Writer/Director Kevin Smith on Filmmaking: You Must Have a 'Reasonable Amount of Unreasonability' | No Film School

Independent film would probably not have become what it is today without people like Kevin Smith. Whether they actually made things worse for the rest of us because of their success is up for debate, but there is no doubt Smith is one of those few filmmakers in Hollywood who makes exactly the kinds of movies he wants to make (not too dissimilar from Andrei Tarkovsky). In this interview below from Gavin Michael Booth's How Many Days Project, Kevin Smith talks about what it takes to be a filmmaker, the current state of distribution, and what brought him to make Clerks.

Keep in mind this is Kevin Smith, so there is plenty of NSFW language:

Learning to compromise and work with other people is an important part of filmmaking. Unless you are the one throwing down tons of money to make a project and paying everyone well, there is a good chance people may be working for less than they're worth, or even for free. That is just a fact of independent filmmaking. Not all of us can be like Tarkovsky, so you're going to be making compromises on the production and about what's actually possible with the money, time, and equipment you have. Once a movie is done, there will probably be more compromises, from post-production to distribution. I know personally I've had many projects where I've had to cut things on the day of shooting or shoot something completely different because an actor isn't available. Many of these things are daily occurrences, and learning to work through them is important.

Kevin goes on about filmmaking and digital distribution, what it takes to be a filmmaker, and why he madeClerks(keep in mind this interview was made before he didRed State):

Being a filmmaker is certainly not easy, and really, if you've ever heard someone say it is, they're lying. Independent film has a tough road ahead, especially as we figure out how to monetize what we're doing. If no one is making money from independent films (or at least not going into massive debt while making them), all we'll be left with is monster Hollywood movies to entertain us.

What do you think about Kevin Smith's ideas on filmmaking and what it takes to make movies? Has his career inspired you to make movies?

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What's the Hype With 'Interstellar' Revisiting Cinemas After a Decade in 70mm IMAX?

Here's Why You Need to Revisit 'Interstellar' in 70mm IMAX

Celebrate the love and hope at the center of Nolan's space epic in the format it was meant to be seen.

If we know anything about Christopher Nolan, he likes to go big. Nolan started with smaller-scale stories (as many of us do) with early noir adjacent works like Following, Memento, and Insomnia, then started going and staying big with his illusionist drama The Prestige. Since then, the scale has been various degrees of massive, with the biggest scope in his time-and-space sprawling epic, Interstellar.

While Interstellarmight not be everyone's favorite Nolan outing, there's no denying it's an impressive feat of filmmaking and his most emotional—if watching Matthew McConaughey's Cooper desperately try to reach his family through quantum space-time doesn't make you cry at least a little bit, what's going on, dude?

With Interstellar'sIMAX release, it's a great time to shed some tears in a public setting in one of the most prestigious film formats around. As we mentioned in our film gauge piece, Nolan loves shooting on film and utilizes 65mm intentionally to provoke a tone of massive scale. In that regard, Interstellar was made for 70mm IMAX. That goes without saying, dawg. That being said, other factors make Interstellar a perfect movie to revisit in theaters while you can.

Let's break down the release further below.

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