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Kevin Smith, who has recently been approved with a SAG waiver to make his new movie The 4:30 Movie, is one of the biggest pioneers in independent filmmaking in the 1990s. He joins Robert Rodriguez as someone who was able to make a feature film on a minuscule budget with basically no crew on a do-it-yourself mentality. Both directors would gain acclaim for their efforts as both Clerks and El Mariachi won over fans at film festivals and started a revolution of non-studio productions. Smith would go on to carry over the characters Jay and Silent Bob onto his other films, including their own spin-offs, and even made two sequels to the one that started it all.

It’s hard for aspiring filmmakers not to be inspired by the groundbreaking indie film, and in a bit of poetry, indie filmmakers have made a movie about Kevin Smith and the making...

Kevin Smith’s Clerks is one of the greatest independent directorial debuts of all time. It has a distinctive New Jersian feel; the black-and-white film stock gives the movie a raw, minimalist focus on character; and most importantly, it’s instantly memorable.

Related: Kevin Smith's Movies, Ranked By Rotten Tomatoes

As great as the movie itself is – a timeless comedy classic – the story behind how Smith and his ragtag production team made it is arguably even more interesting (so much so that it was actually dramatized in a movie called Shooting Clerks that got Smith’s own stamp of approval). So, here are 10 Crazy Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Kevin Smith’s Clerks.

“Clerks” has inspired legions of loyal fans in its 22 years of existence, few of them more devoted than Christopher Downie. The 31-year-old filmmaker is set to make his debut feature with “Shooting Clerks,” a film about — you guessed it — the making of Kevin Smith’s debut feature. Featuring several original cast members and the same grainy, black-and-white look, the docu-fiction hybrid is set to make its premiere next month. Watch its first trailer below.

Read More: Kevin Smith on the Future: Why He Wants to Release Other People’s Films and How He Cracked the Self-Distribution Game

Taking a vaguely self-reflexive approach that blends aspects of Smith’s filmography with the more factual behind-the-scenes elements, Downie’s movie counts “Clerks” principals Brian O’Halloran, Marilyn Ghigliotti and Smith himself among its cast. (At 105 minutes, it’s also 15 minutes longer than its source material.)

Read More: ‘Yoga Hosers’: Watch Kevin Smith...

Made for just $27,000 on maxed-out credit cards, Clerks became an immediate indie classic, and now fans can get some insight into how the film was made with the new indie comedy Shooting Clerks. The first trailer for this Kevin Smith biopic dropped back in March 2015, when production was just getting under way, but today we have the red band trailer, along with details on where you can see this film yourself. The indie production company Auld Reekie Media has set up screenings in Kevin Smith's hometown of Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey and in New York City in November, following the world premiere at the Orlando Film Festival next month.

Auld Reekie Media has set up EventBrite pages for both the New Jersey premiere on November 10 and the New York premiere on November 11. Tickets to each of these screenings will be $28, with each fan receiving a themed swag bag filled...

Well this is something - an indie film about making an indie film. Shooting Clerks is a fictional feature biopic made by Christopher Downie retelling the story of Kevin Smith making his breakout debut film Clerks in 1994. The film stars Mark Frost as Kevin Smith, Chris Bain as Jason Mewes (who has appeared in other films made by Downie about Mewes), Kit Alexander as Brian O'Halloran, and Tom Sullivan as Jeff Anderson. The cast list also includes a cameo by the real Kevin Smith as Larkin Eve. As expected, this is super low budget and almost like a fan-made retelling of the original story, but it also has enough support to get a release. They'll be showing the film on a small screening tour including a showing in NYC, heading to a few other places like Orlando and New Jersey. Give this a look below if you're curious how it turned out.

Regardless of how you might feel about Kevin Smith’s filmography as a whole, you have to admit that what he pulled off as just just some backwards-hat-and-trench-coat-wearing guy from New Jersey is astounding. Willing a feature-length movie into existence with practically nothing in the middle of nowhere and somehow parlaying that into a 22-year (and counting) multi-media career with a large and extremely loyal fan base is hard to do. So, it makes sense that Smith has been an inspiration to many younger filmmakers. But none quite so literally as Christopher Downie.

The 31-year-old Scottish writer-director is finally getting ready to release Shooting Clerks, the film about the shooting of the film Clerks that he’s been working on for several years now. It tells the story of how a convenience store clerk pulled off the near-impossible and turned his quirky idea into a movie we’re still talking...

A movie based on the making of Kevin Smith‘s Clerks has been in the works for the last few years. Crowdfunded and shot by indie filmmakers, Shooting Clerks is a narrative retelling of the true story of how “New Jersey convenience store clerk, Kevin Smith made his seminal film and the friends who aided him on his […]

The post ‘Shooting Clerks’ Trailer: It’s All About Making A Movie With Your Friends appeared first on /Film.

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RoboDoc is to be released to mark the 30th anniversary of the original RoboCop - and it'll be exploring the original film...

There’s no shortage of films about popular films doing the rounds at the moment. Back In Time examined the Back To The Future trilogy, Shooting Clerks will appear later this year to explore the genesis of Kevin Smith’s comedy favourite. Then there are two different Ghostbusters documentaries happening, as well as Life After Flash, which centres on Flash Gordon.

Now? Add RoboCop to the mix.

RoboDoc is a documentary film from the makers of Leviathan: The Story Of Hellraiser And Hellbound: Hellraiser 2. The production promises an independent retrospective on the sci-fi classic, in time for its 30th birthday next year. Over 20 members of the cast and crew have already agreed to support the project.

Christopher Griffiths is directing RoboDoc, and Gary Smart is producing.

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We spoke to actor and frequent Kevin Smith collaborator Jason Mewes about his new movies Bling, Yoga Hosers, MallBrats and Clerks III…

Clerks is one of the movies that made me love movies, and so it was with more pre-interview nerves than usual that I waited on hold to connect with Jay actor Jason Mewes via a crackly international phone-line.

We were due to talk about the animated movie Bling - in which Mewes voices a robot monkey called Kit, who shirks his responsibilities as a theme park employee to help the main character (voiced by Taylor Kitsch) take down a super villain and propose to his girlfriend – but the memory of all the nights I’ve spent chuckling away to Jay and Silent Bob’s antics had put some serious fear into me.

I needn’t have worried, because Mewes proved to be a lovely chap to chat with,...

Kevin Smith is a bona-fide pop culture darling. He.s gained this status not just through his films, but through his die-hard enthusiasm for all things nerd too. Thanks to this energy, he has become a savant to millions, and it was always likely that at some point someone would bring the story of how he made his first film to the big-screen itself. And Shooting Clerks does just that. You can check out the debut trailer for the film below. Lovely. While there.s no denying that Shooting Clerks looks a little rough around the edges (and its song choice is a tad on the nose and cheesy), any of you who are already well-versed in the struggles that Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier et. al. went through to make Clerks will have almost certainly emitted a smile at this adoring re-imagination. That's in no small part thanks to the...

Since the digital revolution, it has become increasingly easy to make low-budget films in the mold of, for a particularly salient example, Kevin Smith’s Clerks.

All filmmakers need now are a few friends, the right know-how (and often suprisingly little of that) and some inspiration.

The inspiration in the case of Christopher Downie’s Shooting Clerks is exactly what you think it is. Here’s a first trailer for the film, which offers a fictionalised account of the production of Smith’s debut feature.

Clerks has provoked many young filmmakers, I’m sure. This is just an exceedingly literal example of that.

Smith himself is credited as ‘the narrator,’ which implies endorsement. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re in for a sycophantic hagiography, of course.

Anyway, maybe there’s nothing much controversial to report about the making of Clerks anyway. I’m certainly not familiar enough with the...

This appropriately very indie movie dramatically depicts Smith's struggle to make his directorial debut

"Shooting Clerks Trailer: Kevin Smith Got a Biopic" was originally published on Film School Rejects for our wonderful readers to enjoy. It is not intended to be reproduced on other websites. If you aren't reading this in your favorite RSS reader or on Film School Rejects, you're being bamboozled. We hope you'll come find us and enjoy the best articles about movies, television and culture right from the source.

While more often than not, most biopics are usually reserved for popular musicians and Apple Computer CEOs. But the upcoming dramatic comedy Shooting Clerks revolves around indie director-turned-cult icon Kevin Smith. The story follows a young Kevin as he sets out to raise $27,000 to make his black and white comedy Clerks, which went onto become a surprise hit way back in 1994. The new film was written and directed by Christopher Downie, with the full cooperation of Kevin Smith.

Kevin Smith actually appears in the film, as do other Clerks participants such as Jason Mewes and Brian O'Halloran. The film hit IndieGoGo last year to raise money for production and now we have a first look with a teaser trailer. As for the story, no synopsis has been released, but we imagine it tracks Smith's efforts to get the movie off the ground, along with a look at what was happening...

While Kevin Smith is rounding up the cast to shoot Mallrats 2 next year, right now he's getting ready to shoot Clerks 3. And coincidentally, this fall will bring a biopic about how the filmmaker launched his career with the original Clerks, an indie hit at Sundance in 1993. Shooting Clerks will feature familiar faces like Smith himself, Jason Mewes, Brian O’Halloran, Scott Mosier, Walter Flanagan and more, but they won't be playing the character's from Smith's film or even themselves. Instead an unknown cast is bringing to life these characters in the story of how Clerks came to be, and a teaser trailer has just arrived. It looks like a student film, but in a charming way, and seems to be something that Smith's fans will enjoy. Watch? Here's the teaser trailer for Christopher Downie's Shooting Clerks from ScreenRant: Shooting Clerks is written and directed by Christopher Downie. The...

A few years back, Kevin Smith said he was retiring. That changed when a spark ignited new passion in the filmmaker; now we’re getting movie after movie from Smith. He first had that inspiration in the early ’90s when he raised $27,000 to make a little black and white movie called Clerks. Now, over twenty years later, that incredible story is […]

The post ‘Shooting Clerks’ Teaser Trailer: The Kevin Smith Biopic Is Coming Soon appeared first on /Film.

This amusing black-and-white trailer dropped over the weekend for Shooting Clerks, which tells the tale of an underemployed college drop-out working in a convenience store in New Jersey, selling beef jerky and Slurpee equivalents to his more successful former classmates. Add facial hair, a trench coat, a hockey jersey, a video camera and a few other ingredients, however, and you have … director Kevin Smith. The film tells the story of how Smith and a rag-tag group of…...

UK cinema in 2015 has plenty to recommend it. Here are 36 UK films of all genres to look forward to this year…

Dig past the litterfall of Kray Brothers biopics and tales of nubile teens on camping trips gone wrong, and you’ll unearth plenty for the UK film industry to boast about in 2015. From sci-fi romps and thrillers like Robot Overlords and Ex Machina to dramas like High-Rise, comedies like War On Everyone, spy flicks like Spectre and kids’ films like Bill, there’s no shortage of inventive, highly promising cinema coming from these isles.

We’ve included a few choice co-productions in 2015’s pick of the year’s most interesting-looking pictures, which bolsters our list in both size and breadth (and mostly means we Brits can claim partial credit for ace-sounding dystopian flick The Lobster).

In alphabetical order then, here are the 36 UK (or UK-ish) movies we’re excited about seeing this year…...

Kevin Smith has signed up for a crowdfunded biopic about his early career.

He will narrate and appear in Shooting Clerks, which was funded through Indiegogo earlier in the year, reports Entertainment Weekly.

He had previously given his blessing to the project about the making of his 1994 debut Clerks.

Smith will play Canadian journalist Larkin Eve in the movie.

Director Christopher Downie is currently shooting the film in Vancouver, New Jersey and the UK.

Smith recently shaved off his familiar beard.

Shooting Clerks is intended to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

Once upon a time, Kevin Smith was simply a filmmaker, with Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy to his credit. But as Smith.s career blossomed, he assumed numerous roles . opening a comic book shop, producing reality television shows centered around said comic-book shop, and launching a massive podcast network for himself and his friends. When something "Kevin Smith" related happens in this industry, Smith often has his hand in it . including a planned biopic on the director.s first film. Shooting Clerks is a fan-sponsored, fan-funded docu-feature about young Kevin Smith filming his debut film in New Jersey. On the IndieGoGo site set up for the film, they describe Clerks as "an indie underdog project" and "Rocky with cameras," and they want to capture some of that independent spirit. "Shooting Clerks is as much a celebration of Kevin's work as it is about Kevin himself," the producers state. And it...

The now-shooting story of how Kevin Smith came to make Clerks has added, well, Kevin Smith to its cast.

A new independent film has started shooting, that will tell the story of how Kevin Smith went from behind the counter at a convenience store, to making Clerks and kickstarting his career.

Entitled Shooting Clerks, the project was successfully crowdfunded to the tune of $3,605 earlier this year. Writer/director Christopher Downie is behind it, and the film is described as "an indie underdog story. It's Rocky with cameras".

The cast of the film will feature Ernie O'Donnell, Scott Schiaffo, Vinnie Periera and Betty Broussard. And it's now been confirmed that Kevin Smith is to play a small role in the movie, as a Canadian reporter called Larkin Eve (which is an anagram for Real Kevin). He will also narrate, having long given Shooting Clerks his blessing.

The plan is to have...

Kevin Smith will make a cameo in the independent film celebrating his own rags-to-riches Hollywood story. Shooting Clerks is a crowd-sourced biopic of how Smith bankrolled his grainy $27,000 first film with maxed-out credit cards and became the darling of the Sundance Film Festival when Clerks debuted there in 1994. Smith gave the project his blessing when it was announced in February, and the filmmakers announced today that Smith will be part of the film. He'll also provide narration and play a small role as a Canadian reporter named Larkin Eve (an anagram for Real Kevin). The film, directed by Christopher Downie,...