Name: How to Make Your Own Movie, According to Kevin Smith
Uploaded: 2024-09-20T14:30:06.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'How to Make Your Own Movie, According to Kevin Smith' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-09-20. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'How to Make Your Own Movie, According to Kevin Smith' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-09-20. Transcript available.

How to Make Your Own Movie, According to Kevin Smith

when it comes to preparing for a movie what are some pitfalls that uh people
can avoid
um it might be little things it might just be energy being focused having
enough time like
honestly the biggest pitfall i mean you'll never have enough time you'll never
have enough money
i don't give a what your budget is like whether you have three million or 300
every filmmaker
every producer always has the same complaint which is like not enough time not
enough money
and even if you've got more money you think that'll ameliorate it it just winds
up being
the same problem economy of scale so don't worry about that this is what you
need to
think about i think primarily um be prepared in as much as like if you're
starting for the
first time you've never done this before obviously this is an advice for people
who do it for a living
let's say you're a first timer rehearse the out of that like a month on clerks
mall rats chasing me rehearse for a month before we went near a set that way
your take ratio is gonna
be real low now some people would be like what does that matter in the age of
digital video back when
you're shooting film yes it was expensive to process film time is money on a
movie set so if you can
accomplish it in one take move on like the story of my life and i've told it
before publicly so this
might not be news to some but how i've been able to keep doing what i've been
doing for 30 years if
people are like i hate him why does he keep how come he still works this is why
i don't strive for
excellence i ain't chris fucking nolan believe me every critic will tell you
that and chris nolan
strives for excellence i from the beginning of my career from clerks forward
was never like let's
make it fucking perfect if i was striving for perfection i don't think i've
ever made my first
film yet i'd still be sitting there frozen what will it be like ah good enough
will take you very
far good enough has taken me 30 years so on the set of clerks we'd be shooting
i'd be like cut
um all right that's good enough let's move on let's do something else good
enough has gotten me here
has gotten me all the way to this fucking chair good enough will get you as far
as you need to go
now you know that's probably not winner talk right like if you wouldn't want to
win an oscar you got
to leave it on the table you got to make people hurt make those movies where
like leonardo's
fighting a bear and and make people sit in the snow to do it because everyone's
got to be miserable in order for this to read and like that i ain't that guy i'm
that committed to it
i just like to make pretend maybe get a little money for it and so i can't go
in
authentically like that where it's like oh everything it's going to be
perfection at the
cost of everybody and there are directors who do that and i respect them i
guess a little bit i
wouldn't do that to my cast and crew but like those movies are successful
because they've got a vision
and a drive and the passion of a filmmaker if i were ever trying to make one of
those things
it wouldn't happen number one i have the talent number two i don't have that
kind of patience and
shit number three i can't do that to other people i want people leaving my set
going i had a good ass
time that's how i keep my budgets low crew comes back and they'll work for
scale because like look
you don't pay a lot but it's good time on a set you're going to enjoy yourself
you're going to have
happy memories and like that good enough gets me to the set you know if i've
rehearsed
enough before we shoot and i'm on set one two take stops and i'm like good
enough moving on and that time
all adds up that's money so strive for perfection i guess at some point in your
career i honestly
never have and i've just been doing it for 30 years and some people out there i'm
sure the
letterbox crowd would be disgusted by that thought like oh he doesn't even try
clearly i try i've been
doing this for 30 years well you show up i don't try and beyond show up i
deliver i just don't make
everyone's life miserable to deliver something that's like i've got a vision
right i got an idea where
we're going and let's all have a good time doing it otherwise what was the
point if people on a set
are miserable when you make pretend for a living everybody has failed and you
shouldn't be doing
this like it should be fun it's making pretend for a living and i understand
you know there are some
people like no man art is pain and it's not really this is this is an art form
don't get me wrong but
like doesn't have to be painful it's very cathartic and a lot of folks can't do
that pivot like
it's got to be this and i don't believe in that so i'm the guy that's just like
that's good enough
let's move it on every one of my movies is good enough don't have to be great
and i saw somebody
the other day on twitter was like it's got like one or two really brilliant
ideas in this movie and
the rest is just some horse and i'm like yeah i mean that's it you don't have
to keep watching
if you don't like that kind of thing but i'm lucky i got one or two good ideas
in the horse
if you're an indie filmmaker and you're out there going like nobody's ever
heard my story they've never
heard my voice they've never fucking seen what i can do and if you're sitting
there right now going
i fucking hate kevin smith he makes the same movie every time 30 years in the
business all he's done
is make clerks of jade's on bob great now's your time now's your time to shine
don't sit there waste
your time at home looking at me hating on me use me as your fucking example and
stepping stone like if
that fucking talentless idiot could do it then i could do it too and now is the
time for another indie
filmmaker in the filmmaking movement now it feels like with the frustration of
real fucking filmmakers
who i know people that make millions to fucking make movies sitting on our asses
because ain't nobody
fucking making movies could you imagine if some if the only way you got to do
your show is if somebody
told you okay now you could go no you enjoy the independence of like this past
weekend is going
to happen when i want it to happen you're your own boss there are a lot of
people that never figured out how to do that
they never came from indie film so they couldn't pivot back to indie film they've
just been spoiled
by working for a studio so now with the studios not making anything they're
like what do i fucking do
i've always been able to pivot back to indie film and i feel like even though i've
been able to do
that i've been in an indie film for a while everyone knows every variation of
story i could possibly
tell every once in a while you'll whip a tusk on them and we're like well that's
fucking weird but
generally speaking like he does those james on the bottom movies and shit now
is the time for an indie
filmmaker to come out and be like here's a fucking story nobody's ever heard
fuck a tic tac i mean
i i love tick tock don't get me wrong but like people that spend their time
like doing little
videos and if you're a filmmaker make your film and now is the time to take
your shot because
there is an empty guff in the marketplace for that type of storytelling all of
it has gone
mainstream streaming is now mainstream so people who are telling these offbeat
stories on streamers
they are essentially studios at this point when i started an indie film it was
like us outside of
warner brothers and fucking you know 20th century fox and paramount going like
well they'll never let
us play so just because they won't let us in don't mean i can't do it on my own
it's the streamers of
that now so if you're out there going like well netflix will never give me a
fucking thing great
go do your fucking thing right without them hang your own fucking shingle it's
time people are hungry for
that do you think it's a good idea to sell direct to consumer right like yes
david spade and i wrote a
movie and so we're gonna try to get it made and it feels like it's kind of
getting close right so
and we're like could we just put it on a website and sell it right there to
people 100 but also
you travel out in the world man and so imagine you do a comedy tour but instead
your comedy tour is
hey man uh welcome tonight we're gonna watch the movie and afterwards we're
gonna talk about it all
right so enjoy the show and then you get to fuck off for 90 minutes then you
come out and it's all
crowd work because you're just answering questions that's it you have the
ability to do that why do
you need anybody else or you've got such an audience and such a long tail that
you can go into an amc
like a Taylor swift and be like i guarantee you that on my podcast that has 200
million downloads
per ever whatever the that i can make people come to a theater and show a thing
and
even if amc is like no we're interested then you go to fathom events and be
like hey man i got a movie
i want to put it in screens for like two days and you'll make like 10 million
bucks and they'll write
stories about how smart you are so you don't need anybody theo you have the
distribution mechanism
already in place you're a loaded gun at all times you just have to point your
audience in the right
direction and what you do is point them to the next show the next show or a
live gig but if you
make a movie with spade or whoever the don't sell it until you have milked it
and juiced it for
everything you personally can the way you juice your own then give it up to a
streamer then give
it up to somebody like a home video you know company that's going to put it out
and like that
because you have the mechanism in place you already know how to put asses in
seats the big mystery of
this business that everyone's always trying to figure out is how do i get
people to show up
you know how to get people to show up now this would just be you going okay
when you show up this
time we're gonna do things a little differently i'm just gonna show you a movie
and then we're gonna
do a comedy show afterwards and stuff do you get charged the same thing and all
that money goes
right to the flick and then you would have a then you would have money now then
you could start making
other cool movies and have your friends be like this is how you could just
write it and then it's like
you'd have movies would be like free again because there wouldn't be yeah you
don't have to go and
ask some smarmy dude some who what do you mean free again because i'm like i
like this world just uh
free meaning you could do whatever you want you can do what you want but but
you could always do
whatever you want you have the ability to do that you just right you always
could how much does it
cost to make a movie like that what's kind of like your highest budget that'll
be 10. if i can get i
can i could get between eight to ten for a jay and silent bob type thing clerks
three thing the 4 30
movie which is coming out september 13th presumably that's what we're here to
talk about but i'm just i
just came yeah i just came for this no i want to talk a little bit more about
that we don't have to
but the 4 30 movie cost three million bucks wow uh saban financed that and was
it uh savon saban
saban have they funded some of your other films too they did jane silent bob
reboot okay years and
years ago they also did the mighty morph and power rangers did they um and how
much can we can you make
a real return on a movie like that you can make a return you can make your
money back and make a little
scratch yeah um i think that's i think i can stay in the business for as long
as i for three decades
when i'm well past my past due date because i could always pivot to inexpensive
so a lot of people are
like well it's got to be 20 million or i can't do it i'm the other guy where i'm
like oh i'll i could do
it for three yeah whether we could do it for three or not it's like we'll get
there we'll cram it into
that fucking number i wouldn't want to be anything fancy yeah and the privilege
of like making a 