In Case You Missed It: ‘The Snowball Effect: The Story of ‘Clerks”

Being a huge fan of Kevin Smith(both literally and figuratively) I must own every version of their Kevin Smith dvd releases. In 2004 they released ‘Clerks X’ to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of its release, and if it featured this badass, feature full length documentary called ‘The Snowball Effect: The Story of ‘Clerks”.

The documentary is a very in depth look at how ‘Clerks’ all came about, from getting written, financed, edited, and eventually picked up. We all pretty much know the story of how it came to fruitition but its still badass to see all the behind the scenes stuff that comes along with this doc.

I wish all directors went through the trouble of putting stuff like this on their DVD releases because it really adds value and rewatchability, which is something that is missing from alot of bare bones releases out there. Smith is well known for his love for the fans and this documentary just proves that again.

The documentary takes its name from a specific line in the film, if you dont know what that is, or dont remember then I cant take pitty on your soul and you should sit down to rewatch this classic. If you want to see this documentary for yourself you have to go out and buy ‘Clerks X’ which is something every movie geek should already own because the 3 disc set is ridiculously great. Here are the specs:

The 93 minute “Clerks” Theatrical cut- All new HiDef transfer from 16mm IP supervised by Dave Klein with all-new 5.1 Skywalker Sound remix supervised by Scott Mosier, includes original commentary track from laser disc/initial DVD release (Disc One)
The 103 minute “Clerks” IFFM First Cut, includes all-new audio/video commentary track with Kevin, Scott, Jeff Anderson, Brian O’Halloran and Jason Mewes. (Disc Two)
The 95 minute “The Snowball Effect: The Story of Clerks” Brand Spanking New Documentary that inteviews almost everybody who ever had something to do with “Clerks” (Disc Three)
The MTV Jay and Silent Bob shorts that everyone’s been crying for us to put on a DVD for years now
The Arclight 10th Anniversary Q&A with Brian, Jeff, Marilyn, Scott, Dave, Mewes, and me
Lots of new video intros.
“The Flying Car” short from the Tonight Show (re-telecined in HiDef).
The Original theatrical trailer
“Can’t Even Tell” Music Video
The original Jeff, Brian, and Marilyn and Ernie O’Donnell audition tapes
The brand new, seven minute animated “Lost Scene” short
Expansive Still Photo Gallery
‘Clerks’ Trivia track
Original 168-page original first draft screenplay
Kevin’s ‘Clerks’ Journal
Kevin’s ‘Sundance’ Journal
Peter Broderick’s 1992 article “The ABC’s of No-Budget Filmmaking” that inspired the budget for ‘Clerks’
Peter Broderick’s followup article “Learning from Low-Budgets” a year later that does the same treatment on ‘Clerks’
Amy Taubin’s Village Voice article on the 1991 IFFM and ‘Slacker’ that inspired Kevin to take ‘Clerks’ to the IFFM
Amy Taubin’s Village Voice article on the 1993 IFFM about ‘Clerks’ being the gem of the festival.
Janet Maslin’s 1994 New York Times review of ‘Clerks’ entitled “At a Convenience Store, Coolness To Go”
The entire John Pierson ‘The Odd Couple: Sundance 1994″ Chapter from ‘Spike Mike Reloaded’ book
The original Kevin-penned IFFM program note
The original Bob Hawk-penned 1994 Sundance Film Festival program note.
“Mae Day” – Kevin and Scott’s Vancouver Film School documentary short.
Booklet.

You can get a signed copy of this on Smith’s site for just $35!