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How A Small Town Clerk Created a Cult Classic

Ang Santos
/
WBGO

Shooting Clerks is the biographical retelling of how New Jersey filmmaker Kevin Smith bankrolled his first movie and defied the odds to make an American cult classic.

Scottish filmmaker Christopher Downie set out to include the original cast of Clerks in his biopic.  The original films main character Dante Hicks is played by Brian O’Halloran.  He’s making the rounds at film festivals in support of ‘Shooting Clerks’.  He’s an associate producer of the film and one of many actors from the first film to make a cameo appearance.

“Not playing ourselves because we are much older now,” O’Halloran said.  “You are seeing the making of a vision of young filmmakers making the film that they want to make; not really caring about what anybody else thinks.”

Credit facebook.com/shootingclerks
The original 1994 film 'Clerks' launched Kevin Smith's career.

Like the movie whose story it tells, Shooting Clerks was independently produced.

“We were ‘generation X’ers’ just showing other 22 to 25 year olds the movie,” O’ Halloran said.  It just happened to click with them.  Going on twenty-four, almost twenty-five years’ fans still enjoy the film.  Kevin [Smith] still makes shows and movies that connect with generation of people.”

Shooting Clerks is making a name for itself on the Indie film festival circuit.  It recently took home the Audience Choice award at the Monmouth Film Festival.