The film [Dream of Life] came together when we started editing; it was organic, it became nonlinear and it was its own animal. And I didn't want to tame it, either. I wanted it to be different. It's not your typical documentary.

For me to see the film [Dream of Life] on a big screen - it's pretty extraordinary.

Over time it just got more and more intense as far as the trust factor. For example, when we started editing the film [Dream of Life], I thought, man, I need to make sense of all the footage I have; I need to ground the film. And one day I was hanging out in Patti's [Smith] bedroom, which is where Patti works, and in the corner of her bedroom is this great chair, and that's when she began showing her personal things to me. The camera was there, and we realized that we were really making the movie and making sense of the footage in the movie.

Patti [Smith] was my experiment, to be honest. And the film is what we got out of it. At the end of the day, I learned a lot about how to make a film.

I like not knowing too much about somebody I'm photographing, because the process also becomes an experience for me to learn about .

Ultimately, the film [Dream of Life] is inspirational.

There are a lot of layers in the film [Dream of Life]. And during editing we would try to tame all the layers, try to make things a little bit more understood. We would move scenes around. We'd try all these things.