At the beginning I didn't even really think about making a movie [Dream of Life]. I was just thinking of documenting somebody.

I would bring Patti [Smith ] in to the editing room [working on the Dream of Life] and say, "This is a great moment for a voiceover, or a poem," and then we'd bring in some sound design.

I took pictures of the objects and artifacts that Patti [Smith] would show to her friends because I wanted to document them.

Many of my family members are teachers in the arts, and I picked up the camera years ago, in high school.

Angelo Corrao was our editor [in Dream of Life], and he was just so diligent and so old-school in the way he looked at editing. He would take my far-out ideas and tame them and make sense of them.

We just grew to trust each other [with Patti Smith] more and more over the years. Most of the time I didn't even have a movie camera.

For me, moving from photography to film was very easy.