IFH 855: The Crazy Story Behind Shooting Clerks (The Clerks Biopic) with Christopher Downie

Alex Ferrari 0:46
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 1:00
I couldn't wait to have this guy on, because he's doing, you know, he's doing his thing. And you know, we were going to talk all about how he got Kevin to make it, how he got Kevin's blessing to make it. You know, how he got Kevin to star in it, how he got started in filmmaking. We talked about gingers also, oddly enough, and you know, we talked about how we handle production problems and so much more, with guest Christopher Downey, Hey, Chris, thanks a lot for coming on the show.

Christopher Downie 0:05
Thanks for having me.

Dave Bullis 0:07
Yo, Chris, just to get started, I wanted to ask you know about you and how you found yourself in the in the film industry. So were you always, you know, making films, or were you, did you watch a lot of films as a kid growing up?

Christopher Downie 0:43
Yeah, in fact, my family, certain family members, namely my aunt, would not mock me, but criticize me for having too many films. Obviously, I grew up in the era of VHS, and that's pretty much all we had. We bypassed LaserDisc and went straight to DVD, and I was I was criticized for having too many I had like 25 VHS tapes, and my cousin had like nine. And there was a big difference, apparently. So that was excessive for my aunt, but not for me. But if she saw my I mean, she's been in my house since, but she saw my blu ray and laserdisc. I mean, I've got, like, umds and things like that, if she saw the amount of dead technology and current technology that I have regarding film, and she should blow her head, we just blow so, yeah, very much. Started off watching films you mainly on VHS and taped off of TV because my mom was was single parent, and we didn't really go to the theater that often, and get to go to this the film theater. So when we did go, it was a big event. And even if the film was garbage, like, say, the Mario Brothers movie, it was, you know, heightened by the fact that we were going to a theater to see a film instead of watching it on this tiny, 19 inch portable and then, obviously, as I got older and technology started to catch up with with, you know, the budget of, like, a single, single household that we were able to get, like, video cameras and things like that. Or, more importantly, my friend got a video camera, and then we started making films with that. The film camera he had was a Tommy 100 pound film camera, which not that's not really into the weight of it. It was, it was the cheapest, nastiest thing ever. And you recorded on a video tape, on a VCR, so you had this long AC cable, AV cable that you connected to the back of the player. So you could only really go as far as the cable would take you? So I started making films on that cruddy thing, and then eventually moved to a video camera and film school. And, yeah, it's just something I have to do. I tried to put it down. I tried to put it down once back in 2010 11. When my girlfriend at the time suggested I go back to school and have a backup. So I did. I did a graphic design, but I still found a way of sort of horn swaggling film back in there. And instead of submitting mixed media, which was the brief, I would be like, oh, here, here's a film. And they would always let it slide. But yeah, it's been a huge and important part of my life. I really enough. I haven't watched many films or TV shows lately, and I have, like, quite a lot, either on Netflix or in blu ray, and they just sit there because I'm just not had any time. So some people are talking about the new season of The Walking Dead or or West world. I don't have a clue they're talking about.

Dave Bullis 0:47
Well, well, I'm in the same boat with you, Chris, because I honestly don't watch. I walking dead. I really I'm hit or miss with and West, where I haven't started yet. But, you know, speaking of zombies, you know, your first project, you know, was how to survive a zombie attack. That was a short film you did. So at what point you know, were you in college when you made that short film?

Christopher Downie 0:47
Let me think, yeah, I must have been. This was, I was I went to film school 2000 of four to 2006 but it wasn't a dedicated film school or a dedicated film department per se, because we don't really have that in Scotland. We had a course that was called TV operation. Television operations, I think there was maybe documentary and television operations. There was no film in there, but you got to make films. You got to make, you know, you got to make, like, a two minute film, and then a two and then a 10 minute film, and then you did a then it was a five minute documentary, than a 10 minute documentary. So it was all film oriented. You got to make live shows and things like that. So you did like a panel show or or you did a sort of talent show, because we had a film studio. It was rinky dink as hell. But, you know, there was a gantry and everything you could look down, and everything was programmable and things like that. But at the time, yeah, that was midway through film school, and I was set to make another film prior, I think the year prior, it was blisteringly hot down at this abandoned site where there used to be a paper factory where, funnily enough, my dad nearly cut his hand off when he was 16, but later found out that was the sight of my dad's wound on his hand. We went down there, and my friend brought his guitar, because my parents house was nearby, and he was just sort of playing the guitar, and he had his hat over his eyes, and he was lying with his back. Then this like disused area where this used to be a factory. And I was like, this is an amazing area. And I thought, Well, why not we do like a sort of Desperado type film that eventually became a Western, because Desperado has been done, and then it became a Scottish Western, then a post apocalyptic Western, and then we went to shoot it, and certain people didn't turn up, so we had to can it, and what we got instead was how to survive a zombie attack. And the reason we did that is because we had the actors. We had to do something, so we basically made that film up as we did it. That was one of the last times ever did that. I did a follow up called How to survive as a vampire attack, which was improvised, but there was a story, and it just made it more natural. Because my friends aren't actors, although Mark was in it, and he plays Kevin and shooting clerks and all the peripheral films, but he, again, never considered himself an actor. So if we let them just sort of improvise it and give us sort of nice feel, plus, since the first one was fully improvised, why not? And then we got to use the disused, abandoned wasn't even one warehouse. I think it was about four warehouses. There was a gas station there, and it was walled off, and all you had to do is just go up a hill and then sort of jump over the tiny wall. And production value.

Dave Bullis 1:09
So, you know, you mentioned people not showing up. You know, that's a problem that I had as well. You know, when I was making my student films and and you know that that's the killer, because when you plan something out for a while, you know, and you have everyone, sort of, you have, even if you're where they're using a script or not, you have a plan in place to what you're going to do. And when you have people no show, it's just absolutely just, it takes all the wind out of your sails, so to speak. And it was good that you're able at least to improvise and shoot, you know, how to, you know, shoot a short film which, which ended up being how to survive a zombie attack. So, I mean, at which point, you know, I'm sure Chris, when it was happening, you probably said, All right, well, let's see what we can do instead, right?

Christopher Downie 1:09
Yeah, exactly. And what we got was better than the film that we eventually shot, because we did shoot that film, I think it was maybe about three or four months later, we got a new cast, and we did actually end up shooting it, but the film that we shot instead survive a zombie attack, I like a lot better because it's short. There is, it's really, it's kind of offensive. And when you get to the end, there's there's an offensive joke at the end. And I like offensive jokes because they make people laugh in that way where they're laughing and they're also feeling really bad and guilty about laughing. So that's my best type of reaction, whereas the film that we did eventually was just Nah, it's just this really cruddy cowboy film where most of the people in it have Scottish accents and ain't nobody believe in it.

Dave Bullis 10:37
You know what I did, Chris, when that? When that happened, when I had nobody, when some people no show, I ended up just shooting some, a couple of things that I could calling it a day, way too early. And then if it happened again, I would try to figure out a way to combine this footage. And it was like two things that were like, completely different than nothing in common. I was like, How can I make these two things, something, just something out of nothing. And I tried to make like, almost like a movie where there was three intersecting story lines. And I was like, What the hell am I doing, but, but, you know, you got to think on your feet as an independent filmmaker.

Christopher Downie 11:13
Yeah, you need to make use of what you have. One of the things that I'm going to do eventually is as I've got all this stock footage that I've collected, and it's fantastic stock footage that is filmed all over the world. And I'm reading a book right now. It's called the rain dance producers lab low to no budget filmmaking. And it's an it's a good book. It's sometimes technical, and then it's something sometimes it's more creative, but there's a moment in it where the author discusses other ways people have made films. And he talks about the the short biopic about what was her name from the carpenters god, I can't remember. His name is Simon Heinz, the guy that did velvet gold mine. His first film was a short in which he did a biopic about the lead singer from the carpenters. But he did it with Barbie dolls, and he screamed it, I believe, I believe it was Sundance. God, do you think I'd remember these things.

Dave Bullis 12:18
It happened to us all. Chris, it happens to us all.

Christopher Downie 12:20
So he screamed at a festival, and people loved it, but he couldn't release it because he had all the carpenters music in it. And ever since, I think he's lost the print and he's lost all the raw footage, so it only exists as is this sort of almost experimental YouTube video. It's the only way you can see it. So he found a way to make his first film without actors. He just brought in voice actors later. And it's a strange watch, but you can, you can make movies. There was the other. The main story that I was going to tell you is there was someone who used to go dump, dumpster diving around the back of like paramount and things like that. And they jump into the dumpster and they just find any off cuts. And they would take all the offcuts of film home, and they would splice it together and try and make a film out of it. Then you can do that. It's you just need time. You just need, like a conceit, for every sort of jump to something completely different and stark. So I feel that in challenging yourself, you can get something really creative. And I think that's, that's that sounds like an interesting idea. Have you still got all this footage, or have you done anything with it?

Dave Bullis 13:28
I have everything still.

Christopher Downie 13:31
Yeah, I've got, I've got an entire animated it was claymation is terrible, but we did it in college, because I went and did six months animation as well after doing the film course, and it was poorly animated. So I always thought, well, I'll take the footage back into Premiere, and I'll take out all the dead frames and all the long takes, because sometimes they took four photographs instead of two, and blah, blah, blah. So I was going to go in and sort of polish that. So that's waiting to be done. I've got half of a third How to Survive movie. And I don't even know if we can ever finish that, but it's just sat there, and I'm thinking, well, maybe, maybe one day I've got an animated film. I've recorded all the, all the audio for a 30 minute animated film that's just sitting there, and I don't want to do anything with it, because I don't feel it's as good as good as stuff that I've done recently. So I feel it would sort of let the side down the acting, and it's really good, but I think the writing's kind of bad, but I might do something with that and put it online, because people are more forgiving online.

Dave Bullis 14:37
Yeah, that's also because I posted a couple other short films that I did on my YouTube channel, and I don't know about the other things that I talked about, the things that aren't done, I probably wouldn't post them up, just because, you know, I think, personally, they're awful, and they can because, again, when people don't show up, I did I take this guy, I'd call the people in and and be like, okay, instead of playing this role, you're playing this role. Instead of doing this. Going to do this. I mean, it just completely changed everything. And literally, I'm writing a, you know, I'm changing the script on the fly, and it just, I don't think it meshed too well. But, you know, we were just talking about, you know, lost films and stuff like that. You know what I just found out, which is amazing to me, you know, the Beatles, they actually had a TV movie called Magical Mystery Tour. And I didn't know until recently that nobody that because they wasn't too well received. Nobody kept a negative of that actual print. I mean, could you imagine that? Just somebody

Christopher Downie 15:32
That's crazy?

Dave Bullis 15:32
Yeah, somebody,

Christopher Downie 15:33
For some for for a band as high profile as The Beatles, especially when you consider how big A Hard Day's Night is. And I think it's still to this day, because I've still not, I've not seen it yet, but it's considered like, like, almost like a, I wouldn't say a modern classic is a game in the 60s, we're gonna say, but people consider it like, like, a cult classic. So it's weird that no one would hang on to that. But that being said, people lost episodes of Doctor Who, for goodness sake, I think there's at least, I've heard at least one or two really well received scripts for Star Trek and Batman were never filmed. And there's probably episodes and bits and pieces from the actual show that were lost. It's crazy, like, if they'd hung on to that, you know, they could have done exactly what we're talking about. You could string it together somehow. You could do an Star Wars special edition, 97 edition, where you go in with some CG and sort of fix the missing characters, or what have you, or just like establishing shots. Is insane.

Dave Bullis 16:37
Yeah, it absolutely is insane. You when somebody would throw away a print like that, because even, like, old even, like, old movies or even old TV shows, you know, here in America, people would say, like, Who would ever, you know, back then they thought, Who would ever want to watch these again? Because they didn't even, you know, this is like around this is before TV. This is again, you know, all of it was theater. And back when, you know, before TV was in every household, the theater, the way it worked in America was you'd go to the theater, you get a newsreel, a cartoon, a B picture, than an A picture. And you could sit in there for as long as you wanted to watch this again and again and again.

Christopher Downie 17:09
Yeah.

Dave Bullis 17:09
And then, you know, they would say, Well, how are we gonna, you know, how we gonna remarket this B picture? Everyone's already seen it, so now, you know, but, yeah, it's just, it's just shocking. Now when we, you and I sit here and talk about throwing away prints or negatives, and now, you know, you and I don't have really negatives, we just have master files now,

Christopher Downie 17:25
Exactly.

Dave Bullis 17:26
So, you know,

Christopher Downie 17:27
I'd like to stop people to call it negative, because it just sounds much better. You know, if you got the, I've got the uncompressed negative,

Dave Bullis 17:35
People still say, Hang up the phone here in America. And there's a group of kids who are like, Why would I hang up a phone? You end the call. What are you talking about?

Christopher Downie 17:41
Exactly, it's one of those words. It's just disappeared, like the meaning is completely gone, the context. And you have to think about it, you know, like, yeah, yeah. Used to actually put the phone, the receiver, onto the actual phone, and the weight of the receiver, the way the receiver would would, would keep the phone off the hook, on the hook, sorry, and then there's off the hook as well. Exactly, yeah, yeah. I don't know if you guys use that in the States, but like the phone's off the hook is something that we used to say. I mean, you can't say no, because if it's off the hook, it means the phone's off and you'll know, because you'll get a message from the person,

Dave Bullis 18:16
Yeah, I guess Yeah, we would still, we still use that off the hook, yeah, yeah, off the hook. Also was American slang for something's like crazy, yeah, but yeah, Americans on

Christopher Downie 18:27
Fleek,

Dave Bullis 18:27
Yeah, there you go. See in America, it's like, there's two the two coasts, and then there's like, the South, the the Midwest. And the Midwest is basically like, you know, where everybody tend all, like filmmakers tend to ignore for one reason or another, but both coasts, though, were all the, like, all the slang originates from, and so, so I live in Philadelphia, so that way I'm pretty well versed in all the, all the slang in America now, but, but that was meant to be a joke, and it didn't come off as that,

Christopher Downie 19:00
But you the reason, the reason you guys have slang on the coasts is because you'll have, you originally would have had people from all over coming in, and it's like metropolitan cities with with people from all over the world, and words evolve. And that's that's essentially where we get slang, and the reason they probably don't exist in the center of the United States is just because they don't travel well, but they've got the like, there's those strange words that we have up north in Scotland, like, I think it's a loony, which is, what is Canadian money? But yeah, in Scotland, a loony is a is a boy like the Highlands of Scotland, like, I think my gran took my uncles up there years ago, obviously. And somebody said, Oh, my God, so Bonnie pair of loonies you have there? And my gran said, Would you just call my sons? And she's like, No, no loonies means boys. It's just boys. One of our words is so weird. I mean, that doesn't even like bloke. That makes sense, but Loony, that's just insane. No pun intended.

Dave Bullis 20:21
I was gonna say a loony, yeah, that that's Canadian money, but we are cuz. But, you know, you know, you know, as we talk about, you know, all these cultural differences and stuff, I was just talking to somebody who's, who's an international distribution and, you know, he was talking about how now, because everything is so interconnected in the world, whether you make a movie in the UK, you make it in America. You know, International. You know, sales are so important now, particularly China is so important now for absolutely so, you know, it's something that I wonder, as we keep going on, Chris, as we keep moving forward, I really wonder how this is going to affect everything, in terms of decisions like guys like you and I make, and decisions how studios make, and even like, you know, keeping this the whole thing alive. I mean, I really wonder, if you like, let's just say, you know, obviously, you know, you make a, if you make a local independent film, and you put it on your maybe even on your own website, you know, and if somebody from China were to watch it, I really wonder if they would actually be able to even understand half, even, even the half of what, of what we're actually saying, because it because of that slang again,

Christopher Downie 21:32
Yeah, well, I think that the more exports you get to China, the more they start to pick up on on it. In my opinion, cinema, all the films I saw as a kid were American. Cinema is is, is cultural, cultural education, because I wouldn't be aware of certain trends and cultural differences between Britain and America if I hadn't watched things like the sopranos Ghostbusters, you know, all these things like, I'm quite well versed with the East Coast, because all my favorite films are set in the East Coast, all my favorite TV shows, and I'm talking about factual shows as well, and non scripted stuff, like comic book Men and practical jokers. You get an education watching that if you're British, maybe not so much when you're American, especially not if you live on that coast. But you know, you pick up all these different words, and it's good for someone who occasionally appears in their own films, because the accent you get bits and pieces of accents and and pronunciations that you probably wouldn't have known about back in the day when you didn't have that, you'd have to go a dialect coach probably cost you hundreds, maybe even 1000s of pounds. Yeah, it's great, yeah. And I think that, I think that exactly the same thing will apply the more films go with China. And obviously they've got their whole sort of thing on with regards to violence and and things like that, hence why they didn't take Deadpool. But if you tailor movies to the Chinese audience, it's not really going to work if you have a scene in it set in China, just for the heck of it, for the Chinese audience. But you can also have it in the international version. That's, that's, that's fine, but I think to just export the film, as is, pretty much with Chinese titles and maybe some subtitles and whatnot. Then that's the best thing to do, because then everybody starts to understand the culture. And only take 1020 years for them to sort of get used to certain things, and they can understand the references. I mean, I don't know what TV's been like out there, but we've had American TV as long as I've known. And I think, you know, like this 60s and the 70s is probably when we start to get things like that. So I just think, keep things as they are, and they should do the same. They don't tailor their films for us. And there's loads of stuff in Chinese films that I really enjoy, and it's strictly Chinese, especially when it comes to comedies, and would not want them to change their comedies and make them like British farce comedies or slapstick American comedies. So I think we should all just sort of remain as we are, continue to grow in our own cultures. But, you know, export and import and learn from each other.

Dave Bullis 24:17
Yeah, I always have a whenever I talk, you know, to friends of mine about, you know, you know, comedy and culture and art and all this other stuff, you know, I always say, Chris, I'm always afraid of that, of something becoming homogenous, you know, of like, sort of everything just sort of becoming the same sort of standard. And that's, that's one of my, my fears. Because I'm always like, you know, I when I watch a British comedy, I know what I'm gonna get to some degree. You know what I mean, when I watch an American comedy, the same thing, and Chinese comedy, and, you know, even some other things. That's why I'm always afraid of if everything becomes a little too homogenous, if we all start looking and acting and talking the same way.

Christopher Downie 24:58
Yeah, that. I mean, I. That will eventually happen, but we're talking quite a far bit down the line, and that will be with everything, but that is a long way off. And even still, you will still be separated by land, unless you can teleport to the internet then, and that's that's still going to be a contributing factor. So, like, things are different from village to village, from house to house, you've got your own words, so you're going to pick up things. We also going to continue to develop, and it just may be faster. But, yeah, I agree. I don't want things to I don't want to just when you get all the you get all the colored clay we call plasticine. So you got the blue clay and you've got the gray clay and you've got the green

Dave Bullis 25:50
Chris, you there.

Christopher Downie 25:54
My headphones are fully so it just started playing a podcast in my ear, no problem. And I thought you'd started playing it, and I was like, Is this my walking off music?

Dave Bullis 26:04
Well, Chris, it's been nice. Here you go. Here's your I'm playing you off, buddy. No,

Christopher Downie 26:09
My analogy was just, when you're a kid, you okay, you stick all the clay together and make into this disgusting brown color. Nobody wants everybody wants to be different, and everyone wants their own culture, and that should apply with with filmmaking, but everyone's different, usually, unless you're a director for hire, then you meant to be like the chameleon. You meant to be able to just make, make the film look a certain way, mimic someone else, so that no one really realizes that it's a different director type of thing. But people will keep their people will keep what, what makes them different, and that'll go for taste as well.

Dave Bullis 26:46
You know, you just brought up a good point, and about, you know, looking a certain way. And you know we're talking about your career, and I know I'm kind of jumping ahead here in your career, but you know you're making shooting clerks. And you know, I was fascinated by that project. I saw it on Indiegogo. And, you know, I have so many questions for you about the project. Chris and I just wanted to add, you know, as we sort of talk about it, I wanted to ask, you know, what, what? What was, you know? So you know, what sort of drew you to start this project. You know, shooting clerks, which everyone listening shooting clerks is the biopic of shooting clerks, the movie by Kevin Smith, which was shot in 1894 I believe. So you know, Chris 393, so Chris so well, you know? So what actually drew you to, sort of starting to start developing this project.

Christopher Downie 27:36
Oh, I don't know how long your episodes normally are, but I'm about to make it like half an hour longer, right? So back when I started making films as like a 1314, year old, my friend rent and bought an ex rental copy of dogma, and we sat down and watched it together, and he was something of a film snob, really was, you know, had he considered there was high art and then there was dogma. Basically, films like dogma, he was so snobby that he didn't consider Ghostbusters a good film, because it wasn't overly cerebral. Right now, it's a great film, but he couldn't see that. Now, I know deep down inside, he did think it was a good film, but he tried to build himself up as this sort of, you know, really, really good art critic, and he would apply that to film as well, and, like, get a grip of yourself. But I'm glad he didn't, because he sold that copy to me and had to go home, and I watched it like 150 times. And really, really dug the fact that there were characters that crossed over and were mentioned. Now I didn't really know that at that time, but at the end of the film, obviously it says James on Bob will return. I believe in clerks too, at the end of that, and something like playground sort of whispers, the saddest playground whispers. You know that James Allen Bober in another film. They're in a film called Chase Amy. I was like, oh my god, really? I remember taping off TV, and I sat in a watch. I was like, this is a bit heavier than the dogma, which is ironic, because dogma is about the end of the world, but emotionally, it's a lot heavier for a 14 year old. And I was watching it, and I remember enjoying it, but thinking, Where the hell are James, Helen, Bob. And then when they do turn up, you'd forgotten about them. And then that just sort of led me to, I think the last one I watched was mall rats. But that eventually learned me, led me to James on Bob, and then obviously mall rats. And when Jersey girl came out, I was, you know, I was thinking about 1819, and I was going to the theater by myself. So I just really liked the interconnected universe, and was drawn to how he put specific actors together on numerous occasions. So I was, I was really into that his world building was impressive, plus his films were good. I really enjoyed them. So when I started to make films, I don't think I really put any Kevin Smith references into them, but when my girlfriend suggested that I do have a backup, I made a short film that was meant to be my tribute to a podcast called Hollywood Babylon, because everyone was sending in, like fan art, and I really liked it, and I just wanted to show my appreciation, so I put a cast and call up on Star note.com and I says, looking for two actors to play leads in this film. I need someone to play Kevin. I need someone to play Ralph. And the description was really descriptive, you know, because the people exist, I was able to describe them exactly as they are. And rather, he was humorously, I believe, because somebody emailed them the cast and call I remember walking home from work and listening to the podcast, and they said, someone's making a film about us in Scotland. I thought to myself, Oh, damn it, someone's beat me to the punch. And at that point, I decided not to do it, because it's a stupid idea. Why make a fan film about a podcast? Who's gonna want that? And why do you even want to do that? So I shut it down in my head, but I didn't shut down the cast and call. And after they spoke about the film and I made Kevin laugh with the cast and call description, I decided, all right, well, I might as well make it, because they might show it. So, you know, a couple of months down the line, I've written the script and speak to my friend who's Kevin in the film Mark frost. And I say, Mark, do you want to play Kevin? And he doesn't get excited by anything. Really, Nothing excites him. He's very laid back. He's actually more like Brian Johnson in real life. He's kind of got that attitude. He'll not insult you for a reaction, but he's very much got that attitude. And I told him, You know, I'm going to make a film, and do you want to play Kevin Smith? And I saw a reaction. His face like his eyebrow twitched, and he smiled slightly. So we did the film, and then we sent it to Kevin and Ralph, and they showed bits of it over the course of a couple of weeks, as well, with photographs and updates and things, which was really touching. And then after that, we did a couple of more. We did get Greedo, which was the first film that we released through Kevin's channel, C, S, mod, and that that we got a huge reaction for that, because he did an introduction video, and he put it up on on Twitter and Facebook, and he thought we were Australian for some reason. So at the beginning, he's like, these kids from Australia or New Zealand, and he covers his mouth, and I'm like, why does he think we're from New Zealand or Australia? And then we got to thinking a producer, Brett and I, who plays Brian Johnson, and get Greedo and in shooting clerks, and in emo game rights again, which is coming out, coming out ahead of the the full run of shooting clerks. It's going to be a promo film. We were sat there and discussing what we should do next, and I suggested maybe we go to film number three or four, which at that point we were going to do shooting clerks as film number three or four in the line of features. And he thought, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Maybe we should do that and and that's where it started, and I vowed I would write the script that summer between year one and year two of my degree. It was actually year three and year four, and that's what I did. And that was the last time anything ever went smoothly and straightforward on shooting clerks. Was the last time things are still not going. It's just a bumpy road all the way.

Dave Bullis 33:46
So Chris, I wanted to ask, you know, before I get into production, you know, I wanted to ask, did Kevin ever directly contact you? They ever find you directly to say, you know, hey, hey, Chris, you know what's going on, or offer any direct support like that.

Christopher Downie 34:04
Well, you never said what's going on, but we speak on email. You know, there has to be a reason. He's, he's, he's too busy to care about what I'm doing that specific time. Um, we're not overly close or anything like that. But, yeah, he's, he's very when he gets time. He's, he's very generous, you know, he'll, he'll, he'll say. Somebody said some really nice things have always made me feel good. Somebody put so it didn't even, it didn't bother me. I just thought it was funny. Somebody said, I don't know, can you do swearing on your on your podcast? Absolutely, yeah, yeah, right. So somebody put, and I'm paraphrasing, somebody put a comment under one of the trailers, or maybe even one of the shortest, is like, you're not Kevin Smith, you fat piece of shit. And I thought, Wait, well, I'm not fat, but okay, you'll never be Kevin Smith. Stop fucking trying to be Kevin Smith. You're a fat fucking loser. And I thought. Oh, okay, well, that's funny. So I took a screen grab and I put online. It's one of the only times Kevin comments at the bottom is like, well, he's calling you fat, and he says you're a fucking loser, so you're already Kevin Smith, fuck that guy. So he gives us support like that. I remember saying, like, oh, you know, I was worried about something, and I was, I think I apologized for how like, a shot turned out. And he's like, you know, he says, never apologize. You know, you've made a film that's incredible. And you know, I know I'm biased, because it's about me, but you should be proud, even right down to every single shot. And it made me sort of feel better regarding this broken shot. And we went and re shot it, restructured it, and added some effects to extend it, to make it look like the original shot. And, God, it looks perfect now, because it's just like few words of kindness. He's been really supportive. And, you know, just one of the nicest guys. They always say, they always they would have said this numerous times. I'll say it till the day I die, unless he comes up in a dark alley and stabs me in the back with a knife. Never meet your heroes, is what they always say. But that doesn't apply if your hero is Kevin Smith,

Dave Bullis 36:11
Yeah, the reason I ask is because if you contacted you Chris is because I see you know he retweeted everything, and obviously he had to at some point, I'm sure, you know, when you made shooting clerks, you know, even before you got to the whole production side, I'm sure he, you know, there's a whole rights thing, and there's a whole, you know, copyright thing, and that's why I wanted to ask about that. So I'm sure at some point maybe, you know, either he maybe, either emailed you just to say hi and maybe give you some support, or maybe he just, you know, or otherwise, he just called to say, hey, you know what's what's up Chris?

Christopher Downie 36:46
Well, we, we were we were we, we, we were in, we were in contact with him. As soon as I finished, in 2013 when I finished, get Greedo and I was Jason that contacted me first and asked me to contact Jordan, Jason's wife, who's head of smart, smart coat. And then that's, that's that's on, like, one of our main contracts is Jordan, and she again, very, very supportive, and she's always helping us out and retweeting and things like that. So we've been, you know, chatting with them off and on since for the last three years, and when I decided to do shooting clerks, I says, I'll email Kevin and George. I said, right, we're gonna do, we're gonna do shooting clerks, all right? And I don't remember them ever saying no, but I also don't remember them ever saying yes, but they're happy about the film. And it's, you know, Kevin's, you know, said he's very touched, and he never thought he'd make a movie, let alone have a movie be made about him. So he's all for it. And we don't, you know, take any, you know, we don't take any any pops at him or anything like that. We, you know, we show him in a realistic manner. We're not, I don't want it to be somebody commented, but it's sycophants. The movie was somebody's subtitle because we know Kevin, and we've spoken with him. So we're going to make a movie in which we kiss Kevin's ass for 90 minutes. But that's not the case. There are moments in the film where people are wrong, people are right. People say the wrong thing. They're not building them up to be this big golden calf. Shall we say? He's he's a man. He's a person. We present him that way, but ultimately he swings right back round to be this is Kevin's story. So we we have to show who, show him who he is. It'd be a disservice to not show him who he is. Luckily, he's not an asshole, so we don't have to portray him as an asshole. But yeah, everything's good. We don't show anything, really that would get us into trouble. We don't use anything. We don't have the rights to use things. There are certain things, like costume pieces that have graphics on them that we get around that by putting a jacket on someone so you can see the middle of it, but you can't see either side of it, so things like that, or we just take it out and just so like, if someone's wearing a Yankees cap, we just get the same design of cap, same style of cap, but there's no Yankees logo on it, so new people just gonna have to forgive us for that. It's not that accurate, because we have to cover our backsides.

Dave Bullis 39:29
Yeah, yeah. And I think people understand. And, you know, it's funny too, because a friend of mine You spoke earlier about, you know, not meeting your heroes. And friend of mine actually met Kevin Smith one time he was when he was doing the where he goes around and just talks an evening with Kevin Smith. And he actually got to go up to talk to Kevin, and he was so nervous, because he's like, Man, I don't want you, you know, Kevin was hilarious during this whole two hours. He's like, I don't want to talk to Kevin afterwards. And Kevin just be, you know, blowing me off. He finally said, You know what, I'm gonna go meet him. And he told Kevin, you know he's one of his filmmaking inspirations and everything. And he said, you have any advice for me? And Kevin just said, Yes, don't make Jersey girl, and it's

Christopher Downie 40:21
One of his go to jokes, yeah, yeah. He's, he's too hard on himself, Jesus, he listens to the Craigs too much. I can watch, honestly, there's some films of his that I would watch after Jersey girl. If you see what I mean, I quite like Jersey girl. It's, it's a film. It's, it does the job. And I think because it's more formulaic than his other films, he needs to give himself, cut himself some slack. People have made way worse movies.

Dave Bullis 40:52
Yeah, that's very true. And, you know, I mean, I have, you know, I think almost all Kevin's movies, and I have even with Kevin Smith, and you know, yeah, he's a guy. Also, I've used his inspiration. And, I mean, I, hell, I made a TV pilot, and I even, I used, used clerks as an example of what could be done. And you know that, you know, so, so, you know, he's, he's actually done a lot, and I think, you know now, I think he's a lot happier now, by the way, Chris, you know, just doing what he's doing now with, you know, Yoga Hosers and tusk and all that stuff.

Christopher Downie 41:26
Yeah, he is. He's, he very few people get to the point where they can just do whatever they want. I mean, granted, he's having trouble with clerks three, and you'd think that that would be a no brainer for people, but he's having trouble with clerk three and Moll brats, but if he's doing something original, people seem to be into it and willing to finance it, and boom, he's off to the races, and he's got another film on his hands. I think he should just do what he needs to do, and he shouldn't have to apologize for I know he does, but I get that's where he gets some most of his material. And you know, it's funny, the way he makes fun of himself, lambasts themselves, it's funny. So he, I don't think he really means that he just uses an excuse to poke fun of himself, because then he takes the power away from 50 plus people.

Dave Bullis 42:14
Yeah, I concur. And, you know, just as we get back to, you know, actually making shooting clerks, you know, so you know, what were some of the challenges, Chris, that you faced while, while producing, shooting clerks? A very short, short answer, I'm sure, right, oh,

Christopher Downie 42:33
God. Some of the challenges we lost an actor. I don't mean he died. He, he? We lost an actor. That was very challenging. The biggest challenge was we were trying to export the film for our world premiere, for the first test screening, which we had at the Orlando Film Festival in Orlando, Florida in October. And everything was ready. The rough cut was was finally finished, and we had a day to export it, but it wouldn't explore. It just kept crashing and crashing and crashing. And then when it did start to explore and we fixed all the errors, it was going really slowly. It was really, really slow. And I was sitting there thinking, jeez, jeez, come on. Come on. Come on. I've got like, four hours until I have to jump on a train then jump on a plane and fly to Florida with this friggin thing on a pen drive or whatever, and it just wasn't happening in two hours and one hour and 45 minutes until we had to leave for this bloody train. And my US producer Ryan James and my onset producer Brett Murray both joked that we should just put the computer into a suitcase, because I thought if I take the hard drives out, there's a chance they're going to get damaged, because three of them are not protected. They don't have cases, they would literally just be taken out of the case itself. And if I take the tower and all the external hard drives, because it's spread over seven or eight hard drives. It's so huge. If I take them all, and I take the computer, when we get there, just plug it into a monitor, plug it into a mouse, just continue exploring, or restart the export. We had four days until the actual festival premiere, because if we, if we took the hard drives with the project and all the files on it, the negatives, then we'd have to reassociate everything on a brand new computer, and then there might be problems, and it'll take, you know, may take us an extra day. So what we would, what we did is we stuck in a suitcase and we took it to Florida, and it was, it was nerve wracking. Sat on the train thinking, geez, we're gonna get stopped, or was it gonna get broken? And we're sat waiting to get on the plane, and I'm same thing going through my head. And the only thing that sort of relaxed me and took my mind off of us, we go on the first plane, and it was, it was, it was a paper plane. It was the crap is plane. I didn't feel secure and I didn't feel. Feel happy about this friggin plane. But when we got on our KLM flight to New York, which was then going to get another flight to Florida, it was fantastic. You know, all this leg room, TV, as much entertainment as you want, we get free beer, and we're all just sort of like laughing at the scenario, because we've been used to, you know, eating mac and cheese out of a shoe because we were so poor. And here we are sat on this flight, and all this amazing stuff is happening because of the film. And when we get there, some reason it's fine to take a computer into into America. They don't that like they don't the case. And they'd slapped a sorry, we searched your case, notice on it, and then zipped it back up. And I thought, Great, fantastic. So we wait for a ride, and Ryan James comes pick us up. My us, producer and assembly editor, and he he drives us to his apartment, we dump our stuff, and everybody else goes out. So it was myself, a producer, Brett Jay booton who plays Dave Klein, and Chris Bain, who plays Jason muse. So we're all we all flew out together. So they all go out to start enjoying America, and myself and Ryan James, we go to a friend's studio where he works, to use the facilities to hook up the computer and then start the export. So we get there, we hook up the computer it's bricked, which basically means that the hard drive is broken because the baggage handlers had thrown it about and I forgot to have a sticker put on the case saying, you know, be gentle with this. So the hard drive that is broken has 25% of the film on it and all the effects. So I start having a meltdown, and James, I call him James, Ryan, James. He starts having him held down, and we're running out of time because we've only got the evening there, so we're there for about seven or eight hours, and we have to leave in the morning because people are going to come into work. So he decides that we're going to go to his film school, UCF, I believe. So the next day, we go to UCF, and we go into an edit in Bay, and that's where we remain for three, four days we were in this ed in Bay. We slept on the floor two hours each. He at one point, he slept on the floor while every sort of like five to 15 minutes, he'd have to get up fix the error while rendering, and then continue rendering for another 15 minutes and go back to sleep. And he had to do this for like two hours. He had to keep getting up, whereas I was kind of lucky, I was in the US, in the corridor, asleep for a full like hour, and then another full hour. And I don't know how we managed it, but we pulled the movie back from the brink of silicon Hill, and we replaced a lot of the special effects and the footage that we'd lost, we pieced together with bits and pieces that we found in the original export. So it was, it was from an earlier cut where we could see the footage, and it was a lesser quality, because it was obviously compressed and exported for for use elsewhere. He was the cut that I showed the cast to, and then we screened on the Saturday, and people seem to love it. And Bob Hawke gave us a fantastic review. So it was worth it, but if you asked me to do it again, I'm gonna lock myself into a PADD cell, as I'd rather be there for five days than do that again.

Dave Bullis 48:28
So you were able to actually save that hard drive so that that was brick

Christopher Downie 48:32
Well, we didn't save the hard drive. The hard drive is still bricked. But we came home and I looked into all the footage that we lost, we were able to read download, because a lot of it was stock footage, or footage that was sent to us from America, because the stuff was shot there, because a lot of the film was shot in the actual locations in New Jersey, so we're able to get replacement stuff. And the few shots here and there, we had maybe like 15 shots that were gone completely. Those were re shot by my second unit guy, and he, he saved our backside, and we're able to get even slightly better shots because there was, there were either no cars in the new shots, or the lighting was less intense because it was the winter. You see what I mean. His name is Daniel Buckley. I thought I'll just give him a show. He's always saving our backsides. He's our, our New Jersey second unit guy, Oh, guess all of our establishing shots, like, it's incredible. And you know, we've got him to thank, in a small way, for helping us to fix the latest cut, which we showed in New Jersey and New York.

Dave Bullis 49:38
So you were actually able then, I mean, did you actually film in the actual quick stop or did you have to?

Christopher Downie 49:45
No, no, we got a set. We built a set for the quick stop stuff and for RST. In fact, one of my, one of the things I'm most proud of is most of the set for RST, because we're able to find we had to find like space to build the set, but they had to have a window, because we couldn't build a set inside a warehouse. Then hire a generator and hire expensive lights, 1000s watt lights to blast through the window to make it look like it was daylight, we had to actually have daylight on the other side. And luckily, it was a summer, so it was relatively consistent. So that's one of the sets I'm most proud of. And because it was a set, we could just shoot whatever we wanted, whereas if we did it in the store, we'd be limited, plus it was really expensive.

Dave Bullis 50:41
Yeah, I can imagine that. That's why I assumed you shot on a set. But, you know, I always want to ask, because it would be funny, though, if you did really shoot in the actual, the actual quick stop and the people there could be, like, we already had it shoot here once, you're gonna shoot here again twice?

Christopher Downie 50:57
Yeah, well, three times, three times really, because synergy and selling Bob and they're gonna shoot there eventually again. I don't think the whole film set there, because I know Kevin would be able to, you know, make it worth their while, but I don't think they'd want to shut for three weeks of production. Yeah, I don't know. And Kevin wants to shoot all nights again.

Dave Bullis 51:18
Yeah, that's where he started. That's where he got his cigarette addiction. Was on clerks. I remember he was telling a story that to keep himself awake, he literally just kept with smoke cigarettes. And that was his whole thing. And

Christopher Downie 51:31
That's that's all done now. He's, he doesn't smoke cigarettes anymore. He's off the tobacco.

Dave Bullis 51:35
Yeah, and so, you know, it's funny too, because right down the street from me. Chris is where they were going to film all rats to there's actually a mall, and Kevin actually took a picture of himself with this mall. They were so close to being able to get this deal done, but the way, but, you know, because there's a lot of, you know, just disconflicting schedules, he couldn't, they couldn't film there, but, but it would, it would just have been so crazy that right down the street from me, where's where he was going to film all rats too,

Christopher Downie 52:07
Yeah,

Dave Bullis 52:08
But, but now they're gonna, I hear it's gonna be a TV show anyway, and it's gonna be filming somewhere else, but anyway. But you know, it's just, it's just, you know, it's just crazy. But you know how things you know sort of work out. So, you know, as we told, you know, again, just going back to your shooting clerks, you know, so you were able to have this premiere. So are you, are you showing the film now? Are you sort of taking it around to different locations the premiere, to show it at different venues?

Christopher Downie 52:34
We are, yeah, we started with the test students. It was called the Early Bird tour. And we, we handed out swag bags, and there was merchandise, and we put a lot of effort in it, because, because it was a an exclusive tour, it had to be worth your while, because you were seeing a slightly unpolished version of the film. We had, we had two sound mixes done. We that's all we had done. And there were basic sound mixes. And as I said, some of the effects were missing. But even for those screeners, I think we got we got some, some placeholder effects. And the film, we actually recently sat down with my producer, Brett, and went over, I did edit notes. He did effects notes, and I spent like, 15 minutes here, 10 minutes there, five minutes they're not writing anything, because very little needs done. The film that people saw, certainly in New Jersey and New York, is you're never going to remember the things that are different. So it's going to essentially be the same film. It's almost done, but when it's fully done, we'll be applying for BBFC classification so that we can show the film in Britain, because, unluckily, we're not allowed to show an unrated film in Britain, so we haven't been able to screen it here, but we'll be coming back to the States before then, because we can shoot, we can screen unrated films. We're planning a proper tour. Actually, I'm speaking with someone after this call, actually, regarding the final date, because we have to sort of work from Kevin's. We're going to, we'll call it the homecoming tour, something like that, because we start in Kevin's old home and we end in Kevin's new home. So we start in Jersey, and we do a couple of dates on the East Coast, and we go there the West Coast, and we we end in Los Angeles. So that'll be a crazy and crazy tour that will and then after that, we'll do DVD, Blu Ray, and then VOD, and then eventually Netflix, where anybody can watch it, even if they're not interested for 10 minutes.

Dave Bullis 54:33
Yeah,

Christopher Downie 54:33
And that's all we need skew the demographic,

Dave Bullis 54:37
Yeah. I mean, that's great. I honestly, man, I really, you know, I'm glad to see, you know, the film is, is moving forward again, because I first heard of this, Chris, I actually saw the Indiegogo, and I was

Christopher Downie 54:50
A while ago,

Dave Bullis 54:50
Yeah, yeah. And I saw that, and I was like, wow, you know that that could, that was actually really cool. And I think I'm not sure if I reached out to you then, or maybe. I didn't. I can't remember. I may, probably didn't. I probably put a put it in my note pile, because, I mean, and the reason I bring it up, Chris, is because I, you know, I run, I've run crowdfunding campaigns, and it's beyond a full time job, and you get so many messages. The last one I did, I got so many messages from so many other people about so many other things that I was like, What the hell is this, you know? Because, mean, like, you know, people would ask, Hey, Dave, Could you, could you help me out with this? And I said, Guys, I'm in the middle of running my own campaign. I don't have time to help you with yours, or, you know, stuff like that. So I'm sure you probably were inundated with like, 10,000 messages a day.

Christopher Downie 55:39
Yeah, we got strange messages and and people say things like, if you cast me in a role, I'd be willing to put a little bit of money into the film. I'm like, Well, I guess we could do that to an extent. What role are you interested in? I want to play Kevin, right? Well, we can't really do that. It's like, Come on, mate, I'm gonna give you $1,000 I was like, well, a, we need more than $1,000 as the as the Indiegogo campaign says, and B, we've already cast Kevin, and he's been the same actor has been Kevin in the shorts, and He's, he sends me all these headshots, and he's like a redhead, and very obviously a redhead, because he's got rosacea and really pink skin. And he's in, he keeps saying, you know, like, trust me, you know, I can grow a really good beard. And it's, I don't want to be mean mate, but we've already cast Kevin. We can give you a small role in the film, and you come on board as a producer or something like that, because that's one of the things we offered. You want to come on board as producer, you want to have a small walk on roll and support the film that way, then that's fine. So it was like, three months down the line, and he sends me a picture. Is like, you're gonna be happy with this? And he sends me a picture of himself, and he's grown somewhat of a beard, and it looks like he's just gone in with a sharpie and colored in his ginger beard with this Sharpie. And the reason I know it was a Sharpie is because Mark has blonde hair, and a lot of the time his beard would grow in, we'd shave it down at the same length it was, and then all the face that, all the dye was gone, all the hair dye that we put in his hair, so we'd get mascara, and then we just touch it up. Then you dry off, getting the excess, and it looks like darker hair. So he must have used the Sharpie if he couldn't make it look convincing. I just remember, sort of put my my hat, like my face, my hands, like this guy's this guy's a tough sell. It's not gonna be able to get this guy understand that we can't put him in the movie. But he eventually lost interest, and I hope he's hope he's all right, hope he's doing well, because I feel bad, but we couldn't replace Mark. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Simon, that was his name. I'll not say his second name. I'm sorry that we can put in the film. But you know, next film, can certainly be an extra.

Dave Bullis 58:03
Well, Chris, I will have to disagree, though, I don't think I'm a ginger myself. I don't have any rosacea, but, or my skids actually pretty good looking, but, but it

Christopher Downie 58:15
There's two. There's two types of redheads. There is there's, they call it a day Walker in, yeah, in South Park, which basically means that you've got this, like, really dark red hair, but you don't have freckles, and you don't have pale skin, and then you've got, like, standard redhead people. We've got the red hair and the freckles, and then the occasional rosacea. I've got freckles and pale skin, but I'm not even a redhead. I'm just I'm Scottish, so we always like that. We all have freckles because we're not exposed to the sun. And then when summertime happens and you get your four hours of sunlight, your skin burns and fizzles and eventually develops into freckles. And the reason my skin is pale is because no the rest of the days of the year I'm blue.

Dave Bullis 59:03
It's funny because I actually have a friend, Chris, who

Christopher Downie 59:07
Was worried that you were gonna say, by the way, I'm Simon. He's an alternate name, and God damn you for not putting me in shooting clerks.

Dave Bullis 59:14
Well, that's, that's what I was gonna say next. I am Simon, and you don't put me in in clerks because of my rosacea. No, I actually have a friend of mine who actually looks like Kevin Smith, and when he wears a hand. And the funny thing is, he has the black hair, black beard, everything, and he has one of the worst cases of rosacea I've ever seen. And like it, just like even his mom would say, like one time somebody said to him, Oh, your son, his cheeks were so rosy today. And she goes, Oh, they always look like that. And she goes, Oh, I thought was because he was out in the cold. She was, oh no. He's got the worst case of rosacea ever. And this is his own mom saying this. So I'm like, oh yeah. So

Christopher Downie 59:50
It's a call like you can get away with with rosacea. I didn't know it was a thing. I just thought, I just call it rosy cheese. And then, then someone slaps the name rosacea. And oh, okay, well, that's a condition with this the skin and the blood and your skin. It's not the worst thing to kill you or anything like that, but, but when, when I was a kid, because so cold in Scotland, you come in from the cold and you've got that face a lot of the time. So rosacea. No one really knew what rosacea was, because everyone looked like that basically at least one or two times of the year. But yeah, that's, it's it was weird that he, like, he very much, brought that up and says, like, you know, I can dye my hair. And he didn't mention, you know, using a sharpie on his beard. Though he didn't have a mustache, that was another thing. He said. He couldn't grow a mustache, but he was willing to pay for someone to do like a fake mustache and stick it. Sorry.

Dave Bullis 1:00:57
You know that happened to me too, though, you know, all kidding aside, when I was doing my crowdfunding campaign, I had people reach out to me and actually say, Well, you know, if you cast me in this, I'll promote it to my audience. If you cast me in this, you know, I can throw some money in towards it. And I said, I really? I said, guys, I would be so fearful. You take someone's money and then you put them in the movie they suck, or whatever, and then then you're like, Well, what the hell do you do then? So what I always did was I said, Listen, if you want throw some way towards this, and I could put you as an extra or whatever else, and people would get offended at that. They would they were like, Oh, you want me to to have to pay to be a part of this. I should report you to sag. And I said, Wait a minute. You just told me the other day you were willing to pay money for this. And I'm like, it tell you it's just the crazies come out and the desperation really comes out when they see like a crowdfunding campaign for a project that has not only a solid concept, but they also see that there's some actual validity and actual production value behind it.

Christopher Downie 1:01:56
Yeah, we we cast people for smaller roles that weren't related to clerks that we were fans of. We got two people I really wanted to work with Kevin Smith and James Rolfe. Now they're not the same type of people. One of them is like an internet icon and the other one's a film icon, but I really like the Angry Video Game Nerd, and pretty much anything that CineMassacre puts out. So I went to James at first, and we were cast in all the smaller parts, and said, Would you be interested in being a part of this? I know you're a fan of Kevin, I'm a fan of your work, and you're from Jersey, so your accent is going to sound it's going to be one of the better accents, because you're actually from there. He actually lives in Philly now, and he he didn't get back to me because I just assumed wasn't interested coming to the end of production, and I get an email, and we have a sit down, have a chat, and he's very interested in doing it. And he knocked out his scene in like two days later, and I had it within the week, and it was, it was amazing to just be sat there with with the missing piece of a scene at last, and to have James Rolfe in it so it's integrated in the film. And of course, we were like, Okay, well, we should put everybody in the trailer at the end or during the sort of montage sequence of the first trailer, which is what we did. We even had Mike mate in there. He's got a very small role in role in it. And people said, Oh, you get James Rolfe in it for James Roth's audience. And the accused us of putting James and Mike in it so that we could sort of leech off of their audience. But the fact was, we did it because I like James and I like Mike, and if you're talking about leeching off of James audience and Mike's the same audience as Kevin Smith. It's the same types of people, so there's no real truth in that. Same people who like Kevin Smith probably gonna like James Rolfe, gamers, nerds, no film geeks. It's basically what we we all essentially are. So yeah,

Dave Bullis 1:04:00
I agree with that, Chris and you know. So as we talk like no shooting clerks and you know, and you're going to be going around and showing this, and you have the plans in place, you know, you actually have about a couple other projects. I just want to ask about your IMDB. The two are the 12 Steps of Jason, Muse and emo Kev Rides Again. Are these planned to like? Are these sort of like in complement of shooting clerks,

Christopher Downie 1:04:27
The 12 Steps to Jason use the follow up undercover lover that was shot three years ago, but we haven't finished ed in it. I actually handed edit and duties over to Brett Murray, my producer, and guy plays Brian Johnson in the film, because I was doing shooting clerks, and then I knew I'd be doing emo Kev Rides Again after I'd finished locked picture on shooting clerks. The emo Kev Rides Again is a follow up the emo Kev Of course, as a follow up to a prom. We make at the end of EMO Kev. Emo Kev is one of my favorite films I've ever made. It fully. It fully showcases the style that I wanted to go for. And I developed my style, funnily enough, on that film, because I was able to just go slightly more artsy with it. And I really, dug what I did with that, and I've transferred, like all the stylistic choices and the editing choices that I made in that onto shooting clerks. But at the end of it say, Kevin and company, or Kevin and Mosier will return any more Kevin and I was going to make it. And then the feature came along, and I thought, Well, I'm not going to do any more shorts, because I don't really I'm done doing shorts, doing shorts my whole adult life. I want to do features now. But then I thought, well, everyone supported us for so long. Everyone's been really nice, and that film, especially specifically, has been really highly complimented, and everyone considers it our best of the shorts. So why not do one final short film that we can use to promote shooting clerks and also say goodbye to all the fans in the small on the small screen. So emo kevers, again, is very much a sequel to emo KEF, but there, there's DNA strands from all the other films and characters from Babylon begins from get Greedo Cooper even makes appearance appearances from Gooper and things like that. So we wanted to say goodbye by making this sort of celebration, and also by saying it's not really goodbye, it's we're gonna go see shooting clerks. The films actually take place at the same point. There's a wrap around in Emo, Kev Rides Again. And we start in one it's like emo Kev. So we start in one time, and then we go back to the 1990s when we see a sort of early 20s Kevin Smith. And then we flash back to the to the to the modern era. And then the last frame of emo kev's Rides Again. This isn't spoiling anything. The last frame of EMO cab rides again, is the first frame of shooting clerks.

Dave Bullis 1:07:06
Well, that's actually really cool. That is a nice tie in, you know, it's kind of like, what inspired you, you know, Chris is all those tie ins, you know, that Kevin was doing with, with, you know, James, hop, Bob,

Christopher Downie 1:07:17
Exactly. Yeah. And I'm big on shared universes and things like that, and hope to one day. I mean, I've got plans for shared universes. That was my kind of idea was to have multiple different universes, so I don't have to sort of stick to the rules of one world, especially when you've say, you do a movie set in the real world, like shooting clerks with real people. You can't really have your next film, which is maybe about intergalactic war set in the future. You can't really have those take place in the same universe. It's not the same as Kevin's movies, where they're grounded somewhat in reality, with the exception of dogma. I think the only characters that transfer to anything is James on Bob, because they're so ridiculous sometimes. So I'm working on doing shared universe, but building up slower, because you have to do one film set in one universe, one film set in another one. You may have a film that set a standalone universe, but I'm big on world building. So I studied game design when I did my graphic design degree, and that's one of the biggest and most important things, is world building. So I've tried to perfect that even when I was doing graphic design.

Dave Bullis 1:08:30
Yeah, I know what you mean about, you know, the whole world building thing. And I agree, you know, I, you know, where my first, you know, experience with that, especially was with the works of Brett Easton Ellis. Brett Easton Ellis and all his games and all his his stuff. And you would see guys come in from other other books and stuff like that, and I would be like, Wow, that's absolutely amazing.

Christopher Downie 1:08:52
I love that. I honestly love that. I love the connections, and it's tenuous, like with American cycle and rules of attraction and those films. I love both of those films. I know not a lot of people are big on on rules of attraction, but I and even the film, which are set one set in 80s and one set in the more near, obviously. So they didn't even go for it to bridge the gap. But there is a there's a moment where they actually reference Patrick Bateman. So they even tried to do with the films. And there's a point actually, I believe that they were going to have a scene in, maybe in the novel, actually, the scene in the movie for rules of attraction, where, where James Van Der weeck's character sits in with his brother. And it was going to be Christian Bale playing Patrick Raymond. I don't know how they were going to do it, because obviously he exists in the 80s, and he's existing in the early 90s. Maybe they were going to age him up, or just not explain the fact that he doesn't look any different. Because technically, he could be his dad, if you're going with that timeline. Age wise,

Dave Bullis 1:10:07
Yeah! Well, I imagine because, you know, it'd be funny too, because I think the American Psycho, the Christian Bale, would have to look exactly the same, because that's the vanity of of Patrick Bateman was

Christopher Downie 1:10:20
Exactly, yeah, yeah, he would have to look very In fact, if he looked similar, you could go through all kinds of different avenues and and Easton is got the ability to do that. I've only ever read one of his books, and the way he describes things, for some people can be monotonous, but I like it because especially with American Psycho, and he does it in American cycle, mainly American cycle, because it's from the point of view of Patrick and and he's, he's a narcissistic piece of shit. He's gonna go, it's gonna explain everything in detail. He's very proud of everything, proud of himself, proud of his apartment, proud of his routines, proud of the women he bangs and then murders, proud of everything, apart from the fact that he's a psychopath. I don't know if he's overly proud about that, but yeah,

Dave Bullis 1:11:08
You know, it's funny. I didn't even notice this until I actually somebody pointed it out to me. If you watch the movie of American Psycho, the first thing Patrick Bateman says when he's doing that narration, he doesn't tell you who he is. He tells you where he lives like a status symbol, you know. This is my apartment in the in, you know, and this is blah, blah. And then my name is Patrick Bateman. I'm like, oh, okay, because obviously he wants you to be impressed with all his stuff, because he has

Christopher Downie 1:11:33
Exactly, I think, I think the the one of the best scenes in that movie because it is, it's it's the it's a fantastic piece of satire. It's when they're comparing business cards. And if you don't get it, you won't understand why, why the scene exists, or why it's funny. And it's, I've never seen anything like that in a film since. I think it was ahead of his time. I think it's even maybe ahead of its time. Now, nobody makes satire like that. It was because they're all the same, and he's flipping out and they're more impressed by the next card, and you're like, they look the same, and this is not me looking at it with uneducated eyes or non artistic eyes, fucking the same, and he's flipping out because he's got a card that's better than him, and he's and he's so he's so shallow that that a card, even if it was drastically different, would make him less of a man.

Dave Bullis 1:12:34
Yeah, the card is called bone, and it's the text is something called silly and rail, and you're like, each font looks exactly like the other fonts

Christopher Downie 1:12:42
Exactly. And it's incredible. And I love that movie. I recently just bought it on Blu ray. It's one of the only blu rays that I own that comes in a black box.

Dave Bullis 1:12:55
Yeah, the I think that film is, I think it's great. And I actually would, you know, sometimes I have friends over, and I kind of have, like, my own little movie parties. And what I do is I show movies that they usually would never have heard of before.

Christopher Downie 1:13:08
Yeah,

Dave Bullis 1:13:09
And so that American Psycho was actually one I showed a lot of people about me. They were like, wow, this is, this is phenomenal. How come we haven't heard about it? And I said, well, they really didn't like the whole angle of that, the fact that he's going around butchering women and, you know, and you know, the whole thing at the end, and, you know, it didn't sit well a lot of people. So it was kind of like put a touch, put to the sun.

Christopher Downie 1:13:31
That's something that I've never I mean, I understand that if you're a bit of a dumb, dumb but I don't think the people that had problems with it are intellectually, intellectually challenged. I just think that they couldn't really see, like the satirical turn on it, and psychopaths will target the weak, weaker people, like, you know, prostitutes and and not in this instance, but children and animals and things like that. And that is sad, but that's what happens so to to depict it, and it's not exactly like it's glamorizing it. It's just like train spotting. Train spotting doesn't glamorize being a drug addict, drug addict, and he showed it in a cartoonistic way, because you have to soften the blow. It's really dark, and people die in that movie, and people lose everything, and they're ill, and it's not glamorous. And the same can be applied to American Psycho. It's not glamorous. You watch it in dread, because in the back of your head you're like, God, imagine if I did this, I would never be able to sleep. Imagine if even I was this narcissistic or this sociopathic, it would be a nightmare, and the reason you enjoy it is because it's a fly on the wall. You're watching this horrendous, horrible person do all these horrible things, but it's like, this is what psychopaths do, and this is you learning firsthand from a fictional psychopath what they do. And to call it sexist. I mean, makes no sense. You can, you can maybe say that Brett Ellis Easton is sexist for the writing the book. I don't think he is, personally, but the film was written and directed by two women. So,

Dave Bullis 1:15:13
Yeah, yeah. Mary Harren, yeah. And it's Yeah. And I think they had to do that because, again, because of the subject matter. And I agree with you completely, Chris. I think a lot of people miss the the whole satire of of everything that goes on there. And yeah, but yeah,

Christopher Downie 1:15:28
I think, I think, I think it was handled incredibly well. And like, you've got these, I wouldn't even say this people are sexist, but seeing things like, don't give, don't give, like a, like a masculine movie was to a woman to write, because what does she know about men? GwenTurner, who wrote American Psycho is a woman, feminine woman, right? She wrote that, granted, it was based on Brett's book. She wrote that. And I watch it, and I go, that's what a man that's well, this is a man turned up to 11, of course, but that is the way certain men act. And she's nailed it. You don't have to be a man to have written the screenplay for American Psycho. So you don't have to be a man to do a Thor movie. You don't have to be a man to do Captain America. You don't have to be a man to do die hard. I just think that if you allow people to think that, then they're just going to continue to believe in they're not going to cast they're not going to hire women to do like a like a fresh new take, because they see us in a different way. And that that that would be good to see, because they understand men, it's they're not idiots. Women are not idiots. Men are not idiots. But at the same time, we are all idiots.

Dave Bullis 1:16:42
Yeah, great point, Chris. You know, Chris, you know, you know, we've been talking for about an, you know, an hour and 15 minutes. I just want to say, you know, just in close,

Christopher Downie 1:16:52
Not on that note, ask the best question ever. Then to finish off,

Dave Bullis 1:16:58
I'm already I have no more questions. No, no. So on that note, I just want to say, you know, I just want to ask, actually, you know what? What is next for you, Chris, in terms of, you know what project you're working on next,

Christopher Downie 1:17:11
We are doing, hopefully, in the new year, we're going to do a film called dog in the dead guy, which is about a is a day in the life of a deceased man, a ghost, and he is stuck in the house he died in with the new owner's dog, and the dog can understand him, and he can understand the dog, but no one else can see him, and no one can see or hear that hear the dog's thoughts. So they're stuck in this sort of weird relationship. And they find out that the old lady is going to die, so they spend the entire day trying to lessen the stress, to comedic effect, because they're trying to keep her alive, because if she's not alive, the dog doesn't get looked after. The dog gets taken away, the ghost stuck in the house with no one to talk to. So dog and the dead guy is next, and that's our next feature.

Dave Bullis 1:18:10
Cool. And, I mean, I imagine you'll probably get to that, what, maybe sometime late next year.

Christopher Downie 1:18:16
Yeah, hopefully. We're hoping either summer or autumn next year, I've written the first draft of the script. We have, we have our cast Well, the people that we have in mind in place to pitch the ideas to. So we go to cast first, and then it's off to finance and after that.

Dave Bullis 1:18:37
So, you know, Chris, just in closing, you know, it's a question I ask everybody, and that is, is there anything we didn't talk about that maybe you wanted to discuss, or is there anything you want to say to sort of put a period the end of this whole conversation?

Christopher Downie 1:18:55
I don't know

Dave Bullis 1:18:55
Any, any secrets of the universe, anything.

Christopher Downie 1:18:56
Always prepare for the worst. Always prepare for the worst. Whatever it is you do, if you're a podcaster, a filmmaker, an artist, always prepare for the worst just mentally, because when it happens, you your brain is ready and prepared. And again, though, if something bad happens in your life, you'll find a creative way to move past it, and who knows, it might be a blessing in disguise, I guess. I guess that's all I can really say.

Dave Bullis 1:19:25
And that's, you know, great advice, because preparing for the worst, especially even as I find it, podcasting, you know, I didn't mention this to you, though, Chris and I'll mention it now. I am on my sixth iteration of recording setups, just this year alone. So I have because, because, you know what happened when Windows updates something, it changes everything. So any type of software using, so I was using this piece of software, and it just in the Windows Update killed it, man. And now I've been sort of picking up the pieces now. So, so now I'm just set up now, and I have a backup recorder going at the same time. So. Yeah, so hopefully now it's all good. You know, Chris, you know, I want to say thank you very much for coming on and just

Christopher Downie 1:20:04
Thanks for having me.

Dave Bullis 1:20:05
And where people find you out online by the way?

Christopher Downie 1:20:09
You can find me at Uppie Downie, so U P, P, I, E, D, O, W, N, I E, on Twitter, or you can get us on Facebook, on shooting clerks, and if you have any questions regarding the film, or if you want to help out in any way or the next film, you can contact me or one of the staff members

Dave Bullis 1:20:33
Chris Downey, I want to say thank you very much, man.

Christopher Downie 1:20:37
Thanks for having me

Dave Bullis 1:20:38
My pleasure, my friend. And I wish you the best of luck with shooting clerks and dog and the dead guy and you know all your future projects, man.

Christopher Downie 1:20:45
Thanks a lot.

Dave Bullis 1:20:46
Anytime, buddy, take care.

Christopher Downie 1:20:48
You too.