When the lights went up in Isla Vista Theater after the world premiere of Don Hertzfeldt’s “I Am So Proud of You,” the first question for the alumni filmmaker was simply, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

It might be a bold question to pose to an Academy Award- nominated animator, but Hertzfeldt ’98 showed no surprise. After all, he kicked off his film career while still a student at UC Santa Barbara with a film called “Billy’s Balloon,” which opens with a red balloon beating a small child. In a scene from “Rejected,” the film that got the Academy’s attention, a character rips out a chunk of someone else’s stomach and wears it as a hat.

“It seems like you’re working through some personal demons,” an audience member said during the question-and-answer session following the film.

Hertzfeldt didn’t confess to any demons, but he acknowledged that his films “kind of skirt that funny/sad line.” His latest film does, too.

“I Am So Proud of You” is the second film in a planned trilogy starring Bill, an average Joe with a bit of a mental disorder and a heightened awareness about life in the face of his inevitable death. The narration is steady, applying no greater urgency to dialogue about dying than to a discussion of paper towels.

“The subject matter can be a little shocking at times,” said Joe Palladino, academic adviser for the Film and Media Studies Department.

“If they were books, they’d probably be in the ‘death and dy- ing’ section,” said Hertzfeldt, who was ranked among the Top 25 Filmmakers to Watch by Filmmaker Magazine.

The film’s predecessor, “Everything Will Be OK,” was released in 2006, and won the Jury Award for short filmmaking at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007. Hertzfeldt doesn’t know when he’ll complete the trilogy. He said he’s not quite ready to start work on the next chapter.

First-year student Sierra Hennings, still smiling from having her photo taken with Hertzfeldt, said his films are both “old school” and “fresh.”

His technique is old school. Instead of using computers, he films his hand-drawn animations with 16mm and 35mm cam- eras, including one from the 1940s. “The visuals I get out of it I couldn’t get out of a computer,” said Hertzfeldt, who has received more than 100 awards for his films.

Before the premiere, the audience got a glimpse of his process. The big screen displayed slides of his sketches and notes. The pages showed scenes, as well as counts, lighting and animation annotations in the margins.

There were sketches of Bill–a stick man vacuuming, a stick man sitting on a doctor’s examining table ... But Hertzfeldt wasn’t using stick-men drawings to save time. The characters in the finished films are stick figures. Is it a style? “It is just the way I draw,” he said. “That kind of minimalism is really underrated. … You need to leave room in the frame for the audience to dream.”

Hertzfeldt, a Santa Barbara resident, also leaves room for students to dream when he teaches film classes at UC Santa Barbara. He has taken, taught and been the subject of film classes all before the age of 30. He also founded “The Animation Show,” an annual touring festival of animated shorts, with “Beavis and Butt-head” creator Mike Judge in 2003.

“The [do-it-yourself] animators can look at him as a role model,” Palladino said. “He’s accomplished a lot and it’s all been on his own terms. … It makes us very proud.”

During the post-screening Q&A, students asked ques- tions about making films, making money and making the decision to attend UC Santa Barbara. When the conversation about pro- tagonists and black holes died down, his advice to aspiring filmmakers was less complicated. “Do the work,” he said, adding that the most successful filmmakers he has seen were not all geniuses–they just worked harder than others.

Audience members crowded around Hertzfeldt when he stepped down from the stage, continuing an informal Q&A for another 40 minutes. The scene–college students with their textbooks on a Friday night in Isla Vista–was almost as surreal as images in Hertzfeldt’s films. But the course readers weren’t used for studying; they were canvases for autographs.

Don’s Journal

Don Hertzfeldt keeps a journal on the Web site for his company, Bitter Films, at www.bitterfilms.com. One journal entry describes Hertzfeldt’s take on audience reactions to “I Am So Proud of You:” “A handful of people have now seen the final movie and the universal response so far has been to point at the screen and horribly yell ‘skreeeeeee!’ ”

Don Hertzfeldt’s journal entry for the world premiere of “I Am So Proud of You” in Isla Vista: october 2, 1 down 15 to go. the santa barbara screening was packed and sweaty. i forgot to bring my camera so it will have to live on in our memories. i’m still mildly surprised the new movie is even finished and up there. thank you for not sweating on me and for driving great distances and for being the first audience to see it with me and for banging on windows and for filling the crummy seats on the sides when there was nothing left. … from the back of the theater everyone looked like a sea of blue glowing portable devices

Film Screenings
Nov. 8 — Giraf Animation Festival, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Nov. 11 — Midtown Art Cinema, Atlanta, Ga.
Nov. 13 — The Civic Theatre, Allentown, Penn.
Nov. 15 — The Dryden, Rochester, N.Y.
Nov. 19 — IFC Center, New York City
Nov. 22 — Starz Denver Film Festival, Denver, Colo.
Nov. 30 — Silent Movie Theatre, Los Angeles