Jamie Hewlett (Tank Girl) is a big inspiration. At the time I was learning animation, that movie came out and Mike Smith did some great animation, so I started to follow Mike Smith. There wasn’t too much of his work to follow, but Tank Girl and then Natural Born Killers just blew me away. It had an experimental feel to it. He played with lighting, and that was the first time I even thought about lighting a drawing. Smith does fantastic things with light, like flicker the light every other frame. Those are some things I did for Moving Along. Then, I really like some of the comicbook artists like Humberto Ramos (The Spectacular Spider-Man and Revelations); his style is really cool.

From his early to his new film, Puppet, Smith has come to refine his style, creating more realistic facial performances.

DT: Speaking of which, your animation has become more complex and full with each film. Some of Puppet was drawn on “ones” and there are techniques such as silhouette animation. Faces are more realistic and expressive. Talk about the evolution of your style over time.

PS: It feels really good to hear you say that, because it’s something I’m trying to do. I want my characters to get more complex and look better. I’m learning. The better I can draw, the better my films will get; a little more detail, a little more realism, a little more anatomy is something I want to go to. Some of that is just a product of becoming a better animator, and maybe someday I’ll be able to get to exactly what I’m thinking of up on the screen instead of slaving over things that I don’t think are quite there yet.

Anyway, I’m working on several films right now at the same time and I hope to build on Puppet. Jamie Hewlett got me into detail; I’d always stayed away from detail, because in animation you’re brainwashed into staying away from it. It’s something you always seem to hear, and I thought, “But why?” This is a very difficult medium and that’s not going to change, so what’s the big deal? You’re talking about thousands of drawings; why not just draw them with details? In animation, the lowest level of difficulty is still difficult, so why not go all the way? Whether you’re in CG or traditional, it’s difficult.

DT: You are a traditional animator working in 2D. Have you ever considered using computer animation or making CGI a bigger part of your work?

PS: I’m very comfortable in 2D. There’s so much to learn in 2D that my mind hasn’t even reached 3D. I’ve always liked drawings. I’ve seen artists whose 2D drawings aren’t 2D at all, who create depth and feeling and weight. That’s one of the things about Disney animation. If I never learn how to draw, that’s fine — as long as I learn how to give characters weight. One of the most beautiful things, I think, is the idea of a two-dimensional drawing having weight and obeying the laws of physics!

A few years back, there was a whole movement of artists going from 2D to 3D, retraining to work in Maya or whatever. I never understood that, and to this day, I just don’t get it. Did you get into this because it’s a job or because it’s your passion? 2D could die, and I’d still do it. I saw a lot of my colleagues start to work in 3D. Nothing against them, but for me, from the very beginning, I was interested in 2D animation. I’m one of the few people who wasn’t blown away by the ballroom scene in Beauty and the Beast. Pixar’s films are wonderful, but that’s not what I do.

Design work from Smith’s work-in-progress, Masks.

DT: One of your next films will be based on prison interviews and will be your first film with dialogue. What were the challenges in making a film that is different from your other work?

PS: I’ve done some dialoguing in the commercial world, but I guess that dialoguing is something I got into when reading research for a story on the lives of prison inmates. I got the idea when I was really into the OZ series on HBO. I thought, “This is a harsh reality that nobody talks about.” I started doing research and got 15 or so pen pals that are currently in prison. I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time; I was just following an interest and I started drawing these characters that stared to take on personalities and demand even more research.

I’ve been working on this film for four years now. I started drawings and tests about a year ago and did recordings with some actors, and then I did a recording with a real prisoner. I didn’t know how I was going to treat it. This prison film is very difficult for me, and it might not even be my next film. Illustrating these characters and the things that they’re saying is very challenging. These characters are going to be hyper-realistic; when you’re listening to a real inmate talking about how harsh and brutal prison is, you have to illustrate that character very honestly or else it won’t work.

DT: Can you talk about the teaching and instructing you do at the Pratt Institute at New York?

PS: I’ve been teaching at Pratt for two years now. A year ago, I took over the Pratt senior thesis class from George Griffin. Teaching is a funny thing; I didn’t like it at first. I really did it because I had never tried it before. I had talked at schools but had never taught a class, and after the first semester, I didn’t think I was going to come back. But I did, and it ended up growing on me, because students have a level of enthusiasm that you don’t see very often in the professional world. For me, it was very inspiring to work with these kids, and I ended up becoming one of the class. I think I might even learn more than they do because it forces you to go over all the principles of animation.