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?

ZAK KNUTSON: I was working on a television series called FREAKY LINKS for Fox. The show was horrible and was going to be cancelled any day. The assistant coordinator on the show got a job offer to work on, what was then called, V.A. # 5 (JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK). All that I knew about it was that it was a Kevin Smith movie and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were in it and it was going to be 5 months of work. Which means a lot if you work in the world of film production. She brought me onto the show and I struck up a great relationship with Kevin’s assistant and mother-in-law, Gail, and the post production supervisor, Monica Hampton. Gail got me through production and Monica hired me as the visual effects assistant for the post production phase after another guy bailed out to work on another gig. Lucky me…they seemed to like me for some reason.

CG: Can you tell me about Chop Shop Entertainment? What was the basis for it’s creation and will you eventually expand into producing feature films instead of just documentaries and behind the scenes material?

ZK: Chop Shop was officially formed for CLERKS 2. Joey Figueroa and I had wanted to do this for a long time. We’ve known each other for about 12 years. I’m a big DVD geek. I love extra features and director commentaries. When we did the CLERKS X DVD, Joey and I had such a great time working on it that we wanted to continue it. I want to get something straight out there for people though, we (Joey and I) were basically crew for that doc and DVD. Phil Benson was really the brains behind doing SNOWBALL EFFECT. We put in our 2 cents, but it was really Phil Benson’s baby. Joe and I learned so much though, we wanted to do the same thing for the CHASING AMY DVD. We shot some stuff for it, but it’s been wrapped up in the Miramax/Disney/Weinstein Company break-up.

When GREEN HORNET was happening, Joe and I came up with the idea for webisodes and a possible doc on the DVD. Doing that stuff on our off time while we would have been shooting in Prague. We thought that we could then turn that footage into a calling card for getting more work and possibly forming, what would now be, Chop Shop Entertainment. With CLERKS 2, we had over a year to prep for it. We got Kevin and Scott Mosier involved, and pitched them ideas that they liked. We didn’t want to do just the standard studio EPK stuff. We wanted our work to be worthy of a Kevin Smith DVD. We wanted to make stuff that the fans would love and take it to the next level. That next level was the TRAIN WRECK Webisodes. We want to do that same thing for other filmmakers and other studios. We want to take DVD content and internet webisodes to a level of great entertainment marketed to it’s target audience.

We do DVD content and documentaries, but we also wanna do television and feature films. We wanna produce all kinds of content. We wanna do it all. We’ve got some things working, but I don’t wanna jinx it. You will know as soon as I know.

CG: I’ve read that you started out as an actor in the early 1990’s, appearing on such shows as THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR, COACH, and THE JOHN LARROQUETTE SHOW. What were your experiences like on those television programs?

ZK: Acting is great. I really enjoy it, but it’s really difficult to make a decent living at it without becoming a manic depressive. I learned a lot from working on COACH. Craig T. Nelson was a great teacher for young actors. He was pretty quiet on set, but you just needed to watch the guy and you could pick up the smallest things about timing and how to hit jokes to get that extra laugh out of it. He could also make it be dramatic without being cheesy (tough for a sitcom). Plus, the most professional guy I had worked with up until that point. That guy has done it all, and is still doing it. He’s Mr. Incredible for fuck-sake. I am nowhere near as talented as some of those guys that I worked with. But I hope that I learned things from them that I can use with other people.

CG: When and why did you decide to branch off from acting and start working behind the scenes on television and film productions?

ZK: On set as an actor, I found myself paying more attention to what was going on behind the camera. It was fascinating. I knew nothing about that stuff until I walked onto a set for the first time. I was a virgin that turned into a whore, as far as production goes. Lights, cameras, rigging crews, grips, gaffers. and sound. I just wanted to learn it all. I got obsessed. I decided one day that I was gonna work “behind the scenes” and learn as much as I could. So, I got a gig as a Set PA on the movie SPEED. I spent 4 months on the 105 freeway with Sandra Bullock and never looked back. As much as I have learned, the more I realize I don’t know shit, and Scott Mosier reminds me of it…ALL THE FUCKING TIME!!! It’s one of the things I like about making movies. Your always able to learn something you didn’t know before about the process.

CG: I thought that the CLERKS 10th anniversary documentary, THE SNOWBALL EFFECT, was by far one of the best ever done on a film and filmmaker. Whose idea was it to make it and are there any interesting pieces of footage left out of the finished documentary, besides what was on the deleted scenes section of the dvd? In your opinion, could THE SNOWBALL EFFECT be turned into a PRIVATE PARTS / MAN ON THE MOON kind of biographical feature film, with the rest of the View Askew history that came after CLERKS included as well?

ZK: SNOWBALL EFFECT was Phil Benson’s idea. I was his assistant on JERSEY GIRL, and when he told me about it, I beat him over the head to do it and to bring me on to work on it. I saw CLERKS in the theater when it came out. I was stoned and drunk and it opened my eyes to indie film. I thought that story should be told and the DVD was the best place to do it. That being said, I don’t think that there are any real stories that we left out that aren’t on the DVD.

SNOWBALL being done as a PRIVATE PARTS kind of movie I don’t think would really do anything that the documentary hasn’t already done. I think SNOWBALL answers all of the questions and tells the story the best possible way, from the mouths of all that were involved. I don’t know about the fans but I would rather see Kevin work on an original story from his imagination than see something that he has already lived and told before in movie form. I wanna watch RANGER DANGER!!!

CG: What is your relationship like in terms of working with SPIDER-MAN star James Franco? You’ve co-produced as well as filling in other positions on two movies he’s written and directed, THE APE and GOOD TIME MAX. How did this collaboration come about?

ZK: Dave Klein, the director of photography from CLERKS, CHASING AMY, and CLERKS 2, hired me for the line producing gig on THE APE, which James Franco directed. Dave told (Scott) Mosier that he was looking for a cheap line producer. Mosier told him to talk to me cause we were on the end of the JERSEY GIRL post production. I met with Dave and Vince Jolivette at Dave’s house. I promptly told both of them that I have no experience doing this, there will be times that I won’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I work cheap and you won’t find anyone who will work harder for you than me. Those bastards bought it and hired my big green ass.

Dave told me later that I was the only person he ever interviewed that basically told him “don’t hire me cause I don’t know shit, but I’m a hard worker”. Dave and Vince became really good friends of mine during that shoot, and Vince brought me on for GOOD TIME MAX, which is at the Tribeca Film Festival right now.

My job was to try to be able to get James and Dave everything they needed to shoot the film crew and equipment-wise. GOOD TIME MAX was a bitch of a shoot. It was alot of those horrible independent film shoot story you have ever heard about. We shot that flick on the tightest of tight budgets and it looks better than it should. I still don’t know how we pulled it off. Dave and James really did a nice job pulling it all together. James has come a long way as a director since we did THE APE, and you don’t really wanna piss off The Goblin when it’s his cash your fucking around with. James finances all of those films out of his own pocket. That guy puts his money where his mouth is, something that he believes in. I admire him for doing that. Something that can’t be said for most young actor/directors out there. James is also a really talented actor. If anyone gets the chance, watch FREAKS AND GEEKS on DVD and JAMES DEAN. You can see the guy do his stuff outside of the SPIDER-MAN machine.

CG: How was the experience like providing the voice for both The C.L.I.T. in JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK and Julie Dwyer’s father in the THE LOST SCENE cartoon from the CLERKS 10th anniversary dvd?

ZK: I love me some voice over work. You don’t have to shower or shave. The C.L.I.T. was just something that I recorded in the offices of JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK and was just happy to be asked to do it. Julie Dwyer’s dad was cool for me cause I saw CLERKS when it was in theaters, and it was kinda like I got to play a part in the original CLERKS.

CG: If and when there might be a CLERKS 3, will the Sexy Stud finally be legally married in New Jersey to Kinky Kelly? How did you get approached for this role and has it haunted you yet since the CLERKS 2 theatrical release?

ZK: I think that Kinky Kelly and The Sexy Stud would be living in Mexico because of the relaxed laws on inter-species erotica. Plus its a decent place for those two to make a living for obvious reasons. It would have to be somewhere in Baja though. The water is warm and the drinks are cold.It really hasn’t haunted me. I do get recognized sometimes, but its usually in 7-11’s for some reason. I get free drinks sometimes when I go out with my friends. Being 6′4, I think I scare the shit out of most people that might wanna fuck with me. Most people are pretty nice though and just wanna hand shake and say a kind word. I don’t have any problems with that.

CG: What was your fondest memory from behind the scenes of CLERKS 2? Is there a favorite TRAIN WRECK video of yours? And will the remaining TRAIN WRECK footage be used for the CLERKS 2 10th anniversary dvd?

ZK: My fondest memory just being able to hang out with my friends everyday for almost a year and make a movie about it. When we shot the flick in Buena Park, Joe and I lived at our best friend Jon’s house, which was like 5 miles away. Both of us grew up in Orange County, so it was cool shooting in your own back yard. The Burger King we shot in was right next to a union that my aunt worked in for 30 years. I used to go to that place as a kid to play Pac Man. I never in my life figured that one day I would be there in leather acting like I was fucking a donkey.

My favorite TRAIN WRECK would have to be the Cannes standing “O” bit. Just because it was so special.

The Weinstein Company has about 3 hours of TRAIN WRECKS that weren’t put on the DVD (sorry about that). They will probably use them for future releases of the DVD. They live forever on the net and Youtube though.

CG: Do you have any new projects coming up?

ZK: We just finished some webisodes for, THE ART OF TRAVEL. Quick Stop Entertainment is putting the webisodes up. It’s a cool little movie with a great crew behind it. We have alot of stuff in the fire at the moment but nothing that is ready to be announced yet. Hopefully, soon…. (wink wink)

CG: What is your favorite View Askew/Kevin Smith flick (CLERKS 2 excluded)?

ZK: CHASING AMY. It used to be MALLRATS, but the older I get the more I fall in love with CHASING AMY. I think it’s a pretty great fucking flick.

CG: And finally, do you hope to be included in some aspect, be it acting and/or behind the scenes, with the next three (the horror flick RED STATE, the still untitled Rosario Dawson romantic comedy, and the ever mysterious “special” tenth View Askew movie) Kevin Smith films?

ZK: Fuck yeah. Chop Shop wants to be involved in all of Kev’s movies. I would love to act in another one of Kevin’s movies. I hope he would consider using me again as an actor, but this time with clothes on and without the donkey. My mother has been through enough hell already. I’d love for her to be able to see a movie I’m in without having to cover her eyes and then have to go to church afterward to pray for my soul. But being in RED STATE, the comedy, or the mysterious 10th flick would be pretty fucking cool. Especially if Chop Shop can do the DVD and internet webisodes. It would be pretty damn cool.