if you came of age in the ’80s, like I did, he’s got a special place in your memories.

TT: Absolutely. Mark Metcalf played Niedermeyer in “Animal House”, he’s been on “Seinfeld”, he’s been on “Buffy”, and he’s quite a staple in the Milwaukee community, especially in the film and theater community. And so we got to shoot two scenes with him for one day, and it was phenomenal.

See more of Probst, Torok and “The Smart Ones” on Director’s Cut, Friday June 21 at 10 p.m. on Wisconsin Public Television.