Patrick Smith at work on his latest film, Puppet. All images © Blendfilms.

Independent artist Patrick Smith has animated five award-winning short films, directed several television series and has created striking works of public art. Patrick is also the mind behind a number of imaginative television commercials. A professor and senior thesis advisor at the Pratt Institute in New York, Patrick is involved in teaching a new generation of animators. His latest work, Puppet, recently won major accolades at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.

Dr. Toon: Before you began your career as an independent animator, you started out in television. What were the main differences between directing the more mainstream-styled shows on MTV, such as Daria, and the work you are doing now?

Patrick Smith: First of all, I always wanted to do independent films, but I really didn’t know how, and I wasn’t really good enough to get one started. As a matter of fact, my first film, Drink, I had attempted to get going several times, but I was limited by my own abilities. When I was working in New York with MTV and a couple of other studios, I was really just learning to the point where I could make my own film. When it comes to directing for television, it teaches you a level of production that you never would have known on your own. For anyone who’s ever made a film, there’s a level of organization that you need to be aware of.

Working for television, you really get that because you can be working with a crew of a 100 people and, as a director, you have to make sure that everybody’s on the same page. That taught me how to pull a production together. I now use what I learned on television all the time. As for differences, there’s no one telling you what you can and can’t do. That’s the most important thing. And, related to that, you’re drawing your own characters. I didn’t create the character, Daria, or any of the characters on Downtown or the other shows I worked on. I liked the shows and I liked drawing those characters, they didn’t come from me.

When you do an independent film, it stops with you; if you want to do something, you do it. The final verdict on whether it’s a good film or not is made by the audience. That’s a little scary, because you don’t have an entire studio behind you to filter all your ideas through, but any independent making a film has to go with their own characters and own ideas. It’s your vision.

DT: Some independent animators — Mo Willems, for example — were approached by networks to pitch an animated series. Have you ever had an offer or thought of pitching an animated series yourself?

PS: Yeah, I get offers to pitch series, and maybe I’ll do it someday. I had a pilot a long time ago at MTV, but, like most pilots, it didn’t go anywhere. My problem with pitching, and maybe it’s because I’m an independent and I’m on my own, is that I have to struggle to keep my head above water. I don’t have the time to put into a pitch. If I did have that kind of time, I would just wind up producing another short film.

The pitching system is a bad system though it works for a lot of people. My friend Tom Warburton pitched and pitched and he finally got a really successful show. But I see many talented artists working very hard pitching shows all the time. If they funneled that kind of energy toward making a film, they might have a little something more to show for it.

DT: Did anyone ever tell you that you think like an independent animator?

PS: Yeah! I do want to pitch shows, but what am I going to pitch a show about? A kid show? I don’t know. I have ideas, but they end up being too violent or too artsy. I had an idea for a pantomime show, but who’s going to do that? Cartoon Network, the shows they make, that’s just not how I’d do films. I guess that’s why I don’t pitch; nobody would want it!

Handshake is a perfect example of Smith’s fluid style of animating.

DT: Your last few films seem to have an underlying theme, or at least it seems that way to me. There’s some small, seemingly innocent little thing like a box or a handshake or a little pitcher of liquid or a cute sock puppet, and these innocent little things end up producing life-twisting catastrophes for hapless people. How did this become an interesting theme for you?

PS: I have so many ideas for short films, and they all have a basic similarity. They all have to do with identity. When you deal with the self, there’s a lot of places you can go, because we are such complex things. When I get an idea for a film, a great way to lure the audience in is to make your film approachable from the very beginning. You want to have images that are easy to read and don’t alienate anybody.

One of the struggles that all independent animators have is that you’re dealing with a medium that a majority of people has decided is for children. One way to take advantage of that is, nobody’s intimidated by a cartoon. You can present them with a sock puppet or a handshake, and then you can show them things that “cartoons” don’t. You can get into things like relationships and identity, or even abuse. Those issues aren’t for children. And the imagery that goes along with those types of things, the illustrations I can do for that can become visceral and emotional. I like my films to make a simple statement that doesn’t try to explore too many places and concentrates on one simple emotion.