Clerks II director Kevin Smith has this handy advice for improving your next low-budget flick.

Shoot from more than one angle. Get as many shots as you can from as many directions as possible. This is called coverage, and it makes your film more visually interesting.

Use music as a band-aid. You can’t cut your unintelligible mother-in-law out of a birthday party scene by saying, “The running time is a bit long.” Instead, dub music over her. Set anyone to the right song and they come off looking pimp.

Remember that, as with most things, content is king. No one wants to watch a two-hour video of your vacation. But you can dazzle viewers with five Michael Bay, cut-heavy, chopped-up minutes.

If you’re starring in home porn, keep your ass off camera, particularly if it looks like mine.

Stay well lit. Indoor shoots have big problems with backlighting and shadows, so film outside as much as possible.

You’re not making a real documentary, so don’t be afraid to tell people what to do. If someone stutters or slurs, ask them to say it again. This is especially helpful with kids.

Good sound is important; your built-in mike just won’t cut it. Get an external microphone – a nice shotgun model that you can mount on the camcorder. That way, you won’t have to rely so much on music.

Since Clerks was essentially about what it felt like for Smith in his 20’s, he wanted Clerks II to be what it felt like to be in his 30’s. “I tried to do that with Jersey Girl, and to some extent succeeded, but at the same time, it is sort of a conventional mainstream film. I wanted to tell the story about what it felt like to be in my 30’s, and do it down and dirty, and closer to the edge of reality. So, I was thinking about new characters and new situations, and how I was going to get that thought across, and then I was like, ‘Wait a second, I can use Dante and Randal again, as a way into that story.’ Suddenly, it all just clicked.”

‘CLERKS II’

The sequel to Kevin Smith’s 1994 minimum-wage masterpiece is an excellent excuse (not that you need one) to go couch diving for popcorn money.

Free screening of “Clerks” relocated to Red Bank

RED BANK — When filmmaker Kevin Smith couldn’t show his first movie, “Clerks,” at the convenience store where it was filmed, he came home to “the Bank.”

Smith, a borough native, is coming to Marine Park Aug. 8. There, a few blocks from his “Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash” comic book store, Smith will answer questions from fans before a free nighttime showing of “Clerks,” the independent film that launched him to stardom in 1994.

The presentation was originally scheduled for the same day at the Quick Stop convenience store in the Leonardo section of Middletown, where “Clerks” was filmed. Middletown officials rescinded their approval because the store is close to a residential area and they had concerns about noise, said Tim League, who is producing this show and others he calls the “Rolling Roadshow,” and Red Bank Borough Administrator Stan Sickels.

About 2,000 people were expected to attend the Leonardo showing, which would have included an appearance by Smith and some cast members. The screening was to be preceded by a “Clerks”-themed street hockey match, because that is what main character Dante had scheduled to do on his day off when, instead, he was called to the Quick Stop to work.

Instead of street hockey, the Red Bank audience will get a question-and-answer session with Smith, League said.

“Rolling Roadshow” is a touring film festival that presents 10 movies throughout the country, most in key locations where they were filmed. They include showing “Field of Dreams” on the site of the Midwestern cornfield converted to a baseball field for the movie, and “Jaws” on Martha’s Vineyard, site of the movie’s beach shark attack, according to the festival Web site.

“We show famous movies in famous places,” League said.

Noise was a concern

Because Middletown officials were concerned about noise past 10 p.m., Red Bank was the next obvious location, “since it is in the heart of Kevin Smith country,” League said.

Marine Park also provides a good setting as a natural amphitheater, with a hillside for seating overlooking the Navesink River. Exact details, such as start time, are being worked out.

Borough Council members gave their approval for the showing on Monday night, provided that the festival pays for police protection and cleanup and takes steps to prevent anyone under 17 from getting into the R-rated film.

The festival is sponsored by Netflix and intended to be advertised to Netflix subscribers in the Red Bank area, League said.

“It’s a great idea. Kevin is part of the community and has made his imprint on Red Bank and Monmouth County,” council President Pasquale “Pat” Menna said. “He puts Red Bank on the map.”

About 2,000 people are also expected to attend the Red Bank showing. While they acknowledged Marine Park has been the site of the much larger annual Ka-Boom Fireworks display and the Red Bank Jazz and Blues Festival, some borough officials were concerned about attracting too large a crowd.

“I know Kevin sold out the Count Basie Theatre,” Councilwoman Kaye Ernst said. “It’s great, and I’m glad we can throw it — I just question if we can control the situation.”

Meet Kevin Smith IN PERSON at Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash in Red Bank – August 7th!

Coming out for the Netflix Rolling Roadshow presentation of ‘Clerks’ on Tuesday August 8th? Why not come out a day early so you can MEET KEVIN SMITH.

On Monday, August 7th ‘Clerks II’ writer and director Kevin Smith returns to Red Bank, NJ to sign ANYTHING and EVERYTHING from 2:00pm until the very last fanboy is satisfied at Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash in Red Bank, NJ.

On hand at the store will be plenty of posters, screenplays and items from the just-released ‘Clerks II’ as well as the brand new CHASING AMY INACTION FIGURES!

Finke Makes a Stink

There’s a woman named Nikki Finke who writes for the L.A. Weekly, and she seems to have taken issue with the MySpace Credits Contest we did for “Clerks II”. “This could very well be the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard,” she writes. “A huge diss, to anyone who’s ever legitimately earned a credit on a film.”

Yes – she’s serious.

Aside from the fact that the Lady Finke’s finger seems to be pretty far from the pulse (this blog entry’s a bit behind the times, considering the contest launched June 30th – nearly a month ago – and was covered by more alert media back then), she’s presupposing an industry outrage and ire that simply doesn’t exist. No guild has said a word about the credits contest. Know why?

Because there’s nothing to be upset about.

What Finke would realize, if she bothered to do her homework (which would require not even a full viewing of the flick, but merely a pop-in during the end credits), is that the MySpace names don’t appear in the credits proper of “Clerks II”. The film’s credits end (with all the proper logos and copyright legalese), the screen goes to black, and then after five to ten seconds, a new crawl (although “crawl” is hardly the term I’d use to describe the speed with which the names zip up the screen) begins.

Why is this an issue for Nikki Finke when nary a guild member nor other film artisan seems to care? It’s so sad. Weinstein Co. finds a fun way to spice up the marketing a bit, and this woman tries to kill-joy the whole endeavor.

In addition, of an earlier promotion the Weinstein Co. did at YouTube for “Lucky Number Slevin”, she also writes “Yeah, we saw what that promotion did for those movies’ bottom-line: Slevin made a pathetic $22 million, and Clerks 2 is well on its way to more failure.”

For someone who covers the film biz, I found that statement rather oblivious. Our flick’s budget was five million bucks. We did twice that in the opening weekend. The film’s foreign sales more than covered its negative cost. Our marketing budget was pretty modest – especially for a summer release. Even if after the box office split the Weinstein Co. will make with the theaters, our thetrical run winds up simply being a wash (meaning all costs are covered), that means everything we made on DVD is pure profit. If “Clerks II” DVD is anything like the DVD on “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”, we’re looking at forty million bucks, easily. Forty million bucks in profit. Where’s the “failure”?

Aside from “Little Miss Sunshine” (which opens this week), “Clerks II” may be the lowest budgeted wide release of the summer. We were modest across the boards, in shooting and opening the flick. We did this because we had a model in the “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” release. That film turned out to be very profitable, so we simply plugged in lower numbers when doing the “Clerks II” budget, to ensure high profitability for the Weinstein Co. Spending 75% less to make the current flick, spending far less to market the current flick and opening to roughly the same numbers ($11mil for “Strike Back”, $10mil for “Clerks II”)? In what world is that a “failure”? It may not be sexy huge like the “Pirates” numbers, but when it comes to the business half of the show business equation, being in the plus column is all that matters (on the show side of the equation? Making the film you want to make).

And since when are the credits sacrosanct anyway? If Finke feels the post-credits addition of ten thousand names is some kind of “huge diss, to anyone who’s ever legitimately earned a credit on a film”, what must she think of my end credits “Thank You” shout-out to God, or to “Jersey Girl” for “taking it so hard in the ass and never once complaining”. When a dog is listed in the credits, is this somehow an affront to the performers in a film with speaking roles? I dedicated “Jersey Girl” to my recently deceased Father (a dubious honor, I know) who had nothing whatsoever to do with the making of the picture; should the filmmaking community be livid that such an undeserving cad as my dead Old Man wound up with his name in the credits?

Bottom line? Ms. (or Mrs.) Finke can try to tempest-in-a-douchebag the contest all she wants; it doesn’t change the fact that it was a fun thing to do that all involved seem to enjoy. And if nobody (but Finke) is upset about it, where’s the harm?

Shit – had I known she was gonna react like that, I’d have thrown her name in the credits too, as follows…

Crackpot With Too Much Free Time – Nikki Finke

Editorial Note: When I use the term “Crackpot”, I am in no way, shape or form implying that this old Hollywood warhorse is crazy. I would never say Nikki Finke is crazy. Never.

Random info about Nikki Finke.

More on Nikki Finke.

Yo, just got out of kevin’s Late Late show taping. He’s the first guest, so there are two kev segments tonight. He discusses the feud with Joel in detail, and mentions the donkey show. Kev was very funny, the studio only holds 110 people but the place was going nuts.

Looks like I’ll be sitting in for Roger Ebert next week, as a guest critic on “Ebert and Roeper”. Kind of a cool honor, I feel.

We’ll be checking out “Miami Vice”, “Ant Bully”, “Talladega Nights”, “Barnyard” and maybe (fingers crossed) “World Trade Center”.

We’ll be taping next week, just prior to the Chicago WizardCon. I’ll let you know how it goes.