Kevin Smith's Big Business

I am a fan of Kevin Smith, the filmmaker not the dead actor from Xena Warrior Princess. His story of making CLERKS was inspirational for an entire generation of filmmakers, me included. The legend of making a film for $26,976 on credit cards lives on, but of course I have never used credit cards to make a film.

Kevin Smith’s rise to fame (at least with fan boys) happened in an era of the 1990’s where those circumstances do not exist today. There are so few movies with no name stars and the ability to look past surface to find substance is practically nonexistent, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY notwithstanding, as in those odds are so astronomically against repeating versus the annual sales and eventual theatrical release of no name star movies from Sundance every year during the 1990’s.

Now, Kevin Smith is about to release his first feature film from a major studio outside of one owned by the Weinstein’s since the 1995 release of MALLRATS, which was released by GRAMMERCY PICTURES, and indie division of UNIVERSAL, and sadly, as great as that movie was, it bombed at the box office.

I have a hypothesis as to why Kevin Smith is directing a movie called COP OUTwith Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan without his consistent producer Scott Mosier and without having written the script himself. He has to, if he wants longevity. The percentage of people who know who Jay & Silent Bob is pretty low compared to Bruce Willis and John McClane. A Hollywood movie reaches more people than a typical Kevin Smith movie, as much as the circle of friends I know are well versed in Askew language arts.

First off, given Kevin Smith’s penchant for being open and honest, especially on the college lecture circuit, this is apparently considered a crime in Hollywood. No one tells secrets, and even fewer tell the truth. The way he told stories of Prince, Jon Peters, Die Hard 4, Ben Affleck, and Tim Burton have probably made him a high risk to work with on bigger budgeted movies. Hollywood movies have sunk on bad press or any kind of negativity, and heads have rolled. Given the podcasts (or smodcasts if you prefer), Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace updates, not even taking into account his own site(s), Kevin Smith has very few secrets. This is the bane of a Hollywood Studio’s marketing department. They want total control over the films they produce and pay for. Kevin Smith has been unbelievably quiet about anything to do with his current feature, as in no dirt of any kind. Someone wants to play nice with the big studios, and that’s NOT a bad thing or a slam.



Secondly, after the financial loss of MALLRATS at the box office (even though it has more than made up for that via home video/DVD sales in every form), no other studio by Miramax (under the Weinstein’s) and the Weinstein Company (also under the Weinstein’s) would touch him. Bob and Harvey saw the potential in a long term relationship with Kevin Smith. They also saw a cult following which equated to a high profit, low investment opportunity in most of his films.

The downside is that given the circumstances, Kevin was locked into a near permanent situation with the Weinstein’s. Other companies are too afraid to take a chance on him both because of his honesty and volume, and the box office take on his last several movies. Even Clerks II made a profit, but the big studios want more than a profit ratio; they want to make tens of millions in profit. So that left Kevin Smith in a situation where if Bob and/or Harvey Weinstein didn’t like a movie he wanted to make, it probably wouldn’t get made.



After acting in LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, and earning favor with Bruce Willis, combined with The Weinstein Company’s major decline in cash and production, these circumstances opened the door for COP OUT (formerly titled A COUPLE OF DICKS). Working with a more typical Hollywood budget, a lot less creative control, and yet with all the responsibility if it doesn't do well, Kevin Smith is now working for WARNER BROTHERS, and depending on the box office, may or may not get to continue making movies.

It’s my guess that this is Kevin Smith’s chance to get out from under the thumb of the Weinstein’s and insure he has a filmmaking future beyond View Askew, and might never have to be Silent Bob ever again…

But it is use a hypothesis. I will keep any opinion I have over the trailer to myself. I’m not a film critic.

Eli’s Book of RED

Aside from wanting to see the movie because of the bad ass trailer, I watched BOOK OF ELI from the Hughes Brothers because it was shot on the RED ONE camera, the same as ACCIDENTAL ART, but this was transferred to a 35mm film print and projected on a big screen. I wanted to see what it looked like… plus it looked bad ass.



I liked the movie as a movie, first and foremost. I liked the story and the action, although there was more story than action, which is a plus. Albert and Allen Hughes have a diverse and rich body of work. Starting out as 2nd or 3rd clones of the “Boyz in Da Hood” gangsta ripoff, they have long since departed into a dizzying array of genre and style. I particularly like the Jack the Ripper yarn FROM HELL with Johnny Depp based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore. BOOK OF ELI has several head nods to Kubrick, with an A CLOCKWORK ORANGE movie poster on the wall, then casting that movie’s star Malcolm McDowell in a small role later in the film.

Now as for the RED footage, I thought it was entirely indistinguishable from film. The depth of field, the detail, sharpness of image, movement, and even contrast were no different than film. I can’t speak as to the color palette as this movie had a nearly monochromatic look except for the final 2-3 shots. According to the D.P., an Oscar winner who worked on Forrest Gump and other movies of various genre, since they went for the sepia tones and little else, they didn’t need to color range of film negative. Now he was not sold on the RED ONE as a replacement for film, but the director’s are. They seem to think it is the new wave.

I do too. I have never said “film is dead” before, but I can now. I love 35mm and even super 16 and super 8, but film is dead. In a few scant years, we can kiss this good bye as a viable format if you don’t have many millions to shoot with…

Post Birthday Blog 2010

Ah how the wheel keeps turning. Your faithful narrator continues to plod on. Another year gone by and another birthday poker bash at the studio. I don’t really feel any older. My continual immaturity and inability to grow up refuses to let age dictate anything other than a number on a calendar.

In the past 60 days (less than actually), I have sent out 63 film festival submissions. Countries like New Zealand, Australia, France, United Arab Emirates, Netherlands, England, Ireland, Japan, India, Yemen, and more that I can’t recall without bringing up the shipping lists. In the U.S., I’m hoping to premiere at one of the big festivals, but think my chances are so-so at best. I’ve never screened at any of the top 30 film festivals. If I can get into South by Southwest (aka SXSW), or Tribeca, or the Beverly Hills Film Festival, any one of these three would make an exceptional premiere, and exceed my wildest hopes.

ACCIDENTAL ART is currently a 6 minute short film, but it is the first 6 minutes of a future feature film as well. It’s the movie I wanted to follow up HORRORS OF WAR with, so for 5 years this has been lingering. I think HORRORS OF WAR shattered my confidence in some ways. I learned a lot, but I had set bars for myself that were not met. 2009 was spent applying what I learned as a filmmaker artistically, using more shallow focus, more ambitious ideas being tried on smaller scales, etc. But they were also scrimmages for the real game. I’m ready for the real game now.



I think I want to shoot this feature in August/September come hell or high water. If I have to do it on the shoe string budget and minimal crew on HDV with a 35mm adapter, so be it. If I have enough money to book the name talent and shoot on RED again, I’ll do it. I’m committing to this feature film. I’m committing to doing what my heart tells me is the right thing to do.

I am holding off on fund raising until I find out about some film festival acceptances. Whether I get into the big ones or not, I think mathematically, the odds are in my favor to get into SOME film festivals (63 entries, some of them smaller festivals). Armed with some laurel leaves and the words “Official Selection to the ______ film festival”, I can make effective pitches to some money people I already know and have been waiting to approach. I will use it as evidence that people want to see this movie, which it is. Unbiased 3rd parties validating the film by playing it at their festival goes a long way with showing investors there is an interest in this idea for a movie.

With the 6 minute short as is, I have screened it as a “work in progress” a few times now, and feedback is an interesting thing. In most cases, it’s shown to filmmakers. I liken this to being a magician trying to show magic tricks to other magicians. They aren’t the audience I’m trying to reach or tell stories to. The comments are always “that was predictable” or “I would have done it THIS way!” and when you show it to general audiences, it gets a very different, and real response. Even filmmakers, in a GROUP setting, react differently.

I make movies for the intended THEATRICAL experience. Sitting in a dark room with a group of strangers connecting to a story gets a completely different reaction than sitting by yourself in a well lit room staring at a tiny window on your computer. It’s a lot harder to connect to people like that. Most movies will suck if they are seen that way, at least if they do not have the memory of seeing the movie theatrically first. It’s amazing how subconsciously people are relating the love of a movie they see on the portable device (IE Ipod or Zune) because they saw it and liked it on the big screen before that. People don’t realize how much their own mind does to the perception of a movie.

Things are coming together this year. Next up, a short in February, then a webseries shoot in March, then Brandy’s documentary in April-June, then hopefully my next feature film in August or September, with post production going on until December. My year is spoken for, my dance card full, and a really good outlook.

Official Rejection

This week’s shipment of submissions will put me past the 50 mark. That’s 50 film festival submissions. Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever submitted that much before. We’ll see if it pans out. Over the next month or so, I’ll see if I made something that gets into the big festivals. As I said before, I never really tried that hard. I finally have a movie that looks and feels like a “film festival” movie. Then again, I have received my first official rejection…which is a natural segue into:


OFFICIAL REJECTION is a DVD I got for Xmas and I’ve watched it 3 times. As I gear up for a real festival run in 2010, the gift was apropos. For anyone intending to do film festivals, I cannot recommend this enough. This documentary has a ton of good information and examples of good and bad festival experiences.



Bryan Singer (X-Men), Jenna Fisher (The Office), Lloyd Kaufman (Troma), Kevin Smith (Clerks), Chris Gore (Film Threat), and Andy Dick (Newsradio) are all interviewed, and in the 2 disc version they have extended interviews with several of them too.

It looks very possible they got the laurel leaves from the Sonnyboo downloads!