People like to steal Patrick Smith’s artwork. When he’s not working on his film festival lauded independent animations or pouring over commercial work, Smith produces high art meant for exhibition on New York City streets. The long and narrow paintings, usually of people standing one on the other, interconnected and dependent upon the others’ strength, decorate street signs. It’s a compliment, we guess, that they are taken almost as quickly as they are installed.

“I went to a party and saw a bunch of them in someone’s loft down here in Tribeca,” Smith starts. “I had mixed feelings about it. I was psyched, but at the same time I was a little like, “Darn it. I wish those were still out in the street.”

“Did you say anything to the host?”

“Yeah, yeah. He was psyched, but those were his, he really figured since he took them off the poles—which is tough because I installed it with tamper-proof hardware.”

Fortunately, the rest of Smith’s work remains in mainstream vernacular from the shorts Handshake and Puppet to his creation of the much beloved and expressive Zoloft character. Equal parts innocence and darkness, Smith's independent works, as he often remarks, question the lines of identity and emotion. While his characters always transcend their fears and obsessions, they jump high emotional hurdles, and much of the time they do so without grace. It’s this awkwardness that so accurately reflects real emotion, and hidden under that realism, there’s hope.

SM: One thing that occurred to me, specifically when I was watching Drink, was the idea of the collective unconscious and what it is that the human spirit is made of, and so I was wondering where you come from with that idea of self and the collective identity.

PS: I would agree. Drink--that’s exactly what it’s about. It’s the idea that there are a multitude of personalities within one person; one person can take on different roles, whether it’s a superhero, a very old person, a priest.

The original title of the film was All Kinds of People, which is a horrible title, and I moved away from it. But, that original title says a lot of what’s it’s about—the idea of all kinds of people coming out of a single host.

SM: Is it that one person can contain multiplicities or that all people are essentially the same? I think those two concepts are different.

PS: It’s a very diverse concept. It is very much that all people are the same. Every single type of person you meet—you have a little bit of that personality in you. It’s just a matter of the circumstances that it comes out. Also, I really think that people are complex, and in order to illustrate that with animation—the best way to illustrate it with animation—was to have people crawling out of each other.

SM: I know you’ve talked about this before: playing with this really innocent image and making the image as accessible as possible. Then all the sudden these images turn metaphysical, a questioning of philosophical understandings. How do you go about, in your head, knowing, “I’m starting with this innocent image, and now I have to turn it and change it?”

PS: That’s the easy part if you ask me. They are basically just illustrations of emotion, and hand-drawn animation happens to be very good at that. There are not many restrictions when you’re just sitting there drawing. That said, when you go about illustrating these types of things, you can’t just blurt it out. You have to anchor it in some type of reality. That’s why my films tend to be packaged in a realistic type of setting...You can’t just start with this abstraction. You have to start with some type of character that the audience can grab onto.

SM: One thing that’s recurring in the work is this idea of things coming up and overwhelming a character…Is it conceptually that ideas get overwhelming or life itself gets overwhelming?

PS: I don’t think it’s life. It’s more specific than that. It’s a specific emotion. Whenever you’re dealing with the individual and then emotion, that’s an epic contrast right there. The individual is very small. When you’re illustrating emotion, that’s a huge thing, and that’s why I always go to the abstract for that, to express that. It’s not like you can express it in realistic terms. For example, in Handshake, in order to express that emotion, I literally had to make it a visceral reaction, almost go inside the characters. That’s why that one abstract part almost looks like internal organs and the twisting of your stomach.

SM: Two other really big pieces that make all this work: the first is music…In Drink, we get a very tribal music whereas in Moving Along, you’re working with The Planets’ hip-hop. How do you go about working with music?

PS: Those are two very different ways to do it…When I listened to Moving Along, I realized just how visual music can be. I listened to it, and I just plugged the images in. For that reason, I had a pretty simple time with that video. Now, the other films, every other film, it’s the reverse. Usually I finish the film in pencil tests, and I remotely have some music in mind. The composer gets the rough cut, and he composes to the animation. So, it’s quite different.

(Drink composer Karl von Kries and I) went to the store and got lettuce, bokchow and all these other different things and just recorded breaking them and cracking them, and he actually created a rhythm out of that. So, it was a highly experimental sound. Drink is such an overwhelmingly abstract film that it worked well, and it’s also very [consistently abstract].

The other films Handshake and Puppet are way more complex than that. They have their ups and downs, and they have their climaxes. The classic track that was used takes advantage of that.

SM: That other big piece I was drawn to was the characters’ faces. How do you go about creating the faces and then watching these faces change?

PS: I’ve always thought that there was more quality in subtlety than in exaggeration when it comes to characters’ expressions. There is such a fine line between, when you have your character on the screen, him thinking about different emotions. It’s really important for me, when I’m looking at a character—I want him to just be sitting there, thinking things through. The opposite would be the character reacting and a light bulb going on over his head. That’s so on the nose. I’m not interested in that. I’d like that subtlety to come through just with a slight head turn.

SM: Now, here’s a bigger question: The term that kept popping into my head when watching the films was ‘exploration’ and obviously exploration directly, as we’ve already talked about, of identity and emotion, but also in terms of exploration just as in taking chances. What is it that you’ve explored in your life and learned about yourself in this whole journey you’ve gone through?

PS: I think that’s really well represented by my films. Every filmmaker—your films inherently have your personal experiences in it. As far as exploration goes, making a film is an illustration of that directly. Every artist has their own journey that they take on, and I think you really don’t have to look much farther than their work to see where that led them or is leading them.

SM: Really? I feel like some artists try to create a separation or barrier between where they’re coming with their work and where they’re coming with their lives.

PS: I’m not one of those. If you’re trying to separate it, you may as well stop trying because it will end up seeping into your work. I can’t think of any examples off-hand of either case…You inevitably put yourself in your films, and oftentimes your main character becomes yourself or someone that you’re really familiar with.

SM: It’s kind of a contentious topic, but what is the overall purpose of art? If you’re saying, “Even if I’m trying not to, I’m putting myself into my art,” does art then become an extension of self-discovery? Is that the necessary end point, or are there purposes perhaps that are beyond that self-discovery?

PS: I’ve always just looked at it that art is communication. It’s just a language, and we all have a lot to say obviously. For some reason, the creative person seems to want to talk a lot. (Laughing) That’s the whole point: to create this language between others and yourself. That’s how I see art.

SM: You talk about this language of art as being one that you want to become progressively fluent in, and it was a point made in the Martin Goodman interview, that progressively with each film you’re getting more detailed. Where would you gage your art language fluency right now?

PS: I’ve only been doing this for a little over a decade. Actually, I’ve only been making films for seven years, so I’m new at it. I really do believe in that learning curve. When you’re dealing with a medium like animation, it’s highly technical and very difficult. It’s a medium that requires a lot of study, and just like language, you really do have to learn how to speak. That is a lifelong journey of itself outside of content. Content is another thing, emotion is another thing, and putting them together is the point. Technically it’s really frustrating when you can’t illustrate what you want. That 100 percent is just a craft that you have to learn. I’ve never been a huge fan of modern or experimental art where I think they ignore that, ignore the craft behind it. For me, you have to be clear about things. You owe the audience that. If you’re not clear, then you’re not speaking to everybody, everybody isn’t going to get it or you’ll just get ignored, which is a nightmare for an artist. You want that reaction, and in order to get that reaction, you have to be able to draw in terms of the animation or in terms of the 2D character animation like I’ve chosen to use.

I’m on that quest. That’s why I admire things like Milt Kahl’s characters from Sword in the Stone. He brought the detail and the craft to such a level that I look at that film, and I’m like, “What I’m going to be able to do when I get to that level, the ideas I’m going to be able to convey, the complexities I’m going to be able to illustrate!” I can’t wait, and that’s what keeps a lot of artists going I think.

SM: I so admire that you’re not afraid of that learning curve. So many artists get overwhelmed by it, don’t want to tackle it and stay in whatever style they’ve developed or within boundaries. (Luc Besson) said that filmmakers should only make ten films, and I think he actually last year just made his tenth film. Now apparently he’s not going to make anymore because he feels like artists, or particularly filmmakers, have done all they’ll do it ten films. If they haven’t said what they were going to say in ten films, it won’t be said.

PS: I don’t know about that. I think most painters I know would disagree with that. I see films as bodies of work. For example, I think Puppet was my last film in one body of work. Maybe, if he’s right, I’ll only do ten bodies of work, but I definitely wouldn’t separate it by film, especially for a short filmmaker that doesn’t make a lot of sense. How are you going to make a living on ten films, you know? Painters create hundreds and thousands of paintings in a lifetime.

For some reason, I always compare animation more to painting than I do to film. I think a lot of filmmakers should look a little more at painting. Not to grab an example out of the air, but I know Ridley Scott draws a lot of his inspiration from classical painting.

SM: Now, that was your background originally. How did you get into drawing and painting in the first place?

PS: I was halfway through college before I even got into art at all. The college that I went to didn’t have animation at all, so I just did studio art, and I got into painting that way. Then I tried to go to animation school. I applied to CalArts which is known to be a good animation school. I applied twice actually, and I got rejected both times. That was around the time that I could graduate from UMass Amherst, and I just said, “I’m going to have to teach myself this.” So, I moved to New York, and I learned on the job.

SM: I imagine that must have been terrifying.

PS: Well, it sucked…Ironically I’ve gone to some of these colleges that I really wanted to go to to do lectures, and one college that rejected me offered me a teaching job. It was ironic I thought. At the same time, I look at these students, and I’m really envious of the situation that they’re in. I always really wanted to be taught, and no one would teach me. So, I kind of skipped that whole part of my life, and I really feel like it’s taken me twice as long at least to figure this stuff out.

SM: If you think about it though all those students must be so envious of you. I’m sure they’re all in the position of wanting to be able to have the gusto or motivation to teach themselves.

PS: I don’t think there’s a huge quality to being self-taught. You end up at the same place. It just takes you longer.

I teach now, and one of the things I always remind myself is, “Tell the students things you wish someone had told you.” And, that’s a lot. There are so many simple, little things that you can point out that would have taken them years to discover on their own. There’s no reason to wait if someone can just tell you it. It’s just a lot quicker, and you can get going.

SM: Can you give me an example of those quick details that people should know?

PS: Most of them are very technical when you’re deep into animation technique. It would take me a while to explain those type of things. But, a little less specific than that, no one ever told me how important inspiration was— in other words, clinging on to other artists for inspiration. I didn’t fully get into that until recently, and you go so much faster when you latch onto people who are doing things that you want to be doing.

Others things: no one ever told me how important it was to keep a daily sketchbook. A little thing like that will speed you up so quickly. Matter of fact, I didn’t know how to draw. I was pretty appalling in my draftsmanship, and about two or three years into keeping a daily sketchbook—that I started for the heck of it, no one told me to—I’d improved tremendously.

SM: What’s that line between inherent talent and practice makes perfect?

PS: I go back-and-forth on that. I’ve never been one to think—Well, now looking back on it and also working with other artists, it’s never the super-talented that accomplish great things. It’s always the people that are passionate and know what they’re doing. It goes back to the learning curve. The fact of the matter is, if you keep your learning curve steep, you will be great technically. You will be competent. If you have just incredible talent but your learning curve isn’t steep, you will be surpassed by the people that didn’t have talent. It’s just a matter of time.

I saw that happen. Matter of fact, when I moved to New York, there were people who just blew me away, and now I look back on it, and I realize that I’ve successfully surpassed their technical skill level. It’s a really great thing to look back on, and that’s the key, the learning curve.

SM: [During another interview, I was having a conversation with Noelle Vaccese, currently an assistant to Smith], and she said that you’d mentioned that there’s no really original idea. What’s original about the idea is the way the artist talks about it. So, even if you’re directly pulling inspiration from other artists, it will always be your own voice because that’s the way you’ve synthesized their ideas.

PS: Absolutely, unless you’re not putting any thought into it. If you’re just copying someone, that’s different, but if you really study someone and then take that and do your own artwork with thought and time, it will inevitably be your own.

Originality will come. It’s not something that you have to stress over. A lot of people are so concerned with being original that they forget that there’s an entire tradition of art history that they’re not taking into consideration. If you study art history, you will inevitably become an original artist but a hell of a lot stronger because it’s based on something so solid. That’s where my traditionalist art views come from.

SM: I’ve glossed over a lot of your early work with MTV, the Zoloft commercials.

PS: I loved the career I had—well, it’s still going—before I had my own studio. I learned a lot from MTV. I was there for quite some time and also a few other studios in New York. Like I said I didn’t go to school for animation so it was really important for me to learn it like that. I worked with incredible artists, and I learned from the bottom up. I went from design to layout to storyboard to directing and then to directing commercials. That led me to my first independent film, creating my own films and being able to be on my own. I think it’s key, and I love commercials. I still do commercials. They pay for more than half of the overhead at my studio.

I’m never going to be the artist that comes down on commercial work. It puts you together with other creative people; you can test a lot of techniques; the money’s good; it’s a good job.

SM: When you’re approached with commercial work, where’s the first place you begin to think about it?

PS: In what part?

SM: In the sense that when you’re working on your own films, you generally, stylistically know where you want to go, but when you’re approached with commercial work, a lot of times you have to think outside what you would do on your own.

PS: Absolutely. It depends on the client. Most of my clients come to me because I do what I do. I have that look, they want that and it works really well. But, when you’re doing a commercial it’s not your thing. They’re paying the bills, and so you have to accommodate anything they want. I think a lot of artists have trouble with that, but I never have; maybe it’s because I came from a more commercial background.

You’re being hired to sell something. You’re not making art. You’re not doing anything as legitimate as an independent film, but who said that’s bad?

SM: Last big questions: What is one question about your artwork, your animation that you’ve always wanted to be asked but never have been?

PS: When I’m at a typical Q&A, I love it when people ask me about things like the music, things that I actually didn’t have much to do with. I’m very much in awe of music. I’m not a musician, but as a filmmaker, you’re forced to deal with music. It’s such a powerful element in a film, and I think it’s one of the most enjoyable parts of making the film: dealing with musicians, working with these professionals. I just love it so much, so I love it when people ask me about the music.

Other things in that realm, I love it when people ask me the technical questions…You’re average person, when they see an animated film, they don’t understand that they’re looking at 24 drawings per second. I tell people from Puppet that it has more than 5,000 drawings in it. It’s hard to imagine even for me, and I generated those drawings. It’s hard to come to terms with that, but it’s true. You can look at Puppet as a flipbook, as a stack of drawings, and it’s almost a foot high of drawings. That’s a pretty cool way to make a film if you ask me.

SM: How in the heck did you do 5,000 drawings in the time it would take a student to do a senior thesis? [Smith began Puppet to coincide with a class he taught at the Pratt Institute. Senior thesis production runs extend for approximately one year.]

PS: There’s a secret about animation, and this goes for a lot of other art forms that are highly technical. You don’t go at it like, “I’m going to make an animated film.” You pick it apart. You go, “I’m going to make a storyboard for a film,” and a storyboard for a film is very doable. The next step is, “Alright, I’m going to do all my layouts for each scene.” Once you finish all your layouts, you can go, “I’m going to start animating these scene by scene.” There’s nothing un-doable about animating a single scene of a film. Then all the sudden you realize that your film is almost done. Then you start coloring, and it starts to roll and you’re done with your film. That’s the only way that you’re going to finish something as technical as animated film. If you look at it as the whole piece finished, you’ll never even start.

For more information visit www.blendfilms.com or read his blog here.

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