By Dan Forgione

The Big Apple is well known for it’s independent animation scene, where both young animators and seasoned professionals make a living jumping from project to project, and studio to studio; taking on numerous roles with each new production.

These artists spend their precious, spare moments feverishly writing, directing, animating, editing, and producing their own, animated short films. Though many succeed in completing such hefty endeavors, only a few stand out and obtain the notoriety of being amongst the best Independent Animators NYC has to offer.

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with one of NY’s finest indie-animators, Patrick Smith, at his TriBeCa studio, Blend Films, where we discussed how he got into animation, what he’s learned along the way, and how it’s influenced the production of his upcoming short, Masks, which is due to release this summer.

Patrick, who has made five award-winning films since 2001, began his career in animation 15 years ago at MTV where he made his directorial debut for the Emmy nominated series Downtown and then the popular animated series, Daria. Since starting Blend Films nine years ago, Smith has successfully transitioned to commercial work with one of his more familiar spots, featuring a simple yet cleverly designed character for the anti-depressant drug, Zoloft.

Aside from working on his films, and directing commercials, Patrick is also a Senior Thesis advisor at the Pratt Institute in NY, and he has earned rave reviews with his fine art, which is currently represented internationally by CVZ Contemporary Gallery in NY.

So without further ado, here is the trailer for Pat’s 6th animated short, Masks, and Part 1 of my 2-part interview with Patrick. Enjoy!

DAN: Did you start animating straight out of college?

PATRICK: Well, I graduated from the University of Massachusetts and I didn’t major in animation. I actually studied painting. They didn’t have much animation at UMass. So after I graduated, I fiddled around with animation and I sent this pencil test to MTV – these heads opening and revealing other heads. About a month later, they called and said they wanted to produce it, which was my first job, ever. I didn’t really know how to animate so I kind of freaked out. But it was cool because it was kind of a perfect transition. I got my rejection letter from Cal Arts the same day MTV called me to do the spot. So it was this symbolic rift. I think then I realized that no one was going to teach me how to do this.

I had to do it the New York way instead – in this independent world where you take on the whole production yourself.

And after I did the MTV spot I moved to New York, and because of a few of the contacts I had made I managed to get a job working on Beavis and Butthead doing layout. At the time in New York, and I suppose it’s still similar, there were a bunch of studios you’d jump around to, like I did from doing layout on Beavis and Butthead and then I storyboarded on Doug. I also did designs somewhere else. Finally after years and years of this I just, for lack of a better term, climbed to director status. That’s when I started directing television series. From there I started doing commercials, which allowed me to open up my own shop.

DAN: When you were growing up, did you have ambitions of being a Disney animator?

PATRICK: No, I didn’t know what animation was until my last semester in college. I’m envious of people that get into art and animation early on, because I wasn’t even the artist in my family. No one really knew I was into art when I grew up.

Here’s how it happened – I was at the college library looking through books when I stumbled across Illusion of Life, and I had this epiphany. I was so drawn to Walt Disney and what he had accomplished and the idea of this incredible approachability of animation. It was like the art world, except it wasn’t pretentious. It had just enough entertainment in it and the idea of seeing your drawings move was just so cool.

Before that day, I was into snowboarding and skateboarding and I was actually thinking I would be in college for five years. Then, right after I read that book, everything changed. I got out of college as quickly as possible and tried to transfer to Cal Arts. Two years later, I was living in New York City.

DAN: Can you tell us a little about how Masks came to be?

PATRICK: Well, there was an earlier version of the film, which just wasn’t working. It was interview based, where I was interviewing people on the street. That didn’t work. And killed me. So, basically, I was just sitting here thinking of ways to salvage this, cause I did like the imagery. And Karl von Kries who did the audio for Drink, was actually one of people that told me to scrap the idea. He’s like, “it’s not working, just get out while you can. You’ll spend another year doing a film that won’t even be that good.” And that kind of hit me.

So I reminded Karl of when I did that music video, Moving Along, and how easily the imagery came to me. Music is a very visual medium. You don’t think of it that way, but when you listen to music you get distinct ideas and images in your head, and this is what the Fantasia artists did. They listened to the music and just translated it. And I’m willing to bet, they were surprised how easy it was, because you get distinct imagery.

I approached Karl and said, “I still want to make a kickass film. I still want to push the content boundaries. I hate cartoons. I don’t want this to be a cartoon. I want it to be more cinematic. I want it to be aggressive and I want to have really sharp imagery – imagery with a bite.” And asked him to “create a soundtrack you think that would conjure up those kinds of images and a story.”
I had chucked the original idea for Masks out the window and all I had left was a bunch of loose characters with no place. So Karl took a month off and he just worked on it. And, unfortunately it came out to around nine minutes long, but since I told him to do it, I had to stick to the God damned length of it. And he took it really seriously. When he composed it he thought of imagery that would set tones and he made story arcs, even though there is no story, he created the music to tell this type of story. He didn’t really even know what it was at the time, but he knew that there was progression from each movement of the music to the other.

So I went out to Pismo Beach where he works. We listened to it, and had a brainstorming session. The images just started to come out and we realized that it was a struggle between classes and how one is dominating the other. And I was just drawing. I drew hundreds of sketches that night. Then I went home and did an animatic of the sketches I did and then he flew here and we had a session right here. I showed him my rough story line, and he explained what his interpretation of the music was, and together we carved out a really good story.

DAN: And what role do the masks play in the film?

PATRICK: They represent this masked identity, which is really a symbol for all of us. Who knows what we are underneath? We all walk around with these other identities which are exploiting a more innocent identity. In the end, it is really a story about exploitation, overuse and ultimately justice.

It’s definitely the most complex story I’ve ever told. It’s also the most complex imagery I’ve ever worked with.

DAN: You had said Masks originally started with interviews you were doing on the street. Can you tell us more about that process?

PATRICK: We had a 1-800 number and we plastered New York City, mostly downtown, with signs of a drawing of a guy with a mask. And it said, “Do you wear a mask? Call 1-800…”
We got some crazy calls, and then narrowed it down to five or six calls that were pretty entertaining. But, I think my problem was that there was no point behind it. And sometimes when you finish a film you rush into another idea without fully thinking about it. And I think that’s what happened to me. It was like just throwing money at a problem. And I think it’s a fairly typical way of exploration. Good ideas don’t just come up; they really come with trial and error. And I just got hit hard with this one. [Laughs]

DAN: In terms of production, what has been your process on Masks?

PATRICK: Masks is pretty much identical to my other films in terms of process. Well, Puppet we did a little differently, but Masks is traditionally drawn on paper. We scan it, color it in Photoshop and then composite in After Effects. And backgrounds are going to be painted in acrylic. It’s the traditional, straight-forward way to make a film. I still use exposure sheets. [Laughs] I’m kind of a holdover. But I’m not interested in re-inventing the wheel here. I’m interested in using a proven technique. And I’m lucky enough that it’s not a technique that’s commonly used these days.

DAN: So Masks hasn’t been too much different than your other films, production wise, but since Drink, have you come across any new or different hurdles?

PATRICK: What changes for me is just learning the process. When I did Drink, I had no idea about anything. I didn’t know how to put together a scene and I didn’t know how to direct. I was starting to understand how things moved but back then I was just relying on abstract imagery.

The hardest things to animate are the realistic things – the things that nobody notices. Which is good, because they shouldn’t notice them They should just know it works. If you have a character walk across the room and you do it flawlessly, no one will notice it. But if you do it wrong, people will think: what the hell was that? It’s this bizarre thing. For me that’s the big change. My shots have gotten more interesting and I have just gotten to know more about space and weight, and how to use them in terms of storytelling.

Also, generally speaking, my characters are getting more realistic and more detailed. Working in animation poisons your work. When you are drawing Doug all day, your characters will inevitably look like Doug. I was lucky to have the positive influence of working on Downtown. It brought my work to a place where I wanted it to go as opposed to Doug, which is more cartoony. I want to get less cartoony. Masks I think sums that up. It’s not a very rounded film. It’s a sharp film. It’s a hard film. And that’s where I want to go.

DAN: Right. So going through this process with Masks, as you come toward the end of it, what have been some of the challenges?

PATRICK: The biggest challenge is learning how to draw. I don’t think I’ll ever know how to draw. It’s a struggle for me. I was never a natural, gifted artist. The thing that I learned is that you can teach yourself how to do it.

For example, I used to hate to draw hands. I couldn’t friggin’ figure them out. So for a year straight, I literally drew hands in my sketchbook, pages and pages of hands. I probably drew 10,000 hands. By the end of it, I really started to understand how they work and now they are my favorite things to draw. It’s weird how that works.

DAN: So are you going to life drawing classes and doing drawings from life?

PATRICK: Oh yeah, I’ve been doing life drawing since I moved to New York. Signe Baumane and me do it once a week here in Soho.

DAN: As far as the way you feel about your drawing abilities, how has it influenced your work and your ability to balance your life as an independent animator, producing your own work as well as commercial work?

PATRICK: I think the more comfortable you get with drawing, the easier things get. There aren’t a heck of a lot of people who can go to a pre-production meeting for a commercial or something and just draw stuff. People appreciate it and it makes everybody’s life easier when someone can draw. It’s amazing how many commercial directors can’t draw. Even in animation. And as far as film making, it makes film process easier. You automatically elevate the challenges.

Occasionally I’ll draw something that I’m pretty happy with, which is very rare, but that’s a good feeling. And I’m a firm believer in keeping a sketchbook. I look back at my old sketchbooks a lot and I often realize that I have improved a lot. I’m horrified of my learning curve flattening out. And maybe it did. Maybe a couple years there it did flatten out a little. I think it’s steep again. But it’s all a matter of challenging yourself. You get into a rut and you start doing the same thing over and over again. That curve won’t stay steep. And that curve is the most important thing in the world. No matter where you are, the person with the steepest curve will end up ahead of everybody else.

When I first moved to NY and worked at MTV, there was another layout artist that was so good. I was blown away with his ability to draw and I used to Xerox his drawings and collect them. Five years later, I was going through old stuff and found a pack of his drawings and I realized that the stuff I was doing now was beyond what he was doing then. And he’s kind of doing the same stuff right now – his learning curve wasn’t steep. That made me realize what’s possible.

DAN: Outside of reading book and watching films, what are some of the things you do to challenge yourself?

PATRICK: For me, there are two ways to keeping the learning curve steep – drawing all the time and pushing yourself.

What you just described is a different category – it’s inspirational: watching movies, reading books, meeting people and going to film festivals. Inspirational is useless without an actual application. If you’re inspired after seeing a movie and you immediately go to bed, then you didn’t get anything out of that movie. If you go home and force yourself to draw for an hour – then you got something out of it. The bottom line is – you can look at as many Jamie Hewlett comics as you want. You won’t be able to draw like him.

For me, this is a struggle to practice what I preach, but you have to draw all the time to keep that learning curve. And you have to draw things that challenge you. If you can’t set up shots, read a Hitchcock book and then open your sketchbook and set up some shots. Again, inspirational execution
Then there’s pushing yourself. For example, in the last few months my film was pushing me. The shots that I’ve got myself into are more difficult than I can actually do, which is a great thing. [Laughs] When you design an animated shot and you think: how the hell am I going to animate this – you’re on the right track.

DAN: So what are some of the challenges in Masks that are pushing you?

PATRICK: Animation is difficult. It’s going to be hard, therefore why not just do it the most difficult way you can? It does make sense, [Laughs] and what happened is I designed very detailed characters and now I am paying the price for that. I’m like, oh my God, why did I have to put a little tiny zipper on every single character. And why do I have stitching on all their pants, on the side and in the inseam? I don’t know, but now that I did it I can’t really stop doing it.

So I finish a scene and I spend maybe 20 minutes adding stitching on the character. I could have been doing something else, but it does require added effort.

DAN: Does this design complexity help the storytelling?

PATRICK: Once Karl and I saw the final design of these characters, it allowed us to come up with a more complex meaningful story. I think the story has some killer content, and I think that directly relates to the design of the character. And the music is twisted and warped and complex. It’s not stuff that you are just going to sit back and watch and think “that was great.” It’s like: “Wow, what just happened?” Well, hopefully that will be the affect.

DAN: And finally, when can we all see Masks?

PATRICK: My deadline was like two years ago. No, I think realistically, it will be wrapped up by this summer.

That’s the end of Part 1 of the Patrick Smith interview. Keep your eyes peeled for Part 2 – coming very soon exclusively at Lineboil.com.

For those of you who will be in town Thursday night, there will be an Opening Reception for Patrick at the Kaufman Arcade, with drinks, where you will be able to check out some of his recent paintings. And if you can’t make it then, you’ll have until May 4th to check it out. Here are the details:

Patrick Smith: Recent Paintings
Opening Reception for the Artist:
Thursday, March 26, 6:30-10pm
At the Kaufman Arcade
139 West 35th St., New York City.
(Between 7th Ave. & Broadway)

The complete Press Release.

Dan is a character animator currently living in Yonkers, NY with his wife. Dan currently freelances as a director, producer and animator. His work can be seen at danforgione.com.