I never went to film school, so I just sort of learned on my own.

That was an amazing experience [making Dream of Life]. It's hard to imagine that we were editing every day for a year. And it was pretty extraordinary; it also went by super fast. But every day was an experiment.

Fashion's been really good to me. It financed Patti Smith: Dream of Life.

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

I became Patti's [Smith] messenger, basically, and the film is my view of how I learned about Patti.

I wasn't familiar with Patti [Smith ]much at all. When I was asked to photograph her, my wife said, "Oh my God, Patti Smith!" So I looked at some Robert Mapplethorpe books and I recognized those pictures.

I never went to film school, so I just sort of learned on my own.