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Patrick Smith’s Florida:
A Sense Of Place

Another extraordinary honor has been awarded the man who is affectionately known as Florida’s Favorite Son, Patrick D. Smith. Saturday, May 14, at the National Tupelo Film Festival in Tupelo, Mississippi, the Ron Tibbet Award, which is the Festival’s Grand prize, went to the DVD documentary titled Patrick Smith’s Florida, A Sense Of Place. The entire festival was in honor and dedicated to the late Ron Tibbett, founder of the festival, who passed away within the last year.

A Sense Of Place is notably a family affair. The documentary was produced by Patrick Smith, Jr., whose company Panorama Studios of Cambria, California, worked for two years to produce this award-winning DVD that features not only son Rick’s expertise in directing/producing/writing but also includes original music by a grandson, artwork by a daughter-in-law, and videography by Kim, Mrs. Rick Smith. Individually and as a group they all worked tirelessly between California and Florida to produce this once-in-a-lifetime documentary.

About the Tupelo Festival award, Rick says, “Immediately after the presentation guests crowded around saying essentially the same thing over and over…that never before had they been so taken back to their own roots, their own sense of another time, another place. It all became very emotional,” Rick said. “I just so regret that my father could not be there.”

And then he added, “I was somewhat stunned by the judges. I would have thought that professionals from Mississippi would have been judges but that was not the case. These may not be household names to the general public but they are tops in their fields: Hollywood’s Ritchie Montgomery, Emmy Award winning actor, Stuart Margolin, winner of the Director’s Guild of America award, and “Renee” who stars in Days of Our Lives, and as “Donna” in Another World.”

The award itself, the trophy, is called the Reely Award, which is patterned after a film reel with film coming from it. The all metal trophy was designed by nationally known Richard McGeehee. Rick says it is so large and heavy that he had to take it to a specialty shipping company to have it shipped to his studios in California.

The DVD film shows Patrick Smith speaking to all of us who love Florida, all of Florida, from her northernmost part in the Panhandle, down through the lake country of central Florida, through south Florida, the Everglades and the Keys.

And about the award itself, Patrick says, “I think it’s wonderful that a film of Florida could win a top award in another state. I know my son worked very hard on this project and I’m glad this happened for him”.

And then two days later more grand news from son, Rick, who said, “To make things even more exciting, I’ve just learned that Dad’s A Sense Of Place won a Bronze Telly Award which means that out of 10,000 entries his documentary placed in the five finalists.”

We only have to read Patrick Smith’s books and see his DVD to realize how he came by all these honors.