A scene from GHOSTS OF RED RIDGE. Courtesy of WellGo USA Entertainment
Between movies and series episodes, I’ve probably seen a few thousand westerns. Some have crossed over with sci-fi and the supernatural, like COWBOYS & ALIENS, JONAH HEX or a number of totally forgettable flicks pitting cowpokes against vampires, zombies or other things that go bump in the night. This low-budget affair, THE GHOSTS OF RED RIDGE, breaks a bit of new ground… more uniquely, perhaps, than laudably.
Red Ridge is a dusty, nowhere little town of dashed hopes. It was founded on the promise of a gold rush that never materialized, leaving a handful of bored residents with nowhere better to go. Even the local outlaw gang that harasses the folks can’t rustle up enough loot to make a decent living. The sheriff (Owen Williams) and his deputy (Trent Culkin – apparently no relation to the other Culkins in the biz) seem like good guys, but hardly the stuff of which legends are made. Adding to the sheriff’s sense of being over-matched are ghostly hallucinations that start driving him nuts. He sees dead people (none of whom look anything like Bruce Willis) and doesn’t know why. Or handle it well.
As events unfold, there are a few holdups and shootings, with a couple of unlikely deaths. The small gang gets smaller and the town’s sparse population takes a few hits. The sheriff is more of a thinker than a doer. Oddly, his only book is about thermodynamics. But the most unusual part of this isn’t the ghosties. It’s the only western I can recall in which absolutely no one rides a horse! A couple of them pull the stagecoach in one scene. But no one’s ever in a saddle, and none are even tied to any hitching posts along the street. (Maybe the Equine Actors’ Guild was on strike when the shoot was scheduled. As Westerns have gone out of favor, most of its members may be heavily saddled with debt, and that ain’t hay. Jus’ speculatin’ here.)
The cast of actors I’ve never seen do a competent job of filling their roles under the tutelage of director Stefan Colson, whose prior work behind the camera is equally unfamiliar. They collectively keep things interesting enough to stick with despite the low level of action. Writer Brandon Cahela and several of the credited producers also donned outfits for supporting roles. Another sign of limited funding.
All in all, the film is a low-key curiosity that might work for you, now that you know not to expect much in the way of F/X or adrenaline stirring.
GHOSTS OF RED RIDGE debuts on digital formats on Tuesday, Dec. 3.
Buckle up for a Cold War conspiracy when Operation Avalanche launches on DVD, Digital HD and On Demand January 3 from Lionsgate. Filmmaker and actor Matt Johnson stars alongside Owen Williams and Josh Boles as undercover CIA agents on a mission at NASA in what Variety is calling “a wild rewrite of space-age history.” A film festival favorite,Operation Avalanche was an official selection at the SXSW Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Hot Docs, and Mammoth Film Festival. The Operation Avalanche DVD will be available for the suggested retail price of $19.98. OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS
In 1967 two CIA agents go undercover at NASA to investigate a possible Russian mole. In disguise as documentary filmmakers, they tap phones and break into offices while purporting to learn more about the Apollo project. But when they end up uncovering a shocking NASA secret — and a major government cover-up — they decide to embark on a new mission that may put their own lives at risk. DVD SPECIAL FEATURES
Audio Commentaries
Director’s Commentary with Matt Johnson
“The Look of Operation Avalanche” Commentary with Directors of Photography Andy Appelle and Jared Raab, Colorist Conor Fisher and 16mm Film Artist Pablo Perez
“Writing Through Editing – The Post Production of Operation Avalanche” Commentary with Producer Matthew Miller, Editor Curt Lobb and VFX Supervisor Tristan Zerafa
Deleted Scenes
“A Huge Mission”
“Setting Up”
“Webb Tap”
“Shut It Down”
Behind the Scenes Featurettes
“Behind the Scenes: Operation Avalanche”
“Behind the Scenes: Car Chase”
“Behind the Scenes: Pool Party”
“The Creators Project – Reanimating Kubrick”
“Vice Presents – The Making of Operation Avalanche”
CAST
Matt Johnson The Dirties, How Heavy This Hammer
Owen Williams The Dirties
Josh Boles The Dirties
Matt Johnson’s films could almost be described as half-truths or honest lies. They purposefully blur the line between fiction and non-fiction in such a fascinating way that you are never quite sure where the lie begins or ends. So it makes sense that my discussion with the young actor and director would include discussing the classic Orson Welles film F FOR FAKE and why he enjoys injecting truths into stories… or maybe it’s the other way around.
After the controversial but film festival favorite THE DIRTIES showcased the director roaming the halls of a real high school with his partner Owen Williams, Matt Johnson decided to use his unique storytelling style to venture to a new distant place and era. OPERATION AVALANCHE follows a group of CIA paper pushers as they attempt to orchestrate possibly the greatest hoax in human history: the 1969 moon landing. The group’s mission quickly goes from impossible to dangerous when some mysterious figures seem determined to put an end to the secret project. Comprised of “archival footage filmed during the 1960s,” OPERATION AVALANCHE is a unique film that is now playing in select theaters and opens in St. Louis on Friday. Look for my review then, but for now, enjoy my interview with the candid director.
We Are Movie Geeks: I feel like many of us go through a period of time when we suddenly become really interested in conspiracy theories. When did you first become interested in the fake moon conspiracy and did the documentary ROOM 237 and one of its stories about Stanley Kubrick directing the fake landing have anything to do with it?
MATT JOHNSON: That documentary was definitely an influence, but I think I was more interested in the moon landing as a kid than as an adult. I saw ROOM 237 at TIFF and thought “Wow! This is amazing.” I think it reminded me of how interested I was in that conspiracy story. But I didn’t think I would make a movie about it until much later when THE DIRTIES finished and I was thinking about what film to make next. I wanted to make a historical film – about some famous moment in history. When my producer (Matt Miller) and I stumbled on the fake moon landing as a story premise, we knew we had to do it.
I like conspiracies. One of my favorite movies is JFK. But I’m not really a conspiracy-head. I just love the stories. I think they are amazing.
WAMG: There’s a meta element to the film where you have art imitating life, which is essentially the main idea behind filmmaking. You’ve explored this with THE DIRTIES and now with OPERATION AVALANCHE where it sort of blurs what’s real and what’s not. What about this style of filmmaking interests you? Because you aren’t making a “documentary,” but you aren’t making an entirely fictional film since you are incorporating real moments with real people.
MJ: I’ll tell you what I like about it: you can do things that Hollywood movies or even just bigger budget movies could never do. I’m not saying “could never do” because they don’t want to do them, but “could never do” because the restrictions put on them make it impossible. Say for instance the car chase scene. You would never see that in a bigger budget film because they couldn’t take the risks with their actors that we can take. Those scenes where we are talking with real NASA staff and they are responding to us as real people (the crew posed as “documentarians” and got into NASA), you could never see that in a bigger budget movie. Those would be paid actors and that would be a set, not the real NASA building.
So, apart from it being quite frugal shooting in this style, we get paid off in really amazing ways and we get to do things that haven’t been done in mainstream movies. That’s why I’m interested in this. It’s not to say I will always make movies like this, but I think we have discovered some new territory telling stories in independent filmmaking.
WAMG: And have you ever had an interest in making a straight documentary? Are you intrigued at all in capturing reality and telling that style of story?
MJ: Of course it does, but what’s interesting to me is perverting that into some kind of narrative story. I think one day I will make a documentary because, frankly, I think it will be much easier than the stupid stuff we’re trying to do. But for now, I like taking as much from that aesthetic as I can and applying it to fiction. This is only my second movie, so I have got some ways to go before I really know what I’m doing.
WAMG: That’s true. You have some time.
Between the sets, costumes, locations, and songs, you have exhausted a lot of effort to make OPERATION AVALANCHE look as accurate to the period as possible. What was the hardest aspect of recreating this period of time?
MJ: From a production point of view, it was definitely finding environments that would pass as the 1960s. With THE DIRTIES, we could shoot anywhere we wanted – the world was our oyster. Here we had to be so specific. We were shooting in old universities and studios that were basically derelict. We had to find places that looked like they were still active but had the sense of the 1960s. It was really really hard.
I would say though that the biggest challenge was recreating that section with Stanley Kubrick. That took months and months and months.
WAMG: How long did the shoot take overall?
MJ: We shot for 30 days one summer and then edited for a few months and then shot another 30-40 days over a mixed amount of time. We basically had a documentary production schedule where we shot for many many days not sequentially.
WAMG: At this point did you have investors already or were you shooting out of pocket?
MJ: We had a loan from a Canadian bank that was funding us based on a negative pick-up deal that Lionsgate made with us quite early on.
WAMG: That’s interesting. Is that how you did THE DIRTIES as well?
MJ: No. THE DIRTIES was made for $10,000 and I just paid for it myself.
WAMG: Oh wow!
When your character in the film starts to direct the “moon film” he has this sort of manic, jovial spirit. He becomes an enthusiastic larger than life, much like Orson Welles. Is that how you really are on set with your own films and were you influenced by anyone in particular for this character?
MJ: Orson Welles is a hero of mine and this film is very much influenced by his film F FOR FAKE.
WAMG: Yeah, I can see that.
MJ: I will say that the way I act in this movie is how I am in real life, especially with directing things. Now, I couldn’t tell you because I’m not self-aware enough if I have stolen any of that behavior from Orson Welles. I’ve never actually seen footage of him directing, so I’m not sure if he acts like that. For me, when I see myself acting that way, I see myself acting like a kid. I feel like I’m hanging out with my brother and we’re just yelling. It’s not really an impression of anyone. I’m just being myself.
WAMG: Was there any real tension on set while making OPERATION AVALANCHE? You obviously have the fake tension “on-set” which becomes integral to the plot of the film. Did any of those problems spill over?
MJ: Most of the stuff you see between me and the other actors is really coming from what we were feeling. A lot of that shoot was stressful since we were sneaking into places, working with a script that was not finished, and a lot of really frustrating things that happened. It was the same with THE DIRTIES. Much of that was more or less based from reality.
WAMG: So you just had an outline? You didn’t have any dialogue written?
MJ: Exactly. We had no dialogue written. It was just like THE DIRTIES. We were just making things up as we went along.
WAMG: Was that hard later in the editing room-
MJ: It was impossible!
WAMG: You include a lot of Kubrick posters in the background throughout the film and so it seems like you are clearly a fan of his work. Aside from all of the stuff that all film historians speak about regarding his work, is there anything about his films and his style that interests you?
MJ: It’s funny because both myself in real life and my character in the film only really love DR. STRANGELOVE. The other Kubrick films I don’t completely love. I think they are really cold and overly technical.
WAMG: That’s exactly how I feel about THE SHINING. I’ve never connected with that film like so many have.
MJ: Which is funny because OPERATION AVALANCHE is really technical and it sort of bears some of the same bad behavior that Kubrick has. But that’s not to say that I don’t respect him and think that he’s a master. I think DR. STRANGELOVE is one of the greatest movies ever made. What draws me to that is that he’s able to combine really light and easy performances with unbelievable technical rigor. Like Peter Sellers acting like he’s almost making up what he’s saying as he’s going while you’re watching these sets and these very specific camera setups is so amazing to me. It’s a huge inspiration for me. As a filmmaker, you can spend tons of energy making sure everything is perfect, but in terms of performances, you can just let people go.
WAMG: In regards to the moon landing – because there are some people who believe that it is a hoax – do you think it’s healthier that our country believes “the lie” if it is in fact a lie, or is it better to uncover the truth? Also, do you think there is any truth to the conspiracy?
MJ: No. I can guarantee there is absolutely no truth to it (the conspiracy). And I’m a good authority on this since I did try to fake the moon landing with my friends. There are a lot of really, really specific reasons why, especially considering video technology.
But the more interesting question you asked there is it better if Americans believe it was faked or not. That’s really interesting. I’ve never been asked that. In the movie INTERSTELLAR they play with that a little bit. I hate that movie–
WAMG: You’re not the only one.
MJ: But they talk about the history of America and how it was more useful in that dust world to say that the moon landing was faked so that people didn’t think that American opulence in the 60s had run amok. I don’t know about that. Now, I’m not an American, but I actually think having a few major accomplishments as a uniting force is quite good. I don’t think it would be good if it was faked. Let’s say if it was faked, then I think it would be worse if the world knew.
WAMG: Finally, what are some film projects you have lined up for the near future?
MJ: There are two movies we’re going to make. One is about a time machine and the other is the third film in this Matt and Owen trilogy where they get in over their heads. We’re going to make both of those movies but one of them is going to start early 2018.
OPERATION AVALANCHE is now playing in limited release and opens in St. Louis on Friday, October 7th.
It’s no surprise that Kevin Smith was at Comic-Con this past year, but this year he decided to bring a different kind of film to his Hall H panel. THE DIRTIES, a film that Smith says is “the best movie you’ll see all year” is a controversial dramady, about two best friends named Matt and Owen, who live in a world of endless movie references and hijinks. It would be perfect, if not for the cruel bullies at their high school who make their lives hell. While working on a movie for class, the lines between fiction and reality blur together in this horrifying look at high school bullying.
Before his Hall H debut, Kevin Smith and Matt Johnson (writer, director, and star of the film) met with a handful of press to talk about the film, and the state of filmmaking today, and WAMG was there. Before you even ask… Yes, Kevin Smith is as awesome as you think he is, and Matt’s pretty spiffy as well.
Check out our discussion in its entirety after the trailer… which you should watch… now.
For anyone who doesn’t know about this movie, could you tell them about it?
KS: Um, this has always been my brief summary of the movie since I saw it, and before I even knew we had it. I said “This is the best movie you’ll see all year.”… A very high, tall order for a summary, and I’m sure Matt’s like “Shut up! Let people discover it!”, but it’s a –
MJ: I don’t care –
KS: No?
MJ: I think that’s a great way to go into a movie like this. (Laughs_
KS: (Laughs) It is. For people who champion The Weinstein Company’s Bully documentary – this is, kind of, like the narrative version of that – to some degree. It kind of takes you to a place most movies don’t go, because it humanizes the person that we’re all suppose to villainize in the flick. So, I was incredibly moved. I also love the fact that they found a way to take the found footage genre and do something with it that I haven’t seen before. It wasn’t like “We found this footage and there’s fuckin’ ghosts!” (Laughs). They’re working in a movie within a movie that makes absolute sense – where you never sit here and go “Oh, it looks like someone’s holding a video camera.” Of course it does. So, it’s (to Matt) the first film for you?
MJ: Yeah. Definitely.
KS: Did you do any shorts, or anything?
MJ: We did a web show, but –
KS: Hands down, the best first feature I’ve ever seen. I loved Affleck’s GONE BABY GONE. I thought that was a very sharp first feature, but this –
MJ: Well, that’s not a very fair comparison at all! (Laughs) You can’t really call that a first feature! He’s been on 200 film sets.
KS: Totally. With really bad directors like myself. (Laughs)I’m glad that didn’t rub off, and he rose! In terms of a first feature man, it’s so insanely accomplished. It makes your heart jump for joy that indie film is alive and well in the hands of people like Matt here – who can do something important, and say it entertainingly. It’s not a medicine movie. You don’t sit there and go “I get it. Bullies are fucking bad.”. It’s gripping. It’s insanely well done entertainment that also happens to be backed up by something real. You know, people will go and be entertained on the movie level, but also, they are going to be educated at the end of the day. There’s a lot of substance to it. Way more than most movies. That’s for damn sure.
The poster is really interesting. I’m wondering how involved either of you were in the poster design?
MJ: It’s a funny question, because a movie like this – we were just out of film school and making this film as a joke among our friends. I think it’s like the same way you were making CLERKS – “This is a film for me and my buddies, and if they laugh, it’s a success.” It’s not the kind of thing we were making that we needed to make an image that would get people interested in it. So, thinking about the film from that point of view is completely backwards from where we were before, but I think it’s cool. In this poster, we’re trying to do something that wasn’t ostentatious and super violent, but gave you a sense that there was a darkness and, kind of, a mystery to it. I think this is pretty cool – what we came up with. It tells the story of a guy who’s kind of funny, but maybe he’s got something going on. It draws you in. Working with Kevin on this stuff has been awesome. Everything that we just kind of send them has been like “This is good. Keep going with this.”. I think it’s because face forward you guys are coming from a place – you like the movie, so-
KS: If you love something “Fuck it! Great! Let me put my stank all over it and make sure you take my notes!”. It stands there by itself. I wasn’t drawn to it going “How can I repair this?”. It was irrefutable because it was perfect. At that point, there’s nothing for you to do but stand back and go “Do the boys like it? Do the boys like it? Great.” If their happy – it’s their movie. As long as I don’t see something where I’m like “It’s got bunnies on it! Fuck it!”. This just feels very honest, and organic to the flick. (To Matt) I think it’s really interesting that you guys didn’t think about key art because there’s such a graphic presentation at the end, during the credits, with everybody’s font from all of the movies… it’s weird to me that you didn’t have a poster in mind. The one I saw on the website back in the day, the drawn one… it was like art work with –
MJ: It was like one of those old school clip art –
KS: I liked that one.
MJ: We’re completely obsessed with design. The end of the movie is all rip-offs of movie openings. As a matter of fact, we had a CLERKS one on there for a long time but we took it our because we were afraid you would sue us. (Laughs) Before you bought the film! I’m not even kidding!
KS: I was a little hurt when I watched the movie and there wasn’t a CLERKS one. When you watch the credits, and see the title treatment done in, like, a BACK TO THE FUTURE style, or PULP FICTION style – there’s such an eye for detail in the graphics that it’s interesting, to me, that you didn’t have a poster image, but how could you? This isn’t a movie that you can easily market. It’s a faberge egg of sorts, because if someone tries to give it a one liner like “This movie takes the Bully and shows you the human side of him and why he did it.”… nobody wants that. It seems tasteless.
MJ: That was our biggest problem. When we finished the film, we were like “This is really amazing for people who know us.” and they know that me and my friends are good guys, and we’re not out to make a territorial film that’s trading on the issues of school shootings and school violence. We thought that anyone who read about this movie would think “Oh, it’s trash. We’ll never watch it. We’ll never review it.”. As soon as Kevin and Phase 4 were like “Oh no. This is actually good!”, and Slamdance gave us that award, it gave us a bridge to audiences where they would never tolerate this kind of thing, just as an idea. It’s been the jumping off point for people to sit through the first ten minutes and be like “Oh, this isn’t exploitative. This isn’t stupid.”. Not to toot my own horn.
KS: It’s not. You could easily put somebody off from watching it just by trying to describe the plot, but it doesn’t do it justice. You want to sit them down and – so if any way, shape or form I can “Woah. Woah. Woah. Just give it a watch.”. That’s my job. It’s not to come in and go “Let me show you how this shit’s done.” because I’m sure he’d go “You made COP OUT…” (laughs), but I can come in and say “These are the pitfalls. These are the things that might get you a larger audience.”, and then the most important thing I can do it advocate. Get on my social media, anywhere I go, like when we do our panel in Hall H at the con, I’m gonna show the trailer. It’s not exactly a Comic-Con audience movie, but at the same time, it so is. Watch the trailer. It’s them. It’s like holding up a mirror to some degree.
MJ: I think what’s cool about the characters in our film is that they don’t have this type of massive gathering of young, ostracized people. I think that’s something we try to explore in the film. Our two main characters are guys who don’t really fit in, and are, kind of, pushed to the margins of their high school. and they’re trying to get power. That’s all they want. This one character, Matt, all he does is try to gain power throughout his world. What’s amazing about Comic-Con is that everyone who’s here literally dresses like super heroes. They have so much power, people are photographing them as they walk down the street. It’s the kind of thing that I think people can relate to, just in it’s opposite. “Oh man, I feel just like how these characters feel. Thank god I’m in San Diego, where everybody likes me!”.
KS: (Laughs) Exactly! I’m surrounded by a bunch of people where this could NEVER happen!
MJ: Exactly! That’s 100% true! No one’s going to lose their mind, and feel like “Nobody’s listening to me! No one is listening to my problems!” here at Comic-Con.
KS: It’s pretty gripping, and if you’ve followed the news over the last few years it touches a nerve to a large degree, or gets people’s dander up. What you have, what the boys were able to do is capture a side of the story that you never see. You’ve gotta understand where it all comes from. We’ve seen many people, many lender type, PBS specials on why bullying is bad. I think that shit goes down like medicine, but to the people it’s meant for. No real bully is going to watch a PBS special and go “You’re right. I’m horrible.”.
MJ: No real victim is going to watch this and go “This is helping me”.
KS: This movie is on the other side of that. It is, kind of, more helpful than one of those. I’d imagine if you’re somebody who is a bullier, and you see something like this more so than a documentary, or the portrayal that they’ll always capture for the media – which is a little safer than this- What I love about the movie more than anything is that it’s fucking dangerous. I always find myself going “This could apply to everybody” but Matt will jump in very quickly to say it’s got balls to it. That’s why I was so happy to be attached to it. I haven’t had balls in anything I’ve done in a long time, cinematically, so to stand next to somebody who goes “Fuck it. I’m gonna go out there, and if someone punches me in the face for it, so be it. Boom!” and make his art… that’s inspiring. That’s why I got in the game in the first place. It’s nice to be around that. It’s nice to see someone who’s like “I’m gonna tackle this subject matter, but i’m going to do it in a way that goes a little bit further.”, not in terms of tastelessness, but in terms of bravery, and courage – and putting a portrayal out there that is so fucking realistic, that the only thing that keeps you from going “Oh fuck. This is happening right now!” is that it’s set in Canada where it could probably never happen. (Laughs) That’s it. That’s what makes it science fiction.
MJ: Yeah right. (Laughs) It’s a science fiction movie! Although most people who watch it have no idea that it’s… well, I guess because of our accents. A lot of people say “These guys have thick-ass Canadian accents.”, but you would notice that more because you’re a –
KS: I’m a Canadaphile. It doesn’t play like that “Hey, everyone’s from Canada!”
MJ: – but we get programmed as Americans in every festival we go to (Laughs) stupidly.
Do you find that this is the way you want to see yourself? As someone who wants to take people under your wing? To see young filmmakers and go “Here’s all the pitfalls that I had, don’t let this happen to you? What do you see your role as?
KS: Absolutely. There’s a Kevin Spacey-ish, kind of pay it forward to it, because I got real fuckin’ lucky, and won the lottery with CLERKS. Definitely. I’ve always gone out after movies and said that people can do this too. Anybody can fuckin’ do this. So, it’s nice to get to a point where people who follow what I do – where I can be like “Here man. Watch this!” and advocate for somebody elses art. That’s the altruistic version of it, but honestly, it’s what I said before man. All I get is instant credibility by aligning myself with a movie this bold, this strong, this fresh, this original. I’d be stupid to go “Nah. You guys figure it out for yourselves.”. There’s also something in it for me. It’s mutually beneficial, I guess. It probably helps me out a little bit more.
MJ: I don’t know about that. Nobody would be seeing our movie unless we had someone like you –
KS: – but that’s not true. (Inaudible) saw it at Slamdance. This is what I’ve noticed, because I follow all this shit religiously on twitter and whatnot… There are people who swore me off a couple of years ago because of RED STATE, that were like “Fuck him! I’ll never write about him again” and shit like that – but there were people who were like “Fuck him! I’ll never touch his shit again!” who have spoken about this movie, and begrudgingly go “Oh fuck. Kevin Smith is involved.”, but they can talk about this movie in a positive way, and that’s like the shield against the shitters for me, where I’m like “Yeah, I’m with this guy!”. (Laughs) It’s cool. It goes with a street that travels in two directions… and it’s an international street. This is all about North America. (Laughs)
Matt, you wrote, you directed, you edited this… you wore so many different hats. How long did this take you to make, and did you go completely insane with everything you did to create this?
MJ: I’m not sure if it was like this on CLERKS, because there was very much a director saying “action” and “cut”, and you were with your buddies, so I’m sure the roles were a little more fluid, but on a movie like this, when we were shooting in a lot of these schools, no one knew that I was in charge of the movie… at all. I would be hiding in scenes with Owen, with wireless mics, talking, and the cameras would be following us as we shot hours and hours of stuff, so it wasn’t like I was directing – It wasn’t work in the sense of me sitting there, being like “Oh, man! How are we going to do this? How are we going to do this? I need to organize all of this stuff”. The hard work was getting into these places, and figuring out how to get this world real. Then, we would just put ourselves in it, and play for days at a time. It wasn’t hard work in the sense of (directed at Kevin Smith) you, sitting behind a camera, being like “How are we going to cover this?” was hard work. I just needed to be there, for this documentary. And no, I didn’t go crazy. It was a lot of fun. This kind of stuff, when you’re doing it on your own – cause technology’s so cheap. We shot the whole thing on that camera (points to camera in the room). That’s the camera we used. I could edit it all at my house over a span of months, and take my time – just figuring out ways to make my friends laugh.
KS: The set, the room, the bedroom…
MJ: Just a bedroom in one of my buddies houses. We just moved in, for like, six months. Those are all my comics and stuff on the walls. There are some good issues…
KS: That image is in the trailer so people are like “Those are some good books!”
MJ: I love comics. So, yeah. The things that were set pieces… it was the same thing. I don’t want to say that it wasn’t hard work, but I think the secret to great filmmaking, or greater in general, is to put yourself in an environment where things come easy to you.
KS: Fuck. Why didn’t anyone tell me that before.
MJ: I thought you knew that!
KS: No! I never knew it! It took me twenty years to get to this moment!
MJ: You can tell anyone with a voice, unless they’re, like, a super pretentious, experimental artist or something, which I think there’s a place for too… like, you should be doing stuff that comes naturally to you, where, you don’t have to dig very deep to get to the gold. I heard a video game designer say that in a wicked documentary about video games. You don’t want to spend all of your effort trying to figure out how to get something good. You want to get to a world where everything is kinda good. Even the mistakes you make are good, so you’re not killing yourself to do it. That’s when you’ve, kind of, found what you are supposed to do. At least that’s what it was like in this movie. Maybe we won’t be able to do it again, although our next movie is way better. (To Kevin) Do you know about it?
KS: No I don’t…
MJ: About the moon landing? You’ll love it. It’s insane! It’s like THE DIRTIES, but about the guys who faked the moon landing in the sixties. (Laughs)
KS: You’re my hero.
Kevin, the landscape of filmmaking has changed so much in the last twenty years, since CLERKS – with cheaper cameras, and going digital – How do you think these things would affect CLERKS if you were to make it today?
KS: It would be way easier, and way cheaper. We could probably make the whole movie for, like, two grand, less than five grand, but it would be way lost in the shuffle because of the democratization of the tech, and the medium itself – back when we started, and you’d tell people “Hey, we’re going to make an indie film!” they’d go “What are you talking about?” “We’re going to make a movie!” “What the fuck? You can’t make a movie!”… you know, shit like that. That’s kind of gone now. There have been enough stories that made Robert, Richard Linklater, Spike Lee… people that just kind of did it, and started a career off it when it wasn’t as commonplace to have people be like “You’re making a movie?”. Now, it’s gotten to the point that “Oh, you’re making a movie? You should pay me for this lamp that you’re working under.” (laughs). They know how to work the system! The expenses, kind of, come down with the tech, but the field is massive. We were able to pop in 1994 because there wasn’t a shit ton compared to now. Now, you don’t even compete with what’s at the multiplex. If you go to iTunes, or Netflix, or Hulu, click on indie or horror, or any of these categories that tend to gravitate toward “I’m gonna kick back and watch something.” and you’ll see an ocean of films, and actors that you’ve never heard of before. I pay attention to a lot of shit. I do a weekly entertainment show, so I keep my ear to the ground about what’s being made, and to see those movies that are just popping up there, and premiere here… you just realize that it’s a way different world, man. People don’t all gun for the theater anymore. Some cats are just like “I’m happy to get it to this stage”. So, I wouldn’t have popped in this environment, whatsoever. I’d be one of many people. Thank god I did it back when I did. And that’s all I’ve got on my side, is longevity, really, at this point. It’s nice to have done it when we did it. If I had done it now, nobody would notice. I probably wouldn’t have even tried to find a theatrical release for it. I’d put it on YouTube, in a couple of parts, or something. What’s nice, is that I sit down with so many younger filmmakers now, and we do this podcast called ‘Film School Fridays,’ and you talk to these cats, or when you go out and tour with a movie and do a Q&A after, you talk to these cats who are filmmakers who are like “I’m making a flick now with me and my friends.” And I’m like “Oh, great man. What is it about?” and they explain “It’s a $1,500 zombie epic” and you’re like, “That’s adorable!”. Then they’re like “Here’s the trailer” and it looks better than anything you’ve ever made. (Laughs) It’s just rich, and fuckin’ beautiful, and you feel like you were being condescending for a second, like “Oh! This is great man! When are you going to submit this?” and they’re like “We’ve already submitted this. We’re on our next film.” “Oh, how many films have you made?”, and they’re like “Six” (laughs). They just make flicks. They’re not like “I’m putting all my eggs in this one basket, and pulling the fucking handle, and hope this works out!”. That’s the school of thought I came from. That’s all we knew. People had gone before me and done the same thing. Richard Linklater had done it with SLACKERS. Made this movie in the middle of nowhere, went somewhere, fuckin’ somebody picked it up, and his life changed. It’s different with these cats. They don’t wait for a gatekeeper to go “Congratulations! All that time and effort was worth it, Here is the golden fuckin’ egg.”
MJ: Well, that did kind of happen to us though… you. (Laughs) Literally, that’s what happened.
KS: It kind of did actually, and I was the egg giver! In most cases there is no egg giver. In most cases, cats race to a finish line to get to a festival, or a dream of a theatrical distribution, or a distribution of any kind. It’s not even about being in a theater anymore. Just “Somebody see my fucking movie!”. You’re lost in a sea of others. As much as I love CLERKS, at the same time I feel bad because the ship that launched ten thousand other ships didn’t ever reach a fucking port. Some people saw the journey I made and went “Fuck. I can make that journey too! That looks easy!” and some cats didn’t get that far. I think I would have been one of those cats bashed on the rocks, distracted by a manatee like “Oh look! It’s a mermaid!”, and my boat never would have hit the shore. The only reason I did was because this field was so wide open at that point. There was no competition like there is now. I mean, back when I was coming to this con, at the beginning – next year will be twenty years – top number, I think, was thirty thousand in 95’, maybe forty thousand. Now, it’s beyond that. It’s triple that or something, and that’s just in something like this. Even the audience for stuff like this is so massive, and there’s so many places for them to go without you having to fuckin’ be like “You, come to a movie theater! Get off your ass and come to a movie theater!”. That’s why it’s so easy for me to step out of films, step out of making films, because it’s so much work to get someone to leave the comfort of their home and go to a movie theater when they can go “Dude, I can wait two weeks… I can wait two minutes and watch it on BitTorrent!” or whatever the hip version of BitTorrent is now, that we’re not suppose to talk about.
MJ: Pirate Bay.
KS: Thank you. (Laughs) So, I would have been lost in the shuffle of things at this point. Thank God I went when I did. That’s why it’s so easy for me to be like “Alright, I’m going to fuckin’ pay it forward.” because I know I got lucky. My whole life, I know I got lucky. So, I want to help other people. I know that dream. You make that film, and you’re not going “I can’t wait to make it, and we’ll just watch it with my friends, and no one will ever see it beyond that… so, we can always talk about what might have been.”. You want as many people as possible to see it. That’s why you do this film shit, man. It’s communication. It’s hurling your message out into the void. I don’t know why Matt did it, but I know why I did it. To see if anybody else was out there who thought like me, felt like me, would get the shit that I was talking about… Now, there’s the internet. Thank God that didn’t exist because I would have never made CLERKS if there was an internet. “Oh my God! Fleshlight?” (Laughs) I’d be on the internet the whole time! I was searching. I was trying to communicate with others and be like “This is what I think, and feel, and hope, and shit.”. That’s what drove me to do it, and I think that’s what drives a lot of people to do it. Some people want to do it so they can be rich and famous, which is ludicrous. Talk about winning the lottery. You didn’t get a golden egg. You got a chocolate egg. A golden egg is when you make one of those movies like BLAIR WITCH, which makes a billion dollars…
MJ: … but even that, I don’t think, could happen anymore. Even PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, which also came into Slamdance. Even that wasn’t like “Hey, you’re a millionaire!”. Even the landscape for that is changing. Film marketing costs dozens and dozens of millions and millions of dollars. There is no more instant success, or becoming a superstar. That happens in television. It doesn’t really happen in films.
KS: That’s another reason that it’s easy to walk away from films too. It’s too expensive to get it out there. The expense is no longer making the art, it’s just communicating the art to a potential audience. That’s where the true expense is. We have this movie JAY & SILENT BOB’S SUPER GROOVY CARTOON MOVIE which has been touring around the country. Doing great though, because we’ve been taking it from place to place, as opposed to carpet-bomb marketing. That movie cost sixty-nine thousand bucks to make. Very inexpensive From the moment we started selling tickets it was in the black. Now, if I wanted to take that movie into even a thousand theaters, in a multiplex, I’d have to spend, minimum, two million bucks to let people know that we were going to open on just a thousand screens. Then you spend a few more bucks just to open up on two thousand screens. I would wind up spending a ridiculous amount of money to reach an audience to tell them that we made a sixty-nine thousand dollar cartoon, come see it. That’s why it’s the big business to make these found footage, or smaller horror movies, because it’s the old Miramax method. You do it really inexpensively, and hope it pans out, because you think you’ve got something you can sell to an audience. Back in the day it was horror. During the Miramax era it was class. It was like “We’re going to sell you a fucking classy movie that you don’t normally see in the multiplex.”
MJ: That’s where you got in. (Laughs)
KS: Not first class. (Laughs) Steerage, but still… I got in!
Matt, with this story specifically, was there any reason that you settled on telling the bullying story from this perspective?
MJ: The movie is about a super-movie-obsessed kid. In that way, it is, kind of, about my own life. The whole thing is shot like a documentary. The media is showing kids shooting other kids all the time, so this movie is an extension of that. These kids have cameras following them, for what essentially is a school project, for months at a time. There, you can see the main character ‘Matt’ literally editing the footage that you’re watching together, into the movie. You (to Kevin) were saying before that this is a really interesting, smart way of doing things, but to us, that was just what we knew. When you’re a kid, you make movies about yourself. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold – when I was researching a lot of this stuff – they made hundreds of movies about themselves. Tons of them, and you can watch them. When you watch these guys in those movies they’re funny kids trying to make one another laugh, which is part of the story that you never hear when you hear about Columbine, when you hear about anybody who’s doing something super violent at school. What we wanted to do was to sort of take what high school meant to us, which was a lot of fun, a lot of goofing off with your friends, and then move it into more of a dark place. Something where you felt like you didn’t have the type of power that you wanted, or felt like you weren’t in the box you wanted to be in, and showing one characters struggle to try to break out of that box, however misguided that is. The film being one shot, that’s not a creative decision. The decisions in this movie are rarely creative. They’re almost always functional. They’re a function of what a kid would be able to shoot in a high school, and if it’s one take it’s just because that’s what we got. We never did second takes of anything, because we shot it like a documentary. When you see something, that’s the only time we got it. It’s not like we could tell these people in this school “We’re doing that again!” (laughs). As soon as you see a guy walk down the hall and say the same thing twice, kids would start being like “What the hell are they doing? Why are they doing this again?”. That wasn’t like “Oh man. We’re going to do this in one shot. It’s going to be wicked, just like the beginning of TOUCH OF EVIL!”. It’s not like that at all. We would shoot eight hours a day, and that one fifteen minute shot was like “Oh, good. We’ll use that!”.
Given the changing landscape of the film industry, where do you see Kevin Smith Movie Club going?
MJ: It’s going to take over Criterion, I think. (Laughs)
KS: Yeah, yeah. That’s the idea. (Laughs)
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas made those dire predictions – they did this USC panel that got a lot of coverage – saying that movie studios are going to implode. More people are going to watch movies for the first time on VOD, and in the future…
KS: They said that at some film symposium, and people were like “Holy shit! They predicted the end of the movie business!” and I said the same stuff when I was out on tour with RED STATE, and in that RED STATE speech… you can go watch that RED STATE speech at Sundance. I said the same shit, and people were like “ You’re fuckin… You’re a fat lunatic!”, and I got ridiculed, and shit like that. I didn’t have enough credibility to say it the way they did. Yeah. People are pricing themselves out of the movie business. It’s marketing. It’s really what it all comes down to. And people will be like “Come on, when thefuckin’ THE LONE RANGER costs over two hundred million.”. Those aren’t the movies we’re talking about. You spend a lot of money to make a movie, then you should spend a lot of money to market that movie to let people know it’s coming. The problem is a movie like THE DIRTIES and a movie like DESPICABLE ME are, kind of, competing on the same platform when it comes to advertising costs. You can keep your costs down on the ground, ask you friends :Hey, can you do this for nothing?” You can convince people to take deferments, and stuff like that – do anything you can to keep your budget down. But when it comes to advertising it in mass media, like television, you can’t go to NBC and ask “Hey, can you charge us less than the DESPICABLE ME commercials because we’re independent filmmakers?”
MJ: “… because were students?”
KS: Yeah. “students? Help us out!” Then you’re playing on the same, exact playing field. That’s the beauty of independent film exploding into the mainstream. What’s fraught with possibilities now ends up being them playing the same fucking games as the studios, which is you’ve got to spend to make money. When I first got to Miramax, it was clever marketing. That’s what it was all about. By the time Miramax was over, they were just buying openings the same way studios buy openings. “We’ll spend twenty million to open this movie.”. So, it’s tough when you’re not making stuff like DESPICABLE ME, or fuckin’ IRON MAN, or things like that – that are large spectacles that you know people are going to leave their houses for. You’re making thoughtful, little meditative flicks that some see as fucking time bombs, like “I don’t want to go near that. It’s too difficult. It hits way too close to home.”, and still you’ll be competing through the same costs to reach an audience that’s not nearly as broad. The marketing prices you out of the game as a smaller filmmaker. When I say smaller, it’s not just the independent filmmaker, we’re talking about the mid-range budget films that have just gone away just like the middle class is disappearing. There’s no longer just a fifteen, twenty million dollar movie. It’s easier for them to make two massive tent pole movies, than it is for them to make one massive tent pole movie, and six smaller movies that try to gamble. There’s no more gambling. All they’ve got to do is pay the bills. They’re not gambling anymore. Marketing is massively at play. That’s what I’m trying to say, when it comes to the future of cinema imploding as Mr. Spielberg and Mr. Lucas have talked about. And, again, I recognize the cost of movies are expensive too, but it’s selling the movie. It’s not the big ones. It’s the small ones. I think, like Spielberg was talking about, they almost did LINCOLN at HBO, because they were like “Who’s going to go see a movie about Lincoln?” even with Steven Spielberg as the director. That’s Steven Spielberg! Making a movie about one of America’s biggest icons, and still, they were like “I don’t know…”
MJ: “Should we spend the twenty million dollars advertising this?”
KS: It’s tough, and that’s why TV, over the last twenty years has become really fucking interesting. You can do way more things there than you can do in cinema, and you can do them inexpensively, and they can switch horses in midstream. Changing anything about a movie is like trying to turn the Titanic, but when you’re on TV, after the first episode airs, you can go “Kill the next two and just air the fourth one. Just go straight to it. You can self correct. It’s more nimble like that. Movies just become too constant.
