Kevin Smith was born in Red Bank, New Jersey and attended school in both Jersey and New York before enrolling at the Vancouver Film School. However, half way through his studies, Smith decided to drop and out and took a partial reimbursement of his tuition fees as a way to finance some of the production costs of his first movie.
Once Smith had raised some more money (by selling a part of his extensive comic book collection and dipping into funds that were set aside for his college education), production on 'Clerks' began. Due to the financial pressures and time constraints the crew faced, a number of corners were cut to ensure the film was completed. The film was to be shot in 21 straight days at a Quick Stop Convenience Store in New Jersey where Smith worked. Unfortunately, Smith was only granted permission to film during the hours that the store was closed (10:30pm – 5:30am), meaning the shutters had to remain closed throughout the time they were filming. To explain why the shop appeared to be constantly dimly lit, Smith simply added a line to the script explaining that “someone jammed gum in the locks”.
Filming in the same store where Kevin worked posed another problem. Since he was working there during the day and filming there at night, he had to get by on one hour of sleep a night for the duration of the 21 day shoot and was said to be barely conscious as the final scenes were filmed. He also enlisted the help of friends and family to appear in the film to prevent him from having to pay actors.
When all was said and done, after 21 days of filming 'Clerks' has cost $27,575 to make - a miniscule budget for most feature films, but a small fortune to Smith, who had plundered his savings and sold many items he held dear. Not only this, he had also maxed out eight to ten credit cards, each with $2000 limits (Smith later commented that he would compare credit card bills from the time 'Clerks' was being filmed to his credit card bills now and stifle a chuckle at what an irresponsible young man he was). Luckily, Kevin’s financial worries were quickly taken care of as the film was quickly picked up by the large distribution company, Miramax, after a strong showing at the Cannes and Sundance film festivals (where it received several awards).
'Clerks' went on to gross over $3 million in theatres across America and was heralded as a cult classic by all who saw it. It was also the catalyst for Smith to produce several more films based in his home town of New Jersey, many of them featuring the same cast members, with plot lines carried over from previous films including “Mallrats”, “Chasing Amy” and “Dogma”. The film has also been placed regularly in “The 100 Greatest Films of All Time” polls in magazines, newspapers and on television since the late 90s.
Tags: small fortune, credit cards, college education, duration, credit card bills, tuition fees, time constraints, locks, gum, shutters, financial pressures, feature films