“Hollywood is an idea, it’s not a location,” actress Bryce Dallas Howard told University of Southern California students Tuesday. And that is exactly what Ron Howard and Canon U.S.A.’s Project Imaginat10n, a collaborative film festival, sets out to prove.

The contest originally asked artists nationwide to submit photographs that were then used to inspire films made by five celebrity directors including the likes of actors Jamie Foxx and Eva Longoria. For the next phase of the Project Imaginat10n campaign, aspiring filmmakers will be challenged to take part in the same creative exercise.

“What I think is exciting about this time in storytelling history is that people all over the world have access to the tools that previously were really only available inside of Hollywood,” Bryce said. This change is largely a result of Canon products that have been revolutionizing filmmaking at the “prosumer” level. Hollywood exists, “but it doesn’t have to exist in Los Angeles, California,” Howard said.

As the daughter of actor-director Ron Howard, and having appeared in hit films such as "Spider-Man 3," "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse," and most recently "50/50" and the Oscar-nominated film "The Help," Howard clearly has it on good authority. Prior to speaking at the event Tuesday night, which was put on by the USC Program Board Speakers Committee in association with Canon U.S.A., Howard spoke exclusively with Neon Tommy about her life and career.

Born in Los Angeles but raised in Connecticut, Howard feels growing up away from the industry was ultimately beneficial. “I got to see the wonderful sides of the business like my dad on set and the community with the crew and the actors,” she said. “But I wasn’t exposed to a lot of industry types on a day to day basis.”

Now with two children of her own, Howard has made the decision to raise her family in Los Angeles thus far, but thinks the industry is less cutthroat than it was in the 80s.  “I feel like there’s more of a community now. I’ve never felt any competitiveness whatsoever with anybody.” But that doesn’t mean she’d be willing to let her kids enter into the business—at least not yet. “When they’re adults,” Howard says. “It’s a huge responsibility to have a child who is a professional…I want to just focus on them being kids.” She adds, “It is a tough business…because you kind of have to develop a thick skin in some ways, and I don’t want my child to have to do that.”

At 17, Howard wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to enter into the industry herself. Though she did theater throughout high school, she considered attending the University of Connecticut to play women’s basketball, but ultimately decided to pursue a double major in acting and writing at New York University. But Howard was never an ordinary student. “One thing that kind of explains something about me was that I didn’t cut school on Senior Cut Day just on principle. I [thought] taxpayers—because I went to public high school—have worked very hard to put me through school. I’m not cutting it!”

Now, Howard is confident with her career choice. “I love to act. I hope I get to act forever. I don’t know how my dad has stepped away from it.” While acting remains the focus, Howard recently directed a short for Lifetime and will be directing an M83 music video for MTV, in addition to having directed the short “when you find me” as part of 2011’s Project Imagin8ion, the first contest put on by Canon and Ron Howard.

For this year’s Project Imaginat10n, contestants will choose 10 photographs from a pool of pre-selected images and will then have to incorporate them into their own original short films. Bryce and Ron Howard will choose five winning films to be showcased at Canon’s Project Imaginat10n Film Festival in fall 2013. Look out for the announcement of the contest and official rules at the Project Imaginat10n website in the upcoming months. In the meantime, Bryce has some advice to share with aspiring filmmakers.

“For me the most important thing is actually staying in school. I’m still enrolled in classes at school. I’m not exaggerating. I’m taking two classes right now. It’s really important for me to contextualize my endeavors through the lens of study.” Another benefit of staying in school? “Dreamkillers” abound! Howard explains, “Finding people who can be dreamkillers—not dreamkillers like your parents, but [dreamkillers] like teachers, mentors, peers, who you really trust, who can challenge you, I think is crucial. And I think that usually in a school environment you find those kinds of people.”

One group of people that had particular significance to Howard was the cast of "The Help."

“That was such a beautiful group of women who I’m still so close with," she said. "Many times I’ve had a great time on set, not very often have things turned out exactly the way they envisioned. That was a circumstance where I had such a raucous, phenomenal time, and then the movie honestly exceeded my expectations so it’s something that I’ll always just be really happy to be a part of.”

Howard shared one last piece of advice with Neon Tommy that she says her father gave to her. “One kind of funny thing that my dad told me about acting was, ‘if you can do anything else, you should probably do that,’ which I think is definitely good advice because you really need to genuinely love it in order to pursue anything in the arts.”

But Bryce encouraged everyone to get involved in Project Imaginat10n. “I really, really, really, hope you try this out,” she said to the students. “It was so rewarding, so liberating. It was very challenging in many ways…I really think it’s worthwhile.”

Surely, Ms. Howard's "imaginat10n" has a lot to offer.

Reach Staff Reporter Mallory Arkin here. Follow her on Twitter here.