Why Kevin Smith bet $27,575 on a movie no one showed up for

I stand before you on Big Think as the first to stand

Kids, all my energy is delivered this way. So I asked the good folks, I was like, can I stand

Yeah. And here we are. So let's go on the journey together on our feet

I feel in order to get to where you're going requires a reasonable amount of unreasonability

Not like, hey man, I'm going to jump off a building and fly without the aid of a jetpack

That's unreasonable unreasonability. reasonable amount is just like, you know, why not me? Hey, kids, my name's Kevin Smith. Started in

1994 with a little motion picture named Clerks, and that's how people came to know me was as a

writer-director. Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jane, Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl, Cop Out

Red State, Tusk. The list goes on, kids. I've got 16 movies. I'm heading toward my 17th. So mostly

my career, I've been a filmmaker, but somewhere along the line, I decided to just become myself

for a living professionally. So my real title is professional Kevin Smith

Everybody, mostly everybody except people who were born rich, everybody has had a shitty job

And that's what Clerks is about. Having a job you hate so much

that you do anything else at the job to forget about the fact that you there to work This guy is going through all the eggs look This has been going on for 20 minutes now At the end of the day there always going to be some job you don want that you can take

I'd rather die trying to do something I love doing and hope it works out

than just kind of commit to that right away. So I always had a piece of me that felt like the risk's worth taking

Why not try to make your dreams come true? I dreamt about movies. I'd seen a motion picture called Slacker written and directed by Richard Linklater, and he was a filmmaker working in Austin, Texas

I did not realize that Austin, Texas, where Slacker was made, was the capital of Texas

All I heard was this kid made a movie in Texas, in Nowheresville, Texas, and it worked out

Well, maybe I can make a movie in Nowheresville, New Jersey. I've said, what's the story I could tell

I have access to this convenience store. I work in it all the time. I've never seen a movie made in a convenience store before

Maybe that could be my thing. After I made the flick, right, I make Clerks

I make it on credit cards. $27,575. And I was steamrolling toward this one event, not Sundance

It is called the IFFM, the Independent Feature Film Marketplace. The idea of the marketplace is you fill it with as many potential buyers or press as possible to see the movie

It's not a film festival. Well, it's a marketplace about sales. We go and the only people in the audience at the Angelica Film Center are me and the cast and crew so 10 of us and we all worked on the movie And the first 10 minutes of watching my movie on the big screen this was the thought process My God why did I do this

Why does everyone look so terrible? This movie looks like it was shot through a glass of milk

Why won't they stop cursing? What was I thinking? I had a kind of breakdown in the moment in the theater

About 15 minutes into the movie, I cognitively reframed it. And I was like, you know what

two and a half years ago, you were sitting in this movie theater watching Richard Linklater's

Slacker, and you had no vision of being a filmmaker. And here you are two and a half years later

and you're watching your own movie in this theater. And yeah, it didn't fill up the way you hoped

but you did it. So this costs money that you don't have. So this is what you're going to do

You're going to go get another job. And if you have to, you're going to get a third job. You'll

get another job, another job if you have to, so that you pay off this credit card debt. And then

when you pay off that debt, you're going to do this one more time before you leave this world

Because did you know who you were for the first time in your life when you were standing on that

set? You knew exactly who you were supposed to be. Your whole life prior to that, it's been a

mystery. And then bam, just like that, everything became crystal clear. Don't sell out on this just

because it didn't work the way you wanted it to. Remember that feeling of finally knowing who you are

and get back to that feeling one day. It may cost time and it may cost money but get back to that That was the most gratifying thing you ever felt in this lifetime Mercifully somebody said you should take this movie to Sundance And we submitted it

It got picked up for Sundance, one of 16 movies of 400 that were submitted

Miramax bought it. Suddenly, I went from being a guy who worked in a convenience store and made a movie to

having a career in film. I got to pay off that debt. I didn't have to worry about that

That was 31 years ago. my parents when I was heading toward film they were like what's your backup you know because

parents care and they feel like the field that I was heading toward was one that success was never

going to be guaranteed and in the case of their idiot son probably wasn't even going to happen

but having a reasonable amount of unreasonability allowed me to be like well I understand reasonably

speaking that a lot of people don't bet on themselves and make a movie even though they've

never made one before. But I got a reasonable amount of unreasonability here. And so I pursued

a career of extended adolescence because I'll be honest with you kids, one day you die screaming

like my father did. You might as well go for it. You might as well do the thing that you dream

about doing for heaven's sake. Thanks, Kevin. This has been great. We'd love to take some portraits

of you can we do some portrait standing and then would you mind sitting for a couple portraits

no no i don't want to sit but i'll totally stand for as many portraits as you want i'm getting my

steps in and while i was doing this i hit 10 000 to learn even more from the world's biggest thinkers

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