Special Excerpt: Stalking Kevin Smith at Phillycon 2002

This hot chick really has nothing to do with this story...

I mean, first off, how many people have stalked Kevin Smith? It must drive him crazy...Also, it's funny to read that I was trying to give him a tape. Yes, a VCR tape...man, times change fast.

Anyway, I'm at the Philadelphia Wizard Convention in 2002 on Friday and I miss an early chance to get into a line to get him to sign shit. That is where the story begins...

Stalking of Kevin Smith:

I find out that Kevin Smith is signing stuff right then. I grab my movie and high-tail it over to him. They've capped off the line though. No more people until the signing the next morning.

Yes, that's right, morning. As in, A.M.

I try to put it from my mind. I buy some stuff for the store, try to get the lay of the land, and in general do nothing of consequence.

The next morning I get up at the ungodly time of 9:45am. I take my patented three-minute shower and am in the show within five minutes of it opening. Target: Kevin Smith.

I'm informed that they're already out of tickets for the signing. I'm like, What The Fuck? This guy's the Special Guest and they're giving out like 100 tickets?

My new plan involves bum-rushing Smith when they escort him in for the signing. The line has formed and he's supposed to show up at 11:00 A.M.

I figure I'll catch him on his way in, force the tape into his hands, and run off like a lunatic.

So I bide my time. I look at all the freakos and the Playboy chicks. I pretend I'm not going to assault the Special Guest.

One such Playboy chick

The time comes. 11:00 A.M. No Kevin Smith. 11:15 A.M. No Kevin Smith. I go back to the booth to make sure the guys don't need anything. As I'm coming back, Kevin Smith shows up. No way could I get to him before he was behind the line.

Thwarted! Lost the battle, but not the war...

Yes, I see him now...

I go up to the line. Instead of Smith sitting at a table signing, he's going to walk through the line chatting and signing. How cool would it be to get in that line?

I approach a decent-looking fellow. Not one of those raving Kevin Smith fans who can tell you how many minutes each of his films are. A regular joe. I ask him if he wants to make $50.

"Doing what?" he wants to know. I tell him. Give this tape to Smith. If Smith doesn't want it, fine, the guy can keep the fifty and give me back the tape. I'll be watching.

The guy says Nah.

I'm pissed. He asks me what's on the tape. I tell him. He says Nah again.

So I try to bribe a Wizard security guy. I tell him "I'm a retailer and I got in here too late to get a ticket. Any way I can get in?" He says no, Smith was late and has to get done so he can get to the question and answer panel.

"Fifty bucks?" I prod him. Clearly he'd like to, but there are too many other Wizard staffers there who'd see. He can't.

Now I'm getting steamed. All this effin work to get a tape to the guy. I decide to bum rush him on the way out then.

I spend the next two hours patiently watching and waiting. Some might say stalking. Those people are very intelligent and scare me.

Same picture, because I'm focused on my prey. He's in my sights.

The line dwindles. Smith gets closer to the exit side of the line.

I close in. I try not to make eye contact. Don't want to spook him.

The HULK!

I marvel at how Lou Ferrigno(signing right next to Smith) is still in awesome shape. Isn't he like sixty years old now?

Then, miracle of miracles, Smith is done. Other onlookers start to press against the rope trying to get him to sign stuff. He does!

I make a frozen rope right to him. Calm, cool, collected. "Hey," I say, "Just wanted to give you a copy of my movie."

He tells me he can't take it right now, but he'll be going by the Oni booth immediately after that and he'll pick it up there. Give it to Brian Johnson.

I thank him, but inside I'm crestfallen. Is this the way he blows off people? Hey, what's that chick got to do with anything?

At the Oni booth, I tell the guy that Kevin asked me to give this to Brian Johnson. He's nice, says he'll give it to him. He goes through the hut in the middle of the booth to the other side.

I take off my hat(incognito now, baby!) and walk around the other side. Brian Johnson is one of the guys from Kevin Smith's movies(I think he plays Steve-Dave). He takes out the insert of the movie poster from Hunting Humans(my movie) and looks at it, shows it to one of the other actors from the Smith movies.

After a moment he tucks it under the table. Will Kevin get it? Only one way to find out.

I go back to where Smith is finishing signing. He's being mobbed and the Wizard guys are trying to get him out of there. Finally, they escort him away. Like his shadow, I follow.

Sure enough, he goes right to the Oni booth. A mob follows him. As soon as he's on the other side, Brian Johnson(may his camels be forever flea-less) hands him my tape. Some words pass, but I can't make them out. Smith takes my tape into the little hut where he disappears for a half an hour to sign things.

He's got it! Sweet! Mission accomplished. I pat myself on the back and go snap some pictures. Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee are signing in preparation for the twelve-issue run of Batman that they'll be doing. Jeph even smiles for me.

Postnote: I don't know whether he ever watched it. Never heard. Ah, well. It's a fun story now though...

October 27th, 2002: Making Deals, Joe Bob review

I have no picture for my post. So here's a hot chick I took a picture of at a comic convention where I stalked Kevin Smith. You'll read about it in the next blog post.

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Funny afterword about this:
I'm not sure if we actually played the Chicago fest or not--one of our foreign dvd covers to HH says we played in it, so I'm confused...where'd they get that info? I don't know.

Also, Tony at IFM turns out to be Anthony Ginnane, who you can see in the very entertaining documentary Not Quite Hollywood, about Australian exploitation movies. He produced a bunch of movies before forming his own distribution label.

OCTOBER 27th

    Really ought to update this more often. So much has happened that it’s hard to believe.

    Okay, first and foremost, after a long talk with not only Paul(works at Tulchin’s) and Tony at IFM, we signed the deal with them for foreign. We’ll see how it works out.

    Second, I had sent the movie off to a couple of festivals to see if we could get in. Chicago Independent and Hollywood Film Festival both blew us off, not even telling us we didn’t get in. I mean, how hard is it to email someone? If you’ve got a small indy movie, DON’T send it to them. Chicago claims it’s independent but doesn’t seem to be.

    Anyway, the B-movie Film festival didn’t tell us that we got in, but they emailed me to tell us we were nominated for seven awards, so I’ll forgive them. Best Writing, Best Editing, Best Action Sequences, Best Villain, Best Actor, Best Score and Best Movie. Not bad! (Footnote: We ended up winning two, Best Editing and Best Action Sequences)

    And then there’s the sniper…

    If I had a dime for every person who jokingly asked me if I was the sniper, I’d have enough money to shoot my next movie.

    Then I get word from Mary Koon, assistant to Joe Bob Briggs.

A quick word about Joe Bob, in case you don’t know who he is.  You might remember him from his long run as the host of TNT’s Monstervision. He writes several syndicated columns throughout the country as well as putting out books with his compiled “Joe Bob’s Drive In” movie reviews.

 I had sent a screener to Joe Bob like eight months ago and figured it went into the trash(where the one I gave Kevin Smith probably is—see “Stalking Kevin Smith”(NOTE: WILL BE THE NEXT BLOG POST). 

Anyway, his assistant emails me to tell me Joe Bob’s review goes up on 10/23 and she thought I’d like it. She included the review with her email.

I was elated. At least he didn’t hate it! And hey, Joe Bob actually watched MY movie! This is a guy I used to watch on the freakin’ TV! I’ve got two of his books!

Then I read the review.

Holy shit. I was like…HOLY SHIT. He RAVED about the movie. I couldn’t have written a nicer review if I tried. He wrote:“The story twists and spirals several times in the very accomplished script of Kangas, and this might be one of those movies that's actually helped by the low production values. It looks so grainy and gray it's the kind of home movie a serial killer would make about himself.” Wow.

A few of the other words he used are: “It doesn’t disappoint.” “A well-directed movie”. “…eerily prescient”(go look it up). And then he gives it four out of four stars.

Quite literally, it’s the biggest high I’ve gotten since I finished the movie, including the public screening at United Artists. I mean…HOLY SHIT.

Another thing, Joe Bob GOT it. He actually understood the movie and some of the underlying themes. Few people have commented on the irony about Aric Blue, that he prides himself on how self-aware he is, and yet he’s caught in the same trap that he uses to kill his victims.(his pattern is that he stalks and kills people)

Believe me, I’m coasting on a high right now.

So anyway, we’re in the midst of negotiating the details of the domestic deal. What happened was that I couldn’t find any info about the company who wanted the movie. I thought it was Spartan—turns out it wasn’t.

I have to sign a non-disclosure agreement before I can find out who it is. I can’t say, but they’re small. I talk to the guy in charge who says he’s 95% sure they can get HH into Hollywood Video. They can’t make any promises about Blockbuster, but they have gotten movies in there before.

Out of the thirty grand, I’m gonna have to pay for an MPAA rating which will run about two grand. Then I have to pay Harris $1500 to go through HH looking for any copyright violations and other stuff, as it’s a pre-requisite for getting E&O insurance(which the distributor will pay for).

So the piece of the pie is getting smaller. Harris gets 10% of the thirty grand. In essence, we’ll be making our budget back from the domestic. If all goes well with the foreign, we could make up to 150 grand on that.
Biding my time to see if we get any other responses about the Joe Bob thing.

July 27th, 2002: Offers

Hey, look! Really bad pre-photoshop(I used Corel Photopaint) poster mock-up.  

Last week we got an offer from IFM Film Associates. It boils down to a percentage deal on all sales, but they’re kind of like a middle-man. I check another filmmaker who used them, and he tells me they have yet to make a dime after the advance.

    Which is weird, because IFM claims they’ve done about $150,000 in sales, so I don’t know what kind of expenses they’re claiming.

    And oh, IFM claims they’re “marginally less enthusiastic about this title, as opposed to [another movie they name] because it has a much grittier look and is less clearly generic.” That’s right, our movie is too original.

    Gonna turn that one down.

    Then tonight Paul at Tulchin’s emails me that we have a new offer from Spartan Video, a buyout offer. They want the US rights for $30,000. We’ll still be able to sell cable/TV rights and foreign. It’s a low offer, but it’s money up front, which is what I’m looking for. That back-end money is for shit when you can’t trust any of these companies.

    So now I have to figure if it’s a good idea. It’s more than the entire budget of our movie, but not as high as we wanted. If I’m confident that Spartan can get the movie into Blockbuster and Hollywood Video though, I may go with them anyway. Time to get some money and move on.

MAY-JUNE 2002

Man, it's like foreshadowing! I name Lion's Gate as a possible distributor, and they end up picking up my next movie(which is also mentioned in this same entry).

Ransom is still a script I like a lot. But it's really not that marketable without a real cast.

MAY – JUNE

    Did the press kits. They turned out pretty nice, but cost about $450. I send twenty-five of the fifty I’ve made, plus screeners to Tulchin. Two weeks later he emailed me a list of the distributors he sent them out to. Some of the names are Universal, Warner Bros, HBO, Showtime.

    I wonder if Harris has even seen the movie. Ain’t no way this is a big-studio movie. I’m thinking more like Fine Line(who is also on the list) and Lion’s Gate.

    Harris lets me know he needs more screeners. I email him and say I’ll send him another fifteen, but that these things aren’t M&M’s and these are the last ones I can send to him for a while.

    In retrospect, I wish I’d had the press kits when I sent out screeners to the festivals we applied to. Would have made a better impression on the judges.

    Anyway, I can now sit back and hopefully wait for the offers to pour in. I’ve finished Ransom For A Psychopath, one of the scripts I was thinking about shooting, but it would cost too much money. Still aiming at Fear Of Clowns. Got about 90 pages done, still working out some kinks.

April 30th, 2002 - Back East Pt2

I get up about one p.m and don’t feel so hot. My wife shows up. I get them to go get me something to eat, and then I throw up some and sleep some more.

After they bring me a sub, I feel a little better. None of us make any move to go into town and watch any movies. Fuck that.

After a while, my wife and I get ready for the awards show. No way am I thinking we’re going to win an award.

You see, the actor Frank Vincent is being honored at the awards gala. He’s also got a movie running in the competition. Now ask me what movie I think is going to win.

It does. Then Best Feature in another category goes to some movie whose producer also helped put on the festival. Conflict of interest, anyone?

The director of that feature also gets Best Screenplay and Best Director. Everyone in the joint seems to know him. I’m feeling like more of a stooge by the minute. I can see this whole thing was planned out before they even started the show.

Well, the dinner took place at the Liberty House, so that was neat. New York City skyline in the background, Statue Of Liberty off to the right. Everyone in suits and tuxes.

My wife and I go back to the room. We’re going to try to go into New York City, but by the time we get ready, it’s pouring rain.

We go back to the room and say fuck it. The whole weekend has pretty much sucked. I spent roughly seven hundred dollars of money I don’t have.

So now I’m sitting here a couple of nights later and the whole thing is like this mini-nightmare. I just never expected a first-year festival to be this political. Christ, it’s who you know even at these little festivals.

I’ve got to jam on these press kits. Hunting Humans has to get out there. I’m working on the screenplay to Fear Of Clowns right now. It’s more of a straight romantic horror mystery. You know.

April 30th, 2002 - Back East Pt1

I believe this is where my hate of New Jersey started. And something I remember from right after we first got to NJ: Rick and I are walking back from where we grabbed lunch and we see a girl, maybe 18, walking the opposite direction from us.


She's crying, and pulling a suitcase behind her. Rick and I watched her walk past. I mean, what were we going to do?


Anyway, the entire night in New York is just one giant surreal thing in my mind. Bizarre. I guess that's New York.

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April 30th

We got home from the Back East Picture Show. It took place from the 25th to the 28th of this month. Things started bad. Should have taken it as an omen and gone home right then.

Rick and I left for it on Wednesday night. I had made reservations at an Econo Lodge about two miles from the actual hotel we’d be staying at for the next couple of days(by then it was booked up for that night because we’d planned on coming down on Thursday).

My plan was to get the lay of the land, put some flyers out at the theater, etc. Try to get some people to come to our showing.

What happened was that we got into town within 3 hours. It took us about another hour to find the goddamn hotel. The guy I called didn’t speak much English. He was no help. We finally stopped at the Doubletree and I checked to make sure my reservation was fine and got directions from that guy.

After a small misdirection,we got to the hotel. It was a dump. You at least expect an Econo Lodge to be decent, but this was in a crappy part of town. Tons of construction, lots of litter and crap all over. The rug in our room was stained and burned in places. I didn’t want to put my head on the pillow, the room was that crappy.

We figured to get up early and get over to the theater. I set my alarm for 9:30am.

We get up and roll out. I buy a map of Jersey City at the hotel. We head toward what we hope is the theater.

Construction prevents us from taking certain roads. We keep getting detoured to other roads. We find some of the roads we’re supposed to be on, but they’re not going where we want.

I ask a couple of people where the theater is and they’re like “That’s in Hoboken, right?” as if it’s forty miles away. The paper I have says it’s about three miles away.

It takes us, no shit, two hours to find the theater. No shit. And it was only three miles away.

It’s raining like a bitch, we’re pissed off about what a crappy city Jersey City is, and finally we stumble into the theater.

Hudson Street Cinemas is a two-screen theater. Small and quaint. I meet the guy putting the festival on who seems fairly nice, but he’s asking me questions about how did I do the sound for my movie. I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. It’s called a microphone, chief.

He wants to know if we’re going to the seminar or something. I tell him we just want to go get something to eat. We’re hungry and tired from being lost.

We get some lunch at a little crappy steak joint. They don’t serve fries. They serve some onion-covered potato thing. A thimble of bitter cold slaw. The burger is okay.

We head back for our screening, dreading it. You see, they’ve not only given us a bad time slot, but they’ve put us opposite the Director’s Lounge where everyone can go get free drinks and schmooze with the other filmmakers.

Five people come to our showing. Two of them told us beforehand that they would be leaving a little early to go to the Lounge. So then we had three people.

Great, I’m thinking, as I watch the movie for the millionth time. How can we win an award when only three people are watching it?

After the movie, they took a few pics of us. We rushed off to the Lounge. Had some drinks, chatted with some people. Everyone was very transparent with their “What can you do for me?” attitudes. Passing tapes and business cards.

At least we find out that there will be judges voting for the best movies, not the audiences.

That night we go to bed early. I need the sleep. I figure we’ll party the next night. We’ve been passing out cards with invitations to a screening of HH in our room with free drinks.

Friday rolls along. We head to the theater, where it seems no one is taking part of the showings. No one seems to care. Where are all the filmmakers?

We catch a movie called Peroxide Passion. Not bad. Some good acting performances by the leads, but some of the directing is off(or it could be the editing, it’s hard to tell without seeing what they had to work with).

I’m bored. Kinda pissed. We can’t find where people are hanging out, if they even are, so we can’t pass out some more invitations. We want some people to come to the screening in our room, but we’re getting a bad feeling.

I make Rick watch Living In Oblivion. He didn’t find it as funny as I did. He’s real jaded. He gets into these little bitter moods. I can feel it too, but I repress it. Time to get pissed later.

We get some dinner and go to the theater to see what it’s like. Tonight they’re screening the movie that the guy who put on the festival shot, but it’s not in the competition.

There’s a decent crowd out front. Danny Aiello walks by. Some other actors whose faces you know but names you don’t. We decide not to go to the screening. I’m not feeling like watching any of these fucking “filmmakers” movies, ‘cause they didn’t come to mine, did they?

We head back to the bar that hosted the Director’s Lounge. We get some drinks. We head back to the hotel at about 11:30pm. I get the room ready, get some liquor ready.

No one shows. No one. Rick’s pissed. I’m pissed. What the fuck are all these people doing?

Rick and I take the Path, a subway that runs into New York. We get out on 14th street and catch a cab, telling the guy to take us to any happening bar. The guy has no idea what we’re talking about. (He doesn’t seem to speak fluent English; go figure)

Finally he drives us to some strip with a couple of bars on it. We head into one called Bar515 and get some beers. After a while, two girls wander over and ask us what the badges around our necks are. We tell them. One girl is named Rebecca I think, and the other girl is some Hungarian girl who doesn’t speak much English.

Rebecca’s a wanna-be actress. She’s pretty with a good body, but I don’t think she’s got the intelligence to be a good actress.

Bar515 closes at 4am, so they ask us if we wanna go to another bar with them. We’re wasted. We say sure.

They take us over to some theater that’s hosting a Neil Simon play. Some mook is letting some people in the back door, but they won’t let us in, even with the girls. Another guy comes up and Rebecca talks to him. He hands the big black bouncer a hundred dollar bill and we’re in. Let me tell you that I have no idea why that happened.

We’re ushered up some dark stairs into an even darker room. Little black couches, bluish neon lighting around the walls. I get five drinks, which come to thirty six bucks. Rick has to pay for it, ‘cause all I got is plastic at that point, and they won't take credit cards.

We hang around chatting on the couch and then suddenly the girls are gone. They went through some door that is opened and shut periodically to admit certain desirables, of which we are not.

That clinches it. We finish the drinks and get out of there. Where ever we are, it’s close to Times Square, because that’s where we end up.

It’s like Vanilla Sky. There’s no one there. A lone hot dog vendor. We get a hot dog for Rick and a pretzel for me.

Then we head home. We get off the fuckin’ path at the wrong place and have to hoof it about a mile. It seems like ten miles when you’re drunk.

When I get back I call my wife and tell her to go ahead and come if she wants to. The festival isn’t anything like I expect.

I go to bed at about eight a.m.
TO BE CONTINUED

April 21st, 2002

The interesting anecdote here is that the theater that we used to premiere "Hunting Humans" was the actual theater where Shivers would stalk Lynn and Tuck in "Fear of Clowns".

My projectionist buddy James Fellows got us into both theaters, and dies in both movies.

The line to get into the auditorium.

April 21st

    The screening was yesterday.

    I’ll start off by telling you how soured I am on the state of Maryland in terms of help they give to filmmakers. How about zero?

    I was reticent about mentioning this stuff, ‘cause you don’t want to burn your bridges(but since I may be the only one reading this and I can always hit the delete key), but when we first started prep for the movie I sent a letter to the head of the Maryland Producer’s Club. One Jed Dietz.

    It asked if he had any advice or could offer any help obtaining permits.

    No response.

    I let that slide. Who knows what happened to the letter? I was too busy to ever give it another shot.

    So I put together this screening. My wife makes a bunch of press kits and sends them to the local television stations, newspapers, you name it. We waited a week and got no response.

    I call and email a butt-load of the local newspapers. A small local one called “The Gazette” responds, but that’s it.  Rick and I do an interview that comes out in the April 13th newspaper. It’s pretty good, but the paper is too small to be much help.

    I fax the Sun(the biggest local paper), since I’ve already emailed them and snail mailed them. No response. I think perhaps they have too many good stories. I pick up one and read an article about how to make old furniture look like new furniture.

    I decide they don’t have too many good stories. Finally one of them calls three days before the screening. They want to interview me over the phone. Great, I say. I do the interview. I ask whether they’re going to send someone out to see the movie. They tell me no, they’re doing the story on me and that’s it.

    Totally defeats the purpose. If I wanted a story on me, I’d make it up myself. I need some good quotes, some critics saying they liked the movie.

    My wife called three of the television stations who all say they’re going to try to get a crew out, but it’s a busy Saturday for news.

Me and the wife outside the theater

THE SCREENING

    I got five hours of sleep the past two nights. Just kept thinking about all the shit I had to do. I did a test run with my computer and made a copy for the VCR in case something drastic happens once we get to the theater.

    It all seems to be going okay. Ticket sales had been okay, but I figured to get a lot more people showing up after hearing about it in the Sun.

    I arrived early(8:15am) at the theater. My buddy had told me a site rep was coming out to supervise us, which was really bad because I was using the theater’s digital projector and sound system when I was expressly told not to.

    We devise a big lie where I brought in all this equipment the night before. To top it off, we’re moving the showing into the biggest theater. I’m worried about the site rep, but I’ve run a couple of scenarios through my head depending on how the person is.

    We get everything set up. We test the sound, get it to the right level. My wife starts blocking off sections for cast/crew/press. I’m running all over. Waiting for Jeff and Paul to show up so I can hand them the video camera and still camera and tell them what to shoot.

    Nine o’clock comes around. One of my employees shows up to be the ticket taker. Jeff shows up shortly after that. Then my brother. Good to go. Nine thirty shows up and there’s still only friends and family.

    I put on the tickets to arrive between 9:45 and 10:00, but you’d still expect some people to show up early. I’m getting worried. I’d hoped for big crowds already. A huge line.

    I start to feel a little better as people arrive. A line does form. It’s not as many people as I’d hoped, but it’s a decent crowd. I get them in a line and have Paul take a picture so you can see what they’re waiting for.

    A few people ask Rick to stand in front of the movie poster so they can take his picture. Funny stuff.

    Everyone gets let in, taking their seats. I stall, hoping more people will show up, or maybe the press. So far, we haven’t seen one press person. That pisses the shit out of me. I guess a movie shot by a Maryland filmmaker in Maryland gets screened all the time at the movie theater.

    Fuckers. This state sucks for indy film.

    Rick and I get up front and say a few words. There may have been 150-200 people there, but in a 450 seat auditorium, it didn’t look like many. I’d had an idea of what I was gonna say and I still blew it. Public speaking is not my forte.

    The movie starts and I run upstairs to get my seat where I can see everyone’s reaction. Rick and my wife are sitting near me.

    The lead-in to the credits didn’t get a whole lot of reaction. I didn’t expect it to really. I imagine a lot of people are slightly shocked, wondering what they’ve stumbled into.

    The movie rolled on. Some scenes that got a reaction at other showings don’t get any reaction and vice versa(the “Must be the pickels” line got NO laugh, while Rick’s naked ass garnered a lot). Rick looked over at me when they laughed at his naked ass with a look that plainly said Fuck You.

    The reaction that most pleased me was when Jeff gets his throat cut in the movie theater. There were a lot of people sucking in a breath when it happened(it was THAT loud) and then a lot of uncomfortable movement. Very cool.

    As expected, people jumped when Paul got clubbed, but I think even more jumped at Rick getting punched after he gets out of the bath.

    Then, disaster.

    Last half hour of the movie, the sound begins reverberating. Every noise, every dialogue, every narration. I RACE up the stairs and stop the movie. I push the space bar, hoping everything will clear itself up, which it normally does.

    Nope. I try again. Nope.

    Finally I load the old version of the movie and hit play and it works. But that meant I would have to come back up and self-load the outtakes. I’m pissed and embarrassed. The one time I need the thing to work and it screws up.

    After the movie everyone seemed to enjoy the outtakes. Lots of laughs. A bunch of people waited around to say hi and tell us how much they enjoyed it. Very cool, but I’m still stewing. No press whatsoever. They’re the fucking reason I did the whole thing.

    I briefly think about doing something rash, like stalking and killing a few reporters for fun. I bet they’d do a story then, wouldn’t they?


My first newspaper story