Kevin Smith, the fat director, has a booming podcasting business:
For Smith fans, the live-podcasting theater is the sanctum sanctorum where they get to see the king of the comic-book geeks in action, regally decked out in his signature PUCK U jersey amid a hockey-inspired decor featuring mountains of sticks and red-and-black carpeting for his beloved New Jersey Devils.
For a handful of Smith’s friends who podcast with him and share in the profits, SModcastle is the saving grace that has freed them from living with their parents. And for Smith himself, it’s the source of creative freedom and emotional solace he desperately needs. “All the fun that went away from the movies is here,” Smith says. The 40-year-old feels like he’s back in the Wild West of indie filmmaking, when he made Clerks for $28,000, before his movies became corporate Frankensteins. “No bosses saying, ‘You can’t do that,’” he says, “or, ‘This is going to cost too much money.’” Or having to deal with difficult stars like Bruce Willis, who starred in Cop Out. “That’ll kill your fucking soul,” he says.
The SModcastle has also become the hub for Smith’s expanding podcast business: “We don’t have the balls to say, ‘Pay what you will as you exit,’ like the Little Rascals did. We like to get the money up front.” That’s 50 seats at 10 or 25 bucks a head depending on the show, one or two performances a night, four nights a week, in a place that rents for $4,000 a month. “We haven’t advertised at all; we’re selling out shows simply because of Twitter,” he says, looking extremely pleased as he stands at the refrigerator of the bus he uses as his on-set trailer. Smith is holding a carton of low-fat chocolate milk, occasionally lifting it to his mouth, but he doesn’t take a swig because he’s talking too much. “It’s shocking how self-sufficient you can be.”
SModcast 3D commands roughly $2,000 for an advertising spot, with two spots running in a typical hour. “For as much as I thought, Wow, this is a brand-new world, it’s really the same old world,” Smith says. “Everyone tries to figure out how to keep it as similar to everything as possible, so this is like TV or radio ad buys.”