Patrick Smith

Patrick Smith is an installation artist, animator and filmmaker. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His formative years were spent as a storyboard artist for Walt Disney, and animation director for MTV's Daria and the Emmy-nominated Downtown.

Role: animator

art

02:02

BOARD SHOP

Hundreds of Skateboards, Snowboards, and Surfboards are choreographed at 24 boards per second into an ebullient montage of flickering imagery, illustrating the history, artistic beauty, and physical consequences of board culture. Patrick Smith created this short film as an homage to his favorite activity and culture. “Board Shop” Juxtaposes hundreds of vintage, classic, and contemporary designs and styles into a trance inducing maelstrom of 24 boards per second imagery. Along for the ride are objects that signify the consequential elements of board culture, namely, broken bones, crutches, and spinal gurneys.. Each object is a historical part of this vibrant world-wide cultural phenomena. Dedicated to all those riders out there, young and old. Healthy and injured. Once in place, the board culture never leaves our DNA, and the tools are forever a part of our collective memory and cultural experience.

art

02:30

CANDY SHOP

Pills and capsules are choreographed into a cacophony of shape, color and size, resulting in a satirical commentary about our cultural, recreational, and economic infatuation with prescription drugs. Percussion by Steve Rice

art

02:13

GUN SHOP

This film shows 2,328 firearms, out of the 393 million currently in the US. Arranged in a dizzying 24 frames per second progression, from handguns to semi-automatic rifles, "Gun Shop" encourages viewers to critically examine America’s love affair with guns. Director Statement: Over the past few years I’ve learned the striking visual power of objects. The every day objects that surround us in our lives, or are displayed in the media, are a credible vehicle for expressing many ideas about our world, if organized to do so. They are very often mundane, but sometimes extraordinary. I discovered that a simple 24 frames per second juxtaposition and choreographed audio sync can bring these objects to life, creating a mesmerizing effect that has the distinct ability to convey complex ideas, and concise visual interpretations of culture, economics, personality and philosophy.

interviews

04:23

David Foster Wallace on Ambition

"If your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything." - David Foster Wallace. Interview by Leonard Lopate.