SD: Well he's making films that are unlike anything else being done.

JS: I will never cease to have anything but complete respect for Bill because he's independent.

SD: He's it. But is that it? Is that the only venue? He would say yes. He would say, `You gotta do things you can't do otherwise.'

JS: He's the independent who understands the way things get done. But Bill has managed to work his aesthetic into the market without any conflicts. He's got his vision, and he's completely working in the market.

SD: He's driven. His work is consistent and he's done it.

JS: So we've got him on one side and we've got Faith Hubley on, I would say, another side.

SD: But in a very real sense she isn't on the other side. A studio doing TV shows might be better on the other side. Let me try an example: a kid who discovers he can draw reasonably well and spends all his time drawing monsters and car accidents and naked women...and getting off on it. How different is that, not `aesthetically,' but in the long run from someone who makes their own films, magnificent films, that only a hundred and fifty people see?

JS: First of all is that kid an independent animator? I mean, does it matter what audience you reach, or the fact he had something to say? It may just mean getting out something that is inside you like that kid is doing.

SD: Are you saying that all independent animators are essentially masturbatory?

JS: I've always thought so. I know I'd say it of my own work in an instant.

SD: It's not very satisfying, and it's an expensive way to get your rocks off, but how far does that analogy travel? What are you hoping to accomplish?

JS: Well the difference is, whether you show it to three people or a thousand people, if it reaches one of them in a way they can really relate to on a level where they understand something they didn't before, well that's just great.

SD: Michael Sporn told me a long time ago...

JS: There's another independent who's working in the studio system. He's found a niche. It may not be as lucrative a niche as some of these other folks, and at the same time he can compete doing what he's been doing.

SD: Alright, valid. He would always be vocal about saying, 'I am independent' based on the fact that it's all his work, that he runs his entire operation. He didn't have a spouse. He didn't have a trust fund. He didn't have any of that 'cushion' we were talking about.

JS: That makes him more of a self-made man, does it make him more of an independent?

Schnall's self-portrait from Buy My Film! © John Schnall.

SD: That depends on how you're defining 'independent.'

JS: Then let's get back to that again. There's a sense of going your own way without restraints.

DOVAS: That's true of a fugitive criminal, too.

JS: Now is it financial restraints or is it something else? I remember George Griffin dealing with the question of, 'Is my film independent if I have people working on it?' Yes and no.

DOVAS: Do you know anyone who makes the whole film themselves?

JS: I've done it. You've done it. I think that's part of what defines 'independent' that's been lost.

DOVAS: You can arbitrarily set your definition to exclude anyone you want.

JS: What do you mean? I don't think it's arbitrary to say...

DOVAS: But by a definition you are able to make a claim about the relative validity or invalidity of their work versus someone else's. That is setting up a set of parameters that, by definition, lets them fit their own definition in any way that lets them live with themselves.

JS: First of all it's not saying, `Valid or invalid.' It's saying, `Is it independent or not independent?' And of course I'm not saying it's only a yes or no answer. What I'm saying is that the lines have been blurred because things that we just took for granted as independent years ago...