Samuel Wright Smith
Multimedia animator
2023 Animation Reel
A sampling of recent work in various styles.
Embodied 2025
Embodied is a collective oil pastel-animated reflection on death, as shared by individuals facing the end of life aided by psychedelic-assisted care.
Runtime 13:25
Materials: Oil pastel, wax pencil.
Rooftop Films Summer Series 2025// Official Selection
Cindependent 2025 // Official Selection
Supported by UFO Short Film Lab
NYSCA 2025 Grant Recipient
Inwood Artworks 2025 Grant Recipient
BRICLabs 2025 Video Art Grant Recipient
Landline 2023
Depicted in an ecstatic multimedia barrage: my mother does not die once.
Runtime 2:22
Materials: Chalk pastel, linocut print, wax pencil over vintage media. Hand and machine-assisted cutouts from vintage materials (collections of ancient motifs, hemp braiding instructions, needlework collections, old yearbooks, etc.) Replacement animation utilizing vintage materials. Entirely practical with no compositing.
DOCNYC 2023 // Official Selection
Cindependent 2023 // Official Selection
NYU Tisch Film/TV undergrad class of 2023 First Run finalist
Tisch Family Animation Award Recipient
Todd Martin Production Award Recipient
Impression of a River 2025
Music video for Resident Lightweight exploring ideas of heritage and ancestry.
Runtime 6:47
Materials: watercolor, Arabic design motif ephemera, DV home video archival content. Entirely practical with no compositing.
Life Eternal 2021
When a tree falls, it does not die. It comes alive.
Runtime 4:41
Materials: Watercolor, linocut prints. Partially composited.
National Board of Review 2021 // Grant Winner
Vancouver International Film Festival 2021 // Best student film finalist
Portland Eco Film Festival 2021 // Official selection
NFFTY 2022 // Official Selection
Cincinnati Cindependent Film Festival 2021 // Official selection
That Gives/That Takes 2021
The ecstatic voyage of a soul unfolding itself, like a lotus of countless petals.
Runtime: 1:21
Materials: Hand and machine-assisted cutouts of old magazines, stencils, yearbooks, lace patterns, quilting guides, etc. Partially composited.
The Balloonist 2023
For director Malcolm Quinn Silver-Van Meter/Vermont PBS. Read more. View on PBS On-Demand
Utilizing extensive interviews, verité-style footage, animation, and archival materials, "The Balloonist" paints a portrait of Brian Boland, a beloved and eccentric hot air balloonist and folk artist from Thetford, Vermont, who passed in 2021. This film was supported by the Made Here Fund. Made Here is a local public television program presented by Vermont Public.
Runtime 23:37
Materials: Oil pastel, digital compositing.
Eztli 2018
Made in collaboration with Julieta Lozano.
Like a moth towards a flame, protagonist Eztli is drawn into a death-ritual of cosmic merging.
Runtime 3:03
Materials: Watercolor, pencil. Digitally compositied.
NFFTY 2019 Animation Finalist
Fusion Film Festival Animation Finalist
2019 Cindependent official selection
A Girl Like You 2024
Made in collaboration with Madeline Henderson
30-second visualizer loop
Materials: Digital footage, inkjet print stickers, NYC textures. Practical/analog technique with no compositing.
Transmissions 1 and 2 2021
Ethereal, interstellar noise collected in dirty satellites. Experiments in circuit-bent CRTV imaging.
Runtimes: 1:12 and 1:09
Materials: manipulated footage, prisms, digitally-generated proto-3d animation, circuit-bent CRTV gain controller.