Their comments:

The poster itself follows suit with most of the others; creepy damaged texture, black background, and a character. Ours is Sarah. In the trailer above, she’s in it very little – which tells me she’s up to no good in the flick. Especially with that one vacant smile she’s got. Want to meet her? Everyone, Sarah. Sarah, everyone.

Side note: I dig how Sarah’s looking up and in a previous poster featuring ‘The Father,’ he’s looking down – ah, the little things)

There you have it, friends. Sarah. Of Red State fame.

And hey, we paid a thousand bucks. Donated to charity. Pimped someone else’s flick. If you’re not going to donate to the aforementioned charity (which you should) or go see the flick when it’s out (which you should) the least you could do is check out some of our past short films posted below and/or here. Also, follow us on twitter and come back once in a while for news about our upcoming thriller, Granted.

Kev says…

If you’re a movie website or film journalist and you want to feature this poster or use it in a story, don’t be a detail-thin dick.

Be sure to tell people WHY the poster was released: because Ma’s Meatloaf bid $1000 to Eliza Dushku’s THARCE-Gulu cause in less than 30 minutes.

If you also include the link for the THARCE-Gulu charity in your story/article, you’re not only being a thorough journalist, you’re also helping to save actual lives – lives whose progress you’ll be able to trace via http://www.tonic.com/campaigns/lets-help-eliza-dushku-build-a-center-for-former-child-soldiers-in-uganda-tharce-gulu/ and tharce-gulu.org

It only takes a few seconds longer to provide all available facts in any story.

Including THIS fact can help save a child’s life.

If you wanna follow the latest on “Red State”, listen to a brand new (and all back-issued) episodes of “Red State of the Union” (the latest reveals details on the film’s music). While you’re there, browse the other SModcast Network programs including a brand new episode of PLUS ONE featuring Jen Schwalbach. In episode #5, the couple look back on the year of 2010.

Michael Parks isn’t the most notable name in the world, but if you know the works of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino you know his face. One of the most distinct characters of their universe, he is Texas Ranger Earl McGraw, seen in From Dusk Till Dawn, Grindhouse and Kill Bill and now he’s heading to the View Askew world.

During his annual Kevin Smith conversation at Comic Con, Smith announced that Parks has officially signed on to star in his next film, the horror film Red State. For those that are unaware, the film will be somewhat based on the Westboro Baptist Church, who, coincidentally, are picketing this year’s Comic Con. Parks’ role will be based on the role of Fred Phelps, who founded the church.

Parks is a terrific actor and certainly deserves his day. It is well documented that Smith, Tarantino and Rodriguez are all within the same circle so it’s fairly unsurprising to see them sharing an actor. It’s hard to even remember the last time that Parks had a lead role, but this could be fantastic.

Congratulations to Kevin and all involved on a home run start to the casting of “Red State”. We can’t wait to see Parks chew the scenery in this one.

Surprise, haters! Kevin Smith’s big Red State gamble has paid off. A report last week cited Smith as having announced that his film was ‘in the black’ during a keynote address at a National Association of Broadcasters event last week, a vague phrase that suggested that somehow Red State had earned back its $4 million budget through Smith’s 15-city screening and speaking tour. Yet Box Office Mojo lists a mere $851,832 box office take to date. How does Smith’s math work out, exactly?

Pretty well, as it turns out, but not exactly as you might guess. Responding to Movieline via e-mail to clarify the Red State matter, Smith corrected tech/business blog GigaOM’s initial assumption: “That article is inaccurate, but the sentiment is in the same ballpark.”

…

Not too shabby considering that, as Smith proudly points out, the Red State roadshows didn’t employ any outside marketing budget beyond his own already-in-place SModcast media infrastructure. Initially, however, many were skeptical that Smith’s self-release plan could meet the early goal of earning back even half of its $4 million budget. After the first roadshow date, Twitchfilm’s Todd Brown went so far as to run the numbers with a little speculative math, determining that the Red State roadshow was unlikely to recoup the targeted $2 million once screening and travel expenses were tabulated.

Brown’s hypothetical equation didn’t include merchandising sales, which Smith folds in with his ticket sales, and assumes that theater rental rates and talent travel for Q&A appearances would cut into the numbers substantially. However, that didn’t account for the foreign sales Smith includes or the domestic home video/VOD/streaming sales that he says are near completion.

Read Movieline’s full story at their site.

Over the course of the 15 shows of the Red State USA Tour, we made almost one million dollars from ticket and merchandise sales. A few times, we had the highest per screen average in the country. We started out with a record-making show at Radio City Music Hall and went on to average 1100 people per screening. Had we booked ourselves into smaller houses, we could’ve SOLD OUT every show; but being in the larger houses cost us nothing extra.

And apparently, we managed to pull 1100 a night solely from our podcasts: when asked nightly if they heard about the show from a show at SModcast.com, an overwhelming 85/90% of the audience indicated yes (Jon swears it was 100% in Seattle). That bodes well for SIR.

You take what we made on the tour, you add that to the $1.5mil we’ve pulled in from foreign sales thus far (with a few big territories yet to sell). Add to that $3mil we’re on the verge of closing for all North American distribution rights excluding theatrical (which means VOD/HomeVideo/PayTV/Streaming).

The flick cost $5mil to make, but $4mil after the California tax incentive. One of the only things Jon and I promised the Red State investors in exchange for letting us handle American theatrical distribution ourselves was that their $4mil would be covered as soon as possible, something very few other production entities can promise or even offer. Invest a million dollars in almost any production, and you rarely if ever get your money back within five years, let alone the one year it’s looking like it’s gonna take for our guys to make their money back.

Add up all those figures above and you’ll notice our gains are higher than our spending. And without any dopey marketing figures to have to recoup, once we close the aforementioned deals (which Jonn Sloss & LawCo are working to close as we speak), simple math dictates Red State is in the black ñ long before any wide release. That’s music to the ears of any investor who only put up their money in September.

Ta-da!

Y’know what else is kinda sweet? Those $3million in deals I was talking about? That only materialized because our little movie went out and performed well. See, any idiot can lie and write hyperbolically (and high scholastically) about a movie’s future and its maker’s sanity all they want at 20,000 feet. But in the real world, when movie and maker put asses in seats and money in the bank ñ all without spending anything on marketing? I don’t know what the technical business term is for it, but I’m pretty sure it’s not ‘imploding’.

So there ya have it, folks. $4 million spent. $1.5 mil from foreign sales, $3 mil from North America, and $1 mil from the tour. That’s $5.5 mil earned SO FAR. And things are just warming up…

I gots me some butterflies churnin’! Quentin asked to borrow a RED STATE print for this weekend. He’s gotta like it, right? It’s got Parks!

Today, Kevin reveals the events of that day, and it’s a fantastic story that you’ve just got to experience in full on the blog, but here’s a taste:

‘I’ve already watched Red State,’ he chuckled. ‘I watched it Friday night. By myself.’

At which point everything in me went away but the filmmaker and I asked that all-important question:

‘Did you dig it?’

‘I loved it! That’s why I’m’

I didn’t let him finish. I just hugged him as hard as I could.

You see, Quentin’s was the only review that was ever gonna matter. Red State was inspired by the man’s work, his casting choices, his daring Pulp Fiction-tonal shifts. I’ve told the audiences at every stop on the Red State USA Tour ‘I didn’t want to make a Kevin Smith movie this time. This time, I wanted to make a movie that was Quentin Tarantino by way of the Coen Brothers.’ And to have Quentin not only watch the flick, but also dig it enough to watch it again in the span of 24 hours?

That’s graduation day, folks. Ain’t no reason for me to continue in this business past Hit Somebody because I scored the respect of a Grand Master.

He said it stands beside Chasing Amy as his favorite of mine, and then said ‘Your words coming out of Parks was perfect.’ He loved that he never knew where it was going. He just plain loved it, which was all that’d ever matter to the guy who made the film, who often pondered ‘What would Quentin do?’ before executing a shot, an edit, a keystroke or even before eating lunch on set.

‘Well we really don’t have to watch it again now’ I started to say.

‘No, I wanna watch it again,’ he countered. ‘And I wanna show Rhia.’

Quentin’s friend nodded, offering ‘He’s been talking about it all day.’

We love this story — Notice how despite having a time set to watch it, Quentin got a hold of the print and watched it RIGHT away — And then watched it through a SECOND time mere hours later. Not only an endorsement by words, but actions as well. Not only did he LOVE it, but he talked about it, thought about it…And wanted to watch it again. That’s the highest compliment you can give a flick, really.

Kevin’s blog entry telegraphs his love of all things Tarantino right back to the “Clerks” beginnings, and even includes some classic photos and links from over the years. The background makes the story from this weekend’s “Red State” screening with Quentin even more poignant, as Kevin prepares to retire from filmmaking. Much like Kevin, Tarantino has also set a definitive end to his film career — Though he’s yet to announce how many more films he’ll be making, he’s always said that he’ll retire from the directing biz early.

Tarantino is set to appear as the first guest of “SMoviemakers” at the Lovitz, and the thought of that is so cool, we want to start shopping plane tickets. Truly, a can’t-miss event. Read the entire blog entry, “QT and Me”, at the Red Statements site.

• Congrats and kudos to the fine folks from Film Threat magazine who contributed $1500 to Japan disaster relief for the rights to post the Stephen Root character poster from the film. Hit up their site http://www.filmthreat.com/news/33325/ to view it and for specific thanks to those who chipped in.

  If youíre a movie website or film journalist and you want to feature this poster or use it in a story, donít be a detail-thin dick.

  Be sure to tell people WHY the poster was released: because (Gavin Apí Morrygan (@Tearsinrain78), Darryl Clarke, Jamie Calder (@jamiecalder), Dan Duffy (@TheHalfFund), Heath C. Ice (@hcice) and FilmThreat.com (@filmthreat)) bid $2050 to earthquake and tsunami relief for Japan.

  If you also include the link for Japanese earthquake and tsunami relief (http://www.redcross.org/) in your story/article, youíre not only being a thorough journalist, youíre also helping to save actual lives.

  It only takes a few seconds longer to provide all available facts in any story.

  Including THIS fact can help save lives.

• The list of “Red State” reviews continues to grow, available at the Coopers Dell site. These are all unedited, fan-written takes on the film, from anyone who has attended any of the tour screenings. If you’ve seen it on the tour, send YOUR review to ming@coopersdell.com along with a shot of your ticket stub and have your voice heard. No reviews refused!
• Feeling artistic and want the chance to see an upcoming “Red State” tour stop for FREE? Details in Kevin’s latest Red Statements blog on how you can submit your own one-minute musical composition, for future use in SModcast broadcasts, and get into a show for free.
• Kevin stopped by Los Angeles’ KTLA to drop some innuendo and promote the “Red State” tour in this 5 minute clip. Not as much of a rush this time, and some fantastic promotional stuff for the film, the L.A. stop of the tour, and the upcoming shows at the Lovitz.

Tonight, the tour rolls into the great city of Denver, Colorado. You last-minute folks can still snag your tickets — Those not attending can follow a live tweet from Kevin this evening, under the hasg tag #SMileHigh. We hope to hear of many News Askew readers flooding the audience!

Chris and Dave chatted about RED STATE, his probable involvement with HIT SOMEBODY, that still untitled father/son sci-fi space comedy, and CLERKS 3.

AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID KLEIN

BY CHRIS GRAVES

CHRIS GRAVES: For those who do not know, what is your background and how were you introduced to the world of View Askew and Kevin Smith?

DAVID KLEIN: Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier and I all met at the Vancouver Film School. Kevin dropped out to save the rest of his tuition to make Clerks, while Mosier and I finished the program. Shortly after that program ended, I was in Seattle working as a camera assistant and Kevin sent me the script for Clerks. Nobody else was going to let a 20 year old, inexperienced punk like me shoot a movie, so I took the last 500 bucks I had in the bank and bought a ticket to New Jersey.

CG: What inspired you to become a director of photography?

DK: When I first started studying film, I thought I wanted to be a director. But shortly after getting to film school and learning what it was that different types of filmmakers did, I understood that I was always thinking in terms of what a cinematographer does, not a director. I was thinking in terms of camera movement, lighting and composition to tell the story, not authoring performances. I had also had a small amount of experience shooting 35mm still photography and 16mm motion picture films, which naturally let me in that direction also.

CG: You’ve acted in a lot of Kevin’s movies as well. Did you have a favorite appearance? And would you act again if asked?

DK: No and no. That ship has sailed.

CG: Can you describe your working relationship with Kevin? Is there a certain process that the two of you go through on every project?

DK: We have a true, unspoken language when we’re on a set together. Adam Siegel, one of the producers on Cop Out, noticed after seeing Kevin and I work together for a few days that “Klein cares about everything Smith doesn’t” which is somewhat true, but that simplification doesn’t give Kevin enough credit. He has really cared about what his films look like for quite a few years now.

We basically start every film by sitting together and going through the entire script in order to put a shot list together. Some scenes that we’re really familiar and comfortable with, we skip. Some we get very specific with. Because of our approach to Red State, although we had a shot list for the entire movie, we rarely referenced it. But we always attack the scene with the same intent even if we’re not actually following our predesigned shot list. He is one director that leaves me completely alone when it comes to lighting. Which, again, is not to say that he isn’t interested in the way his films look, he is. But in terms of how I’m using the lighting to help tell the story, he leaves that all up to me.

CG: Where did you come across the term “dutch rudder” which was refered to in ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO?

DK: In college, baby.

CG: Will the public ever get to see the often mentioned WILLAM BLACK short film that you shot with Scott Mosier back in film school? If not can you shed any light on what that short was about and why it hasn’t been released to this point?

DK: I doubt it will ever come out. It’s a short film owned by the film school, so there might be a lot of nonsense in getting it put out somewhere. I selfishly hope it doesn’t get out because it was one of the first things I ever shot, and it looks like it. But I was quite proud of a dolly we created for a scene where the camera and the actor were on the same platform that could spin around 360 degrees for 4 or 5 rotations. i had recently been influenced by Talk Radio and was stealing a shot from that movie.

CG: What format do you prefer, digital or film? And do you think there will come a day when film is completely phased out in favor of digital or something else entirely?

DK: I still prefer film. The latitude, resolution and grain are what I love about film. There’s also a way that these things work together that makes film the format I always want to use. But, digital is getting much better and I’m a huge fan of the Red One MX sensor. I think it’s definitely one of the best digital cameras out there and in a Lustre DI suite, it pushes around and color grades more like film than any other digital camera I’ve had my hands on. The day where film is phased out is coming, but it won’t be phased out by something better, it’ll be phased out by something cheaper. And that’s kind of heartbreaking.

CG: Do you have any desire to write and/or direct your own feature someday?

DK: No. I don’t have anything to say as a director right now.

CG: What was your experience like on the movie VULGAR? How does Bryan Johnson’s style of directing compare to Mr. Smith’s?

DK: That was a long time ago. All I can say about Vulgar is that I was a cinematographer who didn’t know what I was doing, but thought I did. Which is a very dangerous place for an artist to be, because you make arrogant decisions. I think a lot of that movie looks good, especially considering the budget – but a lot of the look of that movie comes from a place that was self serving and not necessarily best for the film. Arrogance sometimes comes along with youth and inexperience – but I’ve learned a lot since then.

CG: What can we expect from RED STATE, Kevin’s upcoming political horror film, in terms of the look and mood? Old school 70’s grain or crystal clear modern day cinematography or somewhere in between?

DK: I think it’s somewhere in between. We shot the entire film handheld, and I gave the lighting a singular voice that, I hope, matches a handheld camera. The lighting isn’t as refined as some of the work we did on Zack and Miri or Cop Out – it’s a bit more simple than that. But I think there’s a elegance to simplicity sometimes, just like there’s an elegance to a well operated handheld shot – which I hope we have a lot of. The look of the movie was facilitated by a number of factors, two of which were budget and time. When you don’t have the budget to take the time to light a film the way you see it in your head, you have to come up with something else. So the look of Red State comes from a creative place, but there were other factors that pushed it further in the direction it ended up going. I’m very proud of the work and happy with the way it turned out. I’d say it’s got some grit to it but there’s nothing in it that feels forced to me.

CG: Will you be involved with HIT SOMEBODY and Kevin’s untitled sci-fi father/son space comedy?

DK: Absolutely. Where Kev goes, I go.

CG: Do you have any new projects coming up besides RED STATE?

DK: I’m currently prepping season 4 of True Blood. I’m an alternating cinematographer on the show this season, so I’ll be shooting 6 of the 12 episodes.

CG: And finally, can we expect to see you behind the camera for CLERKS 3 somewhere down the line?

DK: Where Kev goes, I go.

Much thanks to Dave and Chris for the interview — It’s been fantastic seeing Dave’s work progress over the years, and a testament of loyalty on both he and Kevin’s part that the two continue to work together today.

Chris has done some fantastic work for us over the years, and tells us that he’s lined up a few more great exclusives that we’ll be sharing in the coming weeks. Thanks to Chris for his continued contributions — Be sure to check out the full series of interviews if you’re new and missed any from the past.

…Pretty much every thing you need to know about their profession and relationship comes across in that short conversation. Ever since I saw Chasing Amy, I’ve frequently used that as an excellent example of how a film can build character by showing people going about their jobs. Seldom in movies or television shows do you see people actually working, unless they’re surgeons, police officers and trial lawyers.

So when I finally got Kevin Smith on the phone, I briefly told him about that, and it said, “That rocks. It gives me chills to hear you say that. Chasing Amy came out in 1997, so it was 1996 when we filmed it. I remember that day, and how we started the scene with just the phone ringing. Then I thought about it and said, ‘Hey, start out by saying something about his work. Compliment his lamppost,’ and that’s what we used. For you to remember that and say something 15 years later, that’s where the payoff is.”

• We’re getting closer to an official announcement of a UK (and maybe other regions) “Red State” screening. And yes, it will also include a live Q&A with Kevin after the film. Details soon.
• The great Michael Parks himself will be in the house for the April 9th Wiltern screening in Los Angeles, marking the end of the US tour.
• We hear that the Austin Film Society on Facebook might have a way to get you some cheap tickets for the big show tomorrow. Fan them and hit them up for details.

Yes, this Monday, the great movie city of Austin, Texas takes a look at “Red State”, then it’s on to Atlanta, Georgia on Tuesday. Next week, it’s on to
Seattle and Los Angeles. Tickets still available through www.coopersdell.com — Get there and be a part of film history.