Interview By :
Shoshana Berger
Assistant Editor
(Art, TV/Radio, and Weird editor)
When did you first go online?
Before
Chasing Amy — February of ‘96. Somebody had asked me, “Have you seen any of the
Clerks sites?” And I was like,”What the hell are you talking about?” So I went to an Internet café and logged on, and… I was shocked. There was this one that looked really tremendous, and I contacted the dude and asked him if he wanted to design our
Web site. I said “I’ll write the text, you come up with everything else.” So we did. He built the entire site while he was in college.
Do you surf sites other than your own?
Yeah, I definitely do, I’m a big, of course, uh, Web porn fan. Nothing beats that. And I’ll do some of the other movie sites from time to time. I occasionally pop in at Harry Knowles’ site, which is huge now—
Ain’t It Cool News. Has all the studios up in arms.
How does your Web site affect your movies?
I love the [bulletin] board on our site.… I get on like twice a day. We started it after
Chasing Amy, but it may touch on future [movies], just in terms of hearing what people want to see, what characters they like best, ’cause I keep working with the same characters again and again—or at least the same actors—and all the movies are set in the same kind of universe. It also helps in terms of merchandising… knowing what kind of shirt they’d like to get. But I think the board was really effective for preparing a lot of people for what
Amy was.… It wasn’t like another
Mallrats, or even another
Clerks; it was somewhat of a departure. You know; so they didn’t go to the theater and say, “What the hell, has Smith gone gay on us or something?”
Do you feel responsible to your online fans?
Oh yeah. Last year we had an early screening of Chasing Amy and we took like a hundred people from the board—hardcore board people—and flew them out to Jersey for the screening. So we had people from Alaska and Australia and California, and then those people went out and spread the good word. For me it’s been deeply affecting, and it definitely touches on everything I do and plays a major role in the day-to-day. I mean, these are the people that keep you employed; without these people you have no job.
Do your fans now form their own communities online?
People on my board are breaking off into groups and bouncing scripts off each other and exchanging scripts, which is nice.
Would you ever release a film on the Net?
Like a preview screening? I’d do that; I know they did that with
Party Girl; that was the first movie ever broadcast on the Web. A preview definitely, but I don’t think I’d ever release a movie exclusively on the Net, even if the technological capabilities were so great that there was no lag, like watching a movie on TV. It’s still not the same as going into that darkened theater.
Do other filmmakers care about online reactions to their work?
Right now I feel like I’m out there by myself, which is nice. I just don’t think people realize the power there, or what can be gained. I mean, the studios now are paying attention to the Net… because of Harry Knowles and the
Drudge Report sites, where people are spilling beans on movies before they come out, based on advanced screenings. Now everyone’s up in arms, and this is something that’s beneficial! You know,
Batman and Robin wouldn’t have done as terribly as it did if these people had listened to what the core audience had to say. But they don’t. They sit in an office far from these people, far from the true audience of the movies they make, and they don’t have a clue as to what these people really want to see. And why not use [the Net] to tap into that? It’s a way for a studio exec to get in touch with the people that actually buy the tickets and keep them employed. It shocks me that they don’t do it!
What will directors do with the net in the future?
Sadly, not much, you know. Because there are a lot of people who believe in auteur theory and are like, “What am I going to learn from these people? [If] they tell me to do something, then I’m obviously compromising.” And perhaps they’re not incorrect. I mean, if people put so much stock in what the audience has to say, then it’s really just a little bit removed from taking notes from a studio executive, and suddenly there is no vision whatsoever, but a vision cobbled together from what everyone else wants to see…. For us independents, it’s a way to talk to people who appreciate our stuff. Because they are so spread out, you don’t walk down the street and see somebody who knows or appreciates what you do, or has even seen anything you’ve done.
Ben Affleckand Matt Damon
They penned the upcoming 
Kevin Smith