A Word With Don Hertzfeldt

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Interview by Doug Mickley

Don Hertzfeldt is an artist that people don’t just talk about knowing, they brag about knowing. He captures real life moments, and emotions, that would usually get lost in animation. By the end of his films you find yourself questioning your job, girlfriend, god, and any of the cool stuff you used to like.
 
Patiently drawing each frame by hand, and creating all his visual effects with a vintage film camera, Don Hertzfeldt tells stories that absorb you with a forceful simplicity. Recently releasing a new DVD containing all his works since high school, and on the verge of completing his new trilogy, I managed to interrupt his busy schedule to ask him a few questions about his thoughts, and the new films.
 
 
After watching the documentary 'watching grass grow' on your DVD, a time lapse film showing you drawing your film 'the meaning of life', I was almost ready to rip my own hair out. How many more years have you got in you making this kind of painstakingly laborious animation before you go crazy?

towards the end of each movie i'm drained and hollow and always seem to go through an "i'm never doing this again" phase, but that usually wears off after a couple weeks and i go leaping blindly right into the next one. i've got a pretty bad memory and maybe that helps reset me to a happy blank slate at the start of each project. i'm not sure if that's depressing or not.  i've got no patience for people, people wear me out fast, but i seem to be a good personality match for this kind of slow-motion patient work and the kind of slow-motion patient life it requires. i don't feel especially self-discplined, if anything i usually feel really lazy and wishing i could get more work done. but i still get excited by the ideas, and it's enough to carry me through as the months pile on.  i've started building some larger projects that will require a crew of artists and some new elements for me to play with and maybe shake things up. but at the end of the day the freedom of doing the shorts is what i've always wanted to do, you're making the movies you want on your own terms, and the constant fear of losing that is a good motivator to hurry up and make as many of them while i still can.  
 
 
 
As a film student, have you ever been close to pushing aside animation and just picking up a video camera to create your films? 
 
i had the opposite experience, i actually had every intention of being a live action director in school but i never realized how expensive that was, i just couldn't afford it. i also found that no matter how much money the other kids would pour into their live action stuff they always just looked like student films. even if you found a really good crew, you could still never get around the fact that you had to shoot it in some kid's backyard or on campus somewhere and all your actors are 19 years old. i had made dozens of little VHS cartoons years before i got to university, but i don't think it dawned on me right away to carry that over to film until i realized how much more control i'd have. and animation was all i could afford to do there anyway, because you needed to buy far less film stock and could conceivably work alone. in my first year there i remember being a bit surprised that i could actually animate my student films for credit, drawing just seemed like playtime to me, animating was something i already did.

You have never had a job before. Obviously you're fortunate to have carved a career where you can survive on your art, but have you ever felt that perhaps having a horrible, spirit crushing 9-5 position may be beneficial artistically to your style of comedy?
 
no, independent film is plenty spirit-crushing. i work much harder on the films than i ever would in a 9-5 position, it's seven days a week with no holidays.
 

 

Your most recent film, ‘Everything will be OK’, is the first in a trilogy. The second part, ‘I am so proud of you’ is due to be released this year. Is the final chapter a priority or will you begin work on something else first?
 
it's something i'm thinking about right now, i'm not sure whether to leap right into chapter 3 this year or put something else in front of it first.  i've been developing a new thing for tv that was supposed to come up next, but we're looking at delays now that have kinda jumbled my calendar. so i'm not sure... chapter 3 is still mostly unwritten other than a broad outline, so there's a lot for me to do there before i can pick up the pencil again. i was thinking of maybe relaxing and doing a few quick dumb cartoons like the three i did between rejected and meaning of life, though i don't know exactly what i'd do with them.  but who knows, everything could change in a week.  just today i had an interesting idea for a new direction that would open the door for doing further chapters beyond part 3.  on the other hand,  i'm surprised at how much i like the end of i am so proud of you, and in a way i think it could actually serve as a satisfying end to everything if chapter 3 somehow never wound up happening.
 
I've been a dedicated advocate of your work for some time now. I think i've sat through ‘Rejected’ and ‘Billys Balloon’ three or four hundred times just spreading the good word about you to people. A lot of artists are always quick to dismiss their past work, how do you feel about your previous films? Do you still get a kick out of watching them or are you done with them as soon as you've finished making them?
 
i like them, i don't think i've ever been able to view them the same way other people do, but i would never dismiss them. they're not all necessarily the same movies i would make today, but you sort of appreciate them as time capsules of your younger self and the stage of life you were going through then. it's been 13 years of material so far so naturally my sensibilities are going to change, but i think they've all been speaking pretty much the same language.
 
Don, you’re a good looking guy with a skill in story telling way beyond your years. You make me completely jealous with your success. How did you get so good looking?
 
nightly i bathe in the virgin blood of lesser animators.
 
Learn more about Don by heading to his site, bitterfilms.com