She let me in during her tour, in London. Her band members - especially Lenny Kaye - were shocked at the fact that I was filming Patti [Smith].

When I went to Detroit, I was very naïve, actually, and I think Patti [Smith] picked up on that quite quickly.

[Some] times I'd have sound but no image. When Patti [Smith] was singing with her guitar, or doing something amazing with her clarinet, I'd just mess around and record the sound. So we'd use those sounds as another layer in the film [Dream of Life].

When I started photographing Patti [Smith], I knew that there wasn't a whole a lot of information out there about her. I was periodically interested in films, and so I just kept asking her if I could come around.

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

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

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.