He’s produced a cinematic body of work that has given a new generation of moviegoers reason to love New Jersey. It started with Clerks, a low-budget movie shot on location at a Leonardo convenience store, and was followed by Mallrats and Chasing Amy, strangely hip films with slightly larger budgets and slightly better-known actors. Together they make up a Jersey trilogy of film-all were shot in Atlantic Highlands, Leonardo, and Red Bank-and launched the Highlands native’s career as a film writer, director, producer, and actor. Five years ago Smith wrote in New Jersey Monthly that he didn’t fully appreciate the state until he and a friend embarked on a series of “comiquests”-road trips all over New Jersey to find the quintessential comic book store. It was then, he wrote, that he realized “the beauty and uniqueness that few see when they dismiss the state so casually.”