Director Kevin Smith (Clerks; Mallrats; Chasing Amy; Dogma; Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; Jersey Girl) speaks in one-liners, which is a great attribute for an entertainer who will be “a fat man sweating on a stage for four or five hours” in front of 1,000 Vancouverites Saturday night (July 9). For those who can’t afford the $50 admission to the Vogue, the former Vancouver Film School student poured his heart out via cellphone to the Straight:

The Straight question: What do you wish you knew in film school that you know now?

The one-liner: “The more you eat, the less you exercise and the wider your waist gets. If I knew I’d end up looking like my dad, I’d probably choose to eat differently.”

The real deal: “I wish I’d paid more attention in film school [he dropped out four months into his eight-month program]. If I had, I might have made better-looking films. I was never interested in cinematic things; I was interested in character and dialogue.”

The question: Your films aren’t polished. Why do you think they’re successful in spite of that?

The one-liner: “I sold my soul to Satan in ’92. Then I sold it to Jesus right after. I figure they can fight it out and I’ll have a successful film career in the meantime.”

The real deal: “I think they speak to a distinct pocket of youth….I make films for myself; apparently, a lot of people also identify with not getting laid.” (Smith is married and his wife has even appeared in Playboy, but he told the Straight that doesn’t mean he’s getting laid.)

The question: Film schools in Vancouver are booming; hundreds of kids go into the industry each year. So, is there a future in filmmaking?

The one-liner: “Christ, I hope so. I’m banking on it. I’ve had an 11-year run and I don’t know how to do anything else.”

The real deal: “The current crop of directors will die out or become terrible at what they do. So we need new blood and stories to keep cinema interesting.”

The question: Anything else?

The one-liner: “Please come to the show! It’s so much more fun when there’s more people there. Don’t go to the Alanis Morissette show down the street; buy her CD and see my show. I’m missing out on the Alanis Morissette concert, which is pissing me off. I’ll be at the Vogue sweating on-stage. The question and answers go on for a very long time. I’m not high on quality, but I am high on quantity. Plus, they sell booze there.”

The real deal: Uh, that was it. As of press time, a few hundred tickets to the show were still available. Buy them on-line at kevinthevan.com for $50.

---

Clerks director will answer your questions, maybe even about Ben and Jen

On stage
An Evening With Kevin Smith
Where: The Vogue Theatre, 918 Granville St.
When: Saturday at 7 p.m.
Tickets: $50, at kevinthevan.com or at the door

Kevin Smith is grousing on his blog about Vancouver weather. He’s also not happy with the Sutton Place Hotel, a few restaurants around town and a snippy desk clerk in Squamish. But, after some great sex with his wife, Jen, and a TiVo’d episode of The Simpsons, all is well.

Smith tells everybody everything. We know he gets up in the morning and, in his words, “takes a dump,” then takes advantage of the down time to check his mail. He’s gained 30 pounds in the last year, quit smoking, and apparently isn’t too happy with buddy Ben Affleck right now — but so far, we don’t know why.

But you can ask him in person on Saturday, and he’ll probably tell you.

The verbose Smith, the infamous director, actor and oh-so-prolific blogger is staging a live question and answer session Saturday at the Vogue, an “audience as straight man” format that proved itself wildly successful a few years ago with the DVD release of An Evening With Kevin Smith.

Smith is in town acting in Susannah Grant’s Catch and Release, but he’s primarily a director himself. The 1994 cult classic Clerks is thought to be his first film, but fanatics and some Vancouverites know that honour belongs to Mae, I (a.k.a. Mae Day: The Crumbling of a Documentary), his Vancouver Film School effort — or lack thereof.

“I was here circa 1992,” Smith tells The Province. “I did four months of the eight-month program.”

It was worth it, he says, because that’s where he met Lower Mainland native Scott Mosier, who remains his production partner. They first teamed to pitch a 10-minute short subject documentary for a VFS major class project.

“I used to walk to the film school at eight o’clock every morning, and man, it was hooker central,” he says. Through that scene, Smith met Emelda Mae, a pre-op transsexual who sang in a club and decided to chronicle her plight in a sensitive character study.

“We had a reputation of being jokers in class, but we made a real serious pitch. We were going to treat it maturely and sensitively. And they bought it.”

Twelve films were pitched, but only four were chosen, with the unsuccessful bidders relegated to crew positions.

Their elation soon turned to dismay.

“We’re like, ‘Oh my god, we’ve succeeded, this is awesome!’” says Smith, “and then we were faced with the task of actually making the documentary. And it was like, ‘I didn’t know we were actually going to have to do it, I just wanted to be one of the ones that were picked!’”

There was little in the way of organization or progress, and Mae eventually dropped out. (”I think she went to have her sex change operation in the Philippines,” recalls Smith). The filmmakers were left with a short clip of a Mae performance at the West End restaurant Doll and Penny’s, and no interviews.

The crew, faced with the same failing grade as the slackers, was livid.

“They kind of turned on us, so I said, ‘Hey let’s do a documentary about how our documentary fell apart.’ So Mae I turned into Mae Day.”

In spite of this measured success, Smith had had enough of film school.

“I don’t think you need to go to film school to direct,” contends Smith. “It’s like writing. You either can or you can’t.”

Smith’s former VFS instructor agrees.

“He didn’t need it,” says Jon Stoddart. “He enjoyed not doing the project the way it was designed, and thinking around the rules. Film school is about structure.”

Smith got half of his tuition back — $4,500 — and threw it into Clerks.

Says Smith: “Ultimately I think I made the right decision, although there are a bunch of film critics out there who felt I should have done at least 10 more years of film school.”

Clerks won accolades from Cannes to Sundance, and Smith went on to make Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (the two characters played by Smith and Jason Mewes in almost every film), and Jersey Girl.

Mewes, says Smith, will definitely be in attendance at the Q&A, but he’s not sure about Affleck, the star of a number of Smith flicks and now the husband of Smith’s Catch and Release co-star Jennifer Garner.

“Yeah, what better wedding present to give your new bride than to take her to see your friend who she sees every day at work anyway,” cracks Smith.

“He might go to make sure that I’m not slagging off on him. This would be the one Q&A where I could be telling an Affleck story and he could stand up and say, ‘That’s bullshit!’

---