SD: Life happens. But do you think that real life precludes independent film making?

JS: Absolutely not. I've always said that I'm not going to make a film just because I can. I always want to make a film only when I have something to say.

SD: I felt the same way.

JS: ...even if what I have to say is as simple as, 'Isn't this funny?' I mean really, my films Norma And Milton, Grim, I had no concern about if there would be work coming from them. Jobs were an inconvenience while I worked on the films.

SD: It's your addiction.

JS: I didn't have much more of a financial cushion than I do now. I could do it now, but I don't have that burning desire to say what I have to say. I said what I said in Frankenstein and the films since have been kind of redundant.

SD: Okay, then what's different now?

JS: Good question. I'm not sure I have an answer. In a way I really do need to fall in love with an idea to keep doing it. While I have ideas of things I want to do, I haven't fallen in love with an idea to want to do it enough.

SD: Are you in love with the idea of working on Doug or PB & J?

JS: No but that's different...

SD: So what happens now?

JS: What happens now is: do I sit around and wait for it, or just pursue what I am pursuing, and hope that kind of enthusiasm comes up again? It's the whole difference between making a film no matter how stupid it is just because it is something you want to say, and making a film because, `Look what I can do with my style and look at how much money you should invest in me!' is blurred and blurred and blurred to the point where it is almost pointless.

SD: I would argue with you. It's not blurred. I think it's even clearer.

JS: Really?

SD: I think it's so crystal clear right now that all these kids in my classes, and many of the adults we work with, want to make the best film they can make, in their own style, so someone'll hand them the US$2.5 million contract like this kid [Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy] at Fox.

JS: But how many people are making that film that really communicates something? No one cares.

SD: But do you think that the film that this guy made that got him Family Guy was a heartfelt example of an artist's expression?

JS: No, I don't, but what was? Recently? That's my point. Maybe that distinction is clear.

SD: Maybe Frog Baseball was as heartfelt an expression as Mike Judge was capable of making. He did all right by it. And he made it independently. George Lucas is an independent filmmaker, just to further confuse the issue.

JS: Yeah. You could argue that Matt Groening is an independent for having managed to keep an original idea consistent from his mind to the TV screen.

SD: Whoa, whoa, whoa...Do you think there's anyone who looks at Matt Groening and sees an independent filmmaker? I don't know that he sees himself as a filmmaker. Am I an independent filmmaker? I haven't had a staff job doing animation in the last ten years. Now, I've worked for reasonably big studios doing commercial stuff, I've done my own stuff, I've done commercial stuff that's started and ended with me. Thankfully, I'm always busy...I'm reasonably comfortable, even on my modicum of talent. Is that independence?

JS: Am I an independent filmmaker? I've spent so many years making films that I've considered independent, but I look at them now and think that I see a certain point where it was less pure than it was at another earlier point...

The dream sequence from Schnall's Frankenstein. © John Schnall.

SD: When was it less pure? When did it become less pure?

JS: Frankenstein.

SD: Why? Frankenstein is the greatest film no one's ever seen.

JS: It was the last pure film, where I wasn't thinking of commercial considerations. It's a gradual shift. What I'm asking is, we can both define ourselves as independent animators, or not define ourselves as independent animators. Where is it that we draw the line now?