Kevin Smith

0:09This guy wants to do this. Your movie is haunting me. In what way? The reveal. Oh, it's better. No, the reveal, his face is just sitting right here. It's a snap zoom dude. I've been waiting my whole life to do a nice snap zoom. Every DPI I ever worked with is like, dude, snap zooms is so 70. He's like, I grew up in the 70s. So this felt absolutely appropriate. And James Lachston, our DP on the movie, I was like, I really feel like a snap zoom. He's like, yeah, that'd be cool. I was like, I love you. So yeah, it's a real moment, man. And it's like, I think it pays off because the only reason you're in that theater, presumably, is because you heard we take the Apple Guide and make him into a walrus. So, you know, we deliver on that.

0:54Like, I remember early on somebody had said something online like, oh, I bet it's all on his head or something. No, it's not. It's not in his head. It's all over his body. I've heard you say it's like herpes. It doesn't leave you. And that's how I feel today. It's true. It's a tough movie to shake. Like, I don't know necessarily whether you could say it's good or bad. Oh, I thought it was a great experience. Thank you. It's definitely different. It's definitely different. You, it's extremely different. Yeah, it is. Very much so. Particularly, like, if people weren't familiar with Red State, and even Red State, it's kind of different from. Even the way the camera moves. Like, everything is different about it. The guy that I shot with this dude, Dude Laksden, man, like, we had a really great symbiosis. And I'd taken three years off. And I was kind of just doing podcasts and live shows. So when I re-approached the job, and I was so kind of like, oh, I want to see this walrus movie,

1:41I kind of came at it in this whole new stoner way of like, not so much obsessing over every detail of the movie. But realizing what it is that I do best on set. Like, I'm an editor. Which is what? I'll hand editor. First and foremost, like, I'm not a director. I'm a good director in as much as I provide like a really safe environment for the actors to go crazy in. But I'm not the guy going like, we're doing this, and we're doing this. I'm kind of more the guy that sits there and goes, OK, I got that shot. All right, I got that shot. Ooh, I got that line was perfect. I want to get that line again, so we'll do another take. Ooh, this sounds good. So that's my job primarily on set. And then right after that, or right next to it, my job is to be like, how are you doing, man? You good? Excellent. You need anything? Awesome. How's everyone feeling today? OK, people, this is what we're doing. This is what I've been doing for the last three weeks. Shoot, yo, go. So I'm sitting there every morning going, OK, man.

2:27Day six for the girls, ladies and gentlemen. Give it up. It's their first movie and everyone applauds and shit. And then I tell them what we're doing throughout the whole day. And then I talk about like, you know, quotation and do some T.E. Lawrence about dreamers a day or something like that. And you try to be more like a dead poet society. You know what I'm saying? Like be more O Captain my Captain. And not like, you know, I'm a visionary. And this is what we're doing. And I used to be kind of like a sit beyond the monitor with like a collective of few people that I talked to and they'd communicate. Now it's what I wanted to do to everybody. Now I'm just like, oh, man, this is what it is. So I'm more narrating the entire process of the movie. And my chief job is to edit. So every day I bring in cut scenes from the day before to show the cast and crew. And then they watch it and they self correct.

3:12Anything. Number one, they're seeing what they did. It's the movies in reality. It's not theoretical anymore. And number two, if they see something they don't like, they can self correct that day and be like, well, I'll tweak that differently. So it's a much more like involved or involving process than it used to be. And I approached the job so much differently, man. I'm way up front about like week three. We just finished week three. And I told everyone at the beginning, as ladies and gentlemen, we just did two wonderful weeks, people talking to each other. Now we're entering into the action phase of the movie. And there's my least favorite thing in the world to shoot. I'm not good at shooting action. I have no patience for it. I'll roll 10 pages of people talking to each other because you feel like you're getting something done. But when you're shooting an action beat, it's like you're getting one moment. You're like, OK, now we have another setup over here. It's just painfully boring and long. In a first world kind of way, folks.

3:58Not real pain. Just the pain of like, oh, I'm on a movie set kind of pain. So I tell everybody, I'm like, I hate this week. So bear with me. We'll all get through it together and whatnot. And I'm going to rely on you guys to do this more than me because there's more of your forte than mine and whatnot. So you just kind of keep them updated every step of the way. And you're just way open with them and friendly because these are the people making your dream come true. And you've got this dopey dream in your head. They're trying to get it out, put it into the world for you and whatnot. So you look at them more as collaborators back in the day. I never saw them as fellow filmmakers. I saw them as like, oh, it's the crew. But now it's just like they're all filmmakers. Everyone's making their own little film within my film. Their film is perfect in their world. And hopefully it fits well into the overall film I'm making. It's just stunning. It's like, no, no, no. You look at everything. Believe me, I understand.

4:43I'm talking about it right now with Charlie. But talk about movies and movies. This movie is movies and movies. A little bit. Yeah, yeah. Well, this movie's fed by a bunch of different movies as well. Like, you know, some people. Was you the shining thing yesterday? Yeah. Just before because it's like that kind of. Yeah. Very neat. Kubrick was our patronus on this movie. And you know, I can't do Kubrick. But it was Kubrick in symmetry. That's not that. Stop it. Well, no, the way that it was awesome. Anyway, does it? The Kubrick in symmetry was something that while we're making the movie, I kept going like, you know, I just watched a short online where they took every Kubrick symmetrical shot and laid them one after another. It's interesting. So I was like, oh, man, let's go for some Kubrick in symmetry. So every time we were framing the camera, if we were this way or that way, I was like, let's just take it over here and frame it like Kubrick might have tried or blah, blah blah. Can't be Kubrick, but you might

5:29be able to put an angle or two Kubrick in there. And that just communicates something to the audience. It's familiar. Oh, that reminds me of the Shining, big house or something like that. Then you do stuff like the heartbeat. Like at one point in the movie, we bring in the heartbeat. That's very Kubrick in and stuff. But I stole from a lot of places, Dr. Morro, Frankenstein. I didn't even see human centipede, but obviously, that's an influence as well. The going further back, American werewolf in London, because that was a movie that had a lot of gore and scare in it, but also very funny in parts. When I was a kid, it's the first horror movie I ever saw that had a real sense of humor to it as well. So they'd scare the shit out of you. And then all of a sudden, the rotting griff and done would pick up a Mickey Mouse doll and be like, hi, David. And David might be like, stop it.

6:14So funny shit like that in the middle of horrific imagery and true terror. Well, I got me thinking yesterday, the audience left. Justin gets his leg cut off. And he's screaming, he's freaking out. But everyone's laughing because it's still funny. How do you direct a scene like that where you know it's hilarious, but you need him to be committed and serious? You trust your actor, man. Like Justin knew exactly what to do. That performance, like I just rolled a camera on. I wasn't like, you need to be this. He understands innately what it is. And then what he wants to do is just make it seem as real as possible. So he tries to give the most fucking drug-addled performance he's ever given. And it works. Like he seems like he's coming out of a stupor. So that whole conversation, which is like ludicrous and gets even more crazy as the dude's like a spider bitch who. Can you give that story? I want to hear that story. I mean, the spider thing was like such a, it was in one of the elements of the podcast.

7:01We talked about it like in the first 10 episodes of Smogcast. The brown recluse, the hobo spider, the deadly hobo spider, the poisonous hobo spider. So we brought it into the flick as well. And Michael Parks loved it. Like Michael Parks, that's his favorite thing in the script. The only thing that he found funny was the fact that this dude, that's it. He was like, everything's pretty crazy. Walrus didn't work for him. You thought it was crazy. But he thought what seriously made him laugh out loud was the fact that this guy tried to tell this guy that a spider did all this. So he was like, that's just bad shit crazy. So I told Justin when we're going into that scene, I was like, dude, lean on the fucking spider because Parks likes things. That's funny. So Justin in the scene is like leaning on the spider and Parks is like laughing. And I included it. Like so I, when he's like laughing and he's like, why are you laughing?

7:47It's just genuine. Parks like literally laughing. So it wasn't in the script. Just cut it in there. It makes it a little creepier and whatnot. So yeah, man, the spider paid off for us in a big bad way. Who knew why it would make him laugh so much? It seems so dopey and throw away to me. But to Parks, that was the whole movie. He's just like, the fact that he's telling this guy that a spider did this. That's brilliant. I was like, man, not really. But thank you. We liked that. Yeah. What were the beats like last night? Like you said yesterday when we saw the movie, it's for you as a Canadian audience. Yeah. So you must have tested it in front of Americans. Never. So this was the first time. The only thing I was in, let me see, Salt Lake City or outside of Salt Lake City, New Toe at a comic book store. And I showed people the first 25 minutes. We were doing a podcast there. And I was like, you know what?

8:33I got the, I got the test with me. Let me show you the first 25 minutes. So I showed them up until Wallace passing out and stuff. And it was nice to see it with 100 people and just hear people reacting to it. But shy of that, I've never played it for an audience. It's only been played in my house for people that worked on the movie and stuff like that. So being at the midnight screening the other night and then being at last night screening, those were the very first two public consunctions of the flick. Do you expect the beats to work as well for each country? I mean, nobody's. I don't know if they're going to laugh at like the double, double joke in the States as much as they laugh here. But I think the movie plays either way. What I'm hoping for is like the people on the state side who aren't familiar with some of the Canadian stuff just fall in love with it like the way I do. Some of those words just have magic to them and stuff like that. So hopefully that plays.

9:20I don't think it's like if you don't understand what Bifrost is and how far it is from Winnipeg. That you know, I think you'll be fine with the movie. But I loved having this extra glaze on the cupcake and being here in Canada because I knew they would get it. So I said I went to both screenings and sat right in the middle of the audience through both screenings because I wanted to hear them get every piece of Canadian. Did it work? It did. It felt lovely. No. It all. It hit. It was so lovely and what not. It was just the right room. But to be fair, if the movie didn't work here, it was never going to work. Getting places. I mean really. You know what I love yesterday with people being like, is that trying to happen? Yes. Is that done? What do you think? There's a wave that when people watch the movie and let's think they go in knowing and stuff.

10:05I probably shouldn't have ruined that. Some cats won't know. Some cats won't know. Some cats won't. But like going into it, you'll eat when the character pops up. There's always this little whisper that travels to the theater not at the same rate because people don't pick up on it right away. Some people right away, some people a few minutes. Some people it's like two scenes later. They're like, holy crap. But yeah, that's what's awesome about that is like just when the movie, we've already shown you the walrus. We've pulled our dick out. You know what I'm saying? There's nothing left for us to do after that. A walrus dick. It's a big old oosick if you will. After that, there's nowhere to go. And then we show you the weirdest thing we could ever show you imaginable. Johnny Depp in this movie. I think the weirdest thing is that walrus thing.

10:52He puts out a suit too. That's true. There's that as well. I'll let you go. And I don't think you're going to be able to do this. But we do something called five questions. Five quick questions. One word answer. I will try to keep it as a one word answer. I'm so not going to do that. Justin was like, he's not going to do that. Script or improv? Script. Filmer digital. Either. Lending or McCartney. Lennon. Hitchcock or Kubrick. Hitchcock. In one word. Tusk. Fuck. I'll breathe. Thanks Kevin. Pleasure. Appreciate it.