FMC 003: Clerks by Kevin Smith 10th Anniversary Edition

Full Episode Transcript
This episode of Filmmaker Commentary explores the 10th Anniversary Edition of Kevin Smith's debut film, *Clerks*, diving into its various DVD versions, the behind-the-scenes commentaries, and the film's profound impact on independent filmmaking and the host's personal journey.

Introduction and Personal Connection to Clerks
Reginald Titus Jr.: If you have kids or you don't like cuss words, today may not be a good day to listen to this podcast because we do have a few clips that feature Kevin Smith where he does have a few explicitives. So just a heads up on that. Filmmaker Commentary episode three. Welcome to Filmmaker Commentary, where we give you insights from our favorite filmmaking commentaries. These commentaries can be heard on your DVD and Blu-rays of your favorite movies. We'll show you how you can use these commentaries and apply them to improve your video production and filmmaking techniques. All this here on Filmmaker Commentary. I'm your host, Reginald Titus Jr.
Reginald Titus Jr.: When I went to Sundance, I was still Harvey's assistant. He said to me, so what do you like? And I said, well, I really like this film, *Clerks*. And he said, why do you like it? And I spoke to all of the reasons why I really responded to it. You know, just telling that like that, that I found the humor and the the the questions that the characters were dealing with and the the life questions the characters were dealing with, were stuff that I could relate to and I know my friends could certainly relate to. Oh, I hate this fucking place. Then quit, you should be going to school anyway. Please, Veronica, last thing I needed at this point is election. And I remember towards the end of it he was saying, okay, well, I'm gonna go see this movie play with an audience. I'm gonna go see a lot of people are liking this movie, I'm gonna go see it play with an audience.
Reginald Titus Jr.: So yeah, I was introduced to Kevin Smith and his world around 2001, 2002. It was a weird time in my life. I was confused. I took a year off from college and I worked at a place where I knew I had to get a job, but I worked at a place where I figured nobody that I knew from high school would go. And that was Toys "R" Us. When I was working there, I met a guy named Eric Danielson, and he he actually looks like some of the characters inside of *Clerks*. Didn't care, just run off at the mouth, cursing like a sailor. He introduced this to me and at the time that I was introduced to this film, I think it really resonated with me on a personal level because ultimately it's about finding your path in life. You know, being, you know, in my early twenties, like, wait, hold on. I was probably, how old was I? I was 19 going on 20. Yeah. I was 19 going on 20, not necessarily sure what I wanted to do with my life, knew that I needed a job to pay, you know, gas, bills, insurance, whatever. Couldn't really find my path because, you know, you're everybody's telling you to go to college, you know, you start seeing people that are from high school that are, you know, going on, they know what they want to do with their life, they're getting the good jobs, they're on their way to getting good jobs, thinking about real stuff like marriage and things like that, and I just did not see that at that time.
Reginald Titus Jr.: because, you know, you're talking about a guy in this film who's working at a convenience store, has the intellect and the ability to achieve more. You know, he's seeing his peers go off and do their own thing, but he's kind of stuck, he's not sure what to do. It's like having a midlife crisis like in your twenties. At that time in my life, I had a few close encounters with death and I made a decision to go back to college after reading a book called *Rich Dad Poor Dad* by Robert Kiyosaki. That movie, that book, uh, totally changed the course of my life, and it allowed me to kind of purchase my time back, you know, by going to college and to figure out what I wanted to do more with my life.

Exploring the Clerks 10th Anniversary DVD
Reginald Titus Jr.: Today we have the DVD 10th Anniversary of *Clerks*. So there's three DVDs. On the first DVD you have a theatrical version, which is the the edit that came out when Miramax distributed the film. Then you have on disc two, you have *Clerks* first cut, which is the cut that played at Sundance and that they played at IFFM when they were trying to get this thing purchased. On the first cut and also, man, the the first cut is the transfer is terrible, man. It's it's straight off a VHS or SVHS. Some of the it has the original soundtrack, all the audio that they tweaked and everything, getting prepared for marketing. All this is like watching like an old VHS. And but on on this cut it has the commentaries from Kevin Smith, Brian, Jeff, Scott Mosier, Jason Mewes, and it's all up, you know, it's 2004. Then you have disc three, which has a documentary, which is the story of *Clerks*. And on that you have a lot of special features as well.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Now I got this a while ago, so I'm not quite sure if there's a Blu-ray version of this, but if there is a Blu-ray version, I would recommend getting the special edition if you're into the filmmaking process.

Filmmaking Insights and Kevin Smith's Journey
Reginald Titus Jr.: So now I'm going to jump into my comments on the commentary and then I'll talk a little bit more about the special features. So on the first disc, which is the theatrical version, I started listening to this commentary and my god, this it's dead, it sounds dead. It feels like everybody that's talking on it, they're just not into it, man. They're just like, yeah, I'm here 'cause I have to be. And I swear Jason Mewes, he's just out of it. And about 10 minutes, man, I had to cut this one off. It it this was recorded around 1990. It turns out that when they recorded this, they were actually in the process of shooting *Mallrats*, which is the second feature of Kevin Smith after launching his career with Miramax. So it makes perfect sense why everybody is kind of have that dead feeling because if you ever if you've ever been on a film set or you've worked where you have to continuously work on a video production, a movie production for days and days and days, you're you shouldn't be doing anything else, you should really just be focusing on the film and it it's apparent in the audio. So I turned that one off.
Reginald Titus Jr.: So I throw in the second DVD, which is the first cut of the film, but there's new commentary from 2004. And before the movie starts, it starts out with an 8-minute video introducing us to the movie. But the video starts out with Kevin and his producer friend Scott Mosier, talking about other stuff, not really pertaining to the film. It's almost like voyeuristic, we're not really addressing us, the audience. And about three minutes in they segue and they start addressing the audience. They talk about why this first cut, why some of the things were taken out of it. This is a raw, rough version. This is the actual version that they showed and they shopped to people, which is raw, gritty, it's not, you know, it doesn't have the well-known soundtrack and all that stuff, it is what it is, and this is the raw version. And it gives you as a filmmaker, it gives you hope because you you watch this like, my god, this isn't really watchable from a quality standpoint, but it also that quality gives it texture and gives it its own character. But at the same time, the talent is there in writer, director Kevin Smith. You can see that and that cuts through, you know, if somebody is a first-time actor or, you know, they're just not well-versed or couldn't do as many takes to get the performance they wanted, that stuff kind of the dialogue really brings this thing home.
Reginald Titus Jr.: So the tone of the commentary, they talk about, to give you just what this commentary is, it is a bunch of guys kind of reliving good times and talking about just some of the raunchy stuff that was going on in their time. And just to give you an example, Scott Mosier talks about seeing Kevin Smith's mom naked while they were shooting this film. Just to give you an idea of the tone that they're talking in when you're listening to this. Kevin does post, you know, he does tell you some of the continuity issues that he had, which seems like it being dark outside of the convenience store, and then when you go inside it's like well-lit in the same building, or things like getting an ambulance from a friend that worked at a first-aid clinic to kind of helped with the production value. But that's about it. For the most part, it's just them having a good time talking about whatever and just kind of making jokes and jabs at each other. So I wouldn't really recommend this commentary necessarily for filmmaking, but I do think that Kevin Smith's story is very important and it's relevant. He's one of the few directors that has created a well-known personal brand that has helped him become more self-sustaining with his projects, especially the projects that he wants to distribute himself.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Again, he started his career with this film that he produced for $25,000, or like $27,000, using credit cards and selling some of his comic book collection and some personal savings. But this has allowed him to produce bigger budget films like *Mallrats*, when Miramax got involved.
Reginald Titus Jr.: My favorite film of his is Red State, which he again, he produced and self-distributed, and he he toured with it using his his podcasting platform.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Also later on he he produced *Clerks II*, which is well produced. It's raunchy just like this one, but it's it's it's high quality, it's it's done well, the camera movements, it's like he took his filmmaking to another level and he had the budget to execute the things that he really wanted. And one of one of those things is like getting an actress like Rosario Dawson to play in it. Okay, I'm moving right along.

Key Lessons from the Clerks Documentary
Reginald Titus Jr.: So in disc three, you have the special features Q&A, which is a Q&A that happened after 10 years, the 10-year anniversary and they're showing this movie at a location and it's an actual Q&A of fans.
Reginald Titus Jr.: So here's two excerpts from that.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Friends, let me tell you about another group of hatemongers that was just following orders. Who's that? They were called Nazis. That's right. Fucking Nazis. Harvey was squirming again in the first 10 minutes of the movie. At which point I was like kind of like, you know, I nudged him and said 37. Tusk yanked him back down in the seat and was just like, you just sit here and think 37. Until you hear the word, you know, number 37, you can't leave yet. 37. I'm 37. Going to class. Oh my God. Once the 37 scene kicked in, there was one dude who was boisterously laughing throughout the flick like, like Bob De Niro in *Cape Fear*, you know, where he's like, you know, just really laughing loud, loudest in the theater. We're like, what the fuck is that, man? What an annoying laugh. So distracting. Sorry, Harvey Weinstein. Soon enough, you know, he was laughing uproariously, probably louder than most people in the theater. You could literally hear him in the in the movie theater. You could. It was great. And hearing it was just like, wow, wow. The crowd eats it up. There's louder, longer laughter than in any of the previous screenings. When Silent Bob delivers his single line, there are cheers and claps. It ends, big fucking applause. I get up, bring the cast with me. We do a bit of a Q&A. All right, thanks. Harvey exited the far right door of the Egyptian theater as the throngs were coming out. He came out of the theater, he picked his head up and he went like that. Went to a place across the street from the Egyptian. Tusk and Harvey lined up across the street. Is this the claim? No, it's the the eating establishment. The eating establishment, that's what it's called. I mean, from the moment you heard it, we're just like, something's happening. Like something's happening that we can't understand or contemplate because we've never been in these circumstances, but something's happening. That was where we had our first sit down with Harvey Weinstein. Uh, we ordered some uh, potato skins with bacon. He was both going to eat and sign off on it on the on the on the fundamental terms of the deal at the same time. Buy the movie on the spot. You mean and just make a deal with them over potato skins and French fries in some Sundance restaurant. But I was in the room. I was in the same large room in this in this restaurant and I knew what was going on. And I couldn't wait to find out. Harvey did his, you know, Sundance as far as how much he loved the movie. They all liked it. You know what I mean? You know, it was me who was just being, you know, stupid. You know what I mean, the rest of them, you know, were totally into it. John loved it. Tusk loved it. You know what I mean, all the cool people at Miramax was just the old fuck couldn't get his head around it. And then I went to see it at that screening in Sundance and flipped. He was just like, fucking love the movie. You think it's really fucking funny. We could take this fucking movie, blow it out in fucking theaters, put fucking soundtrack on it, take this movie to the fucking world. Me and him were like, fucking A. And it taught me a lesson not to walk out of movies.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Turns out that Harvey Weinstein really liked the crude sex jokes. Hint, hint, wink, wink.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Uh, number nine, man, which is my final one, be a showman. When it was at, when they showed the film at at Sundance, people really liked the Q&A of Kevin Smith. And Kevin Smith, one of the people he looks up to is George Carlin. And so much so that George Carlin was in *Dogma*. He cast him in *Dogma*, which is I believe Kevin Smith's third film. He models his Q&A after a comedian. So he has people in stitches whenever he's doing his Q&A, whenever he's working his podcast. He's like a showman. And people really enjoy that part of his film. They enjoy the film, but they really enjoy the Q&As afterwards because he can he can really get the crowd going and and he knows and has that talent to do that. And he's actually worked on having that timing of a comedian to work the crowd that way. So let that be a lesson to you, you know, use your your other talents to add to your story. So if you have a story, whether that be marketing, advertising, whatever you have, use that to also help promote your film.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Well, that's all I have today. I hope you like that. I appreciate it. Thank you for tuning in, for listening in. Eventually, I'm going to get to *Red State*, *Clerks II*. We're going to circle back around and talk about Kevin Smith some more. On our next show, we're going to talk about *Blade Runner*, the old one, not the new one. And we're going to eventually get to Eli Roth's *Cabin Fever*. But until then, thank you for your time and I will talk to you next week. Every Thursday, tune in to Filmmaker Commentary.