By David Teich

You may know Kevin Smith as the director of comedies like Clerks, Chasing Amy and Dogma, or as the “Bob” half of the Jay and Silent Bob pairing. But lately, thanks to a partnership with the digital production company and multi-channel network Defy Media, he’s been complementing his big-screen efforts with a flurry of activity in the digital space. That includes launching his own YouTube channel, which features a video version of Smith’s geek-friendly Fat Man on Batman podcast. (Defy helps out with ad sales and promotion, and also provides Smith with a production space.) Smith also stars alongside Jason Mewes (the “Jay” half of Jay and Silent Bob) in What’s In the Box?, an “unboxing” series on the ScreenJunkies Plus SVOD channel. (“Unboxing” videos feature people unwrapping product packages and then discussing the contents. Yes, that’s a thing, and it’s shockingly popular.)

 ScreenJunkies, the Defy-owned brand most famous for its Honest Trailers series, launched the ScreenJunkies Plus channel in November for a price of $4.99 a month. Andy Signore, Screen Junkies’ co-founder, serves as SVP of Content at Defy Media and Creator, Head of Creative at ScreenJunkies. Those are lofty titles, but when you speak with Signore in person, you quickly see that he’s less of a suit than any executive you’ll ever meet. Laid back, big boned, and sporting a scruffy beard, he looks like Kevin Smith’s brother.

 Smith and Signore recently chatted with Cynopsis Digital at the PromaxBDA Conference in Midtown Manhattan, where they shared their thoughts about the appeal of working in the digital space.

Kevin Smith

Cynopsis: Kevin, after working in film for so long, why did you decide to do work in digital?

Signore: Because he’s smart.

 Smith: It’s about freedom, man. The freedom not to go out and pitch to a company so you can pull together millions of dollars just to do something fun. So much of my career is predicated on, “Oh, this sounds fun, let’s do it.” Unfortunately, with the movie business, fun is oftentimes the last part of the equation. Online, you can go and have a good time. I’ve been watching ScreenJunkies for a couple years now – watching them grow, watching them do fun things. So when there was a chance to jump into that pool, I was like, “These kids are doing what I dreamed about when I was younger.” I didn’t dream about making Clerks and all that. My dream was, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could all get together and make shows for each other?” And that’s what ScreenJunkies is doing. I missed that, because I went into film, and the digital stuff followed later on.

Cynopsis: So what stopped you from going into the online space for so long?

Smith: I was always kind of deep in the digital world. But YouTube was just something that I watched, as opposed to thinking, “Oh, I should go here.” I’ve been trained with the mentality of, “Don’t express yourself unless somebody’s gonna pay you.” Because I’d been a paid artist for almost fifteen years at that point. So suddenly it was like, “What, make something for free? That’s [crazy].” But then I started doing podcasts – I’ve been doing them for almost ten years – and that just trains you to give it away for free, which is kind of the most gratifying way to self-express in mass media. When you put a price tag on it, you instantly lose the potential to reach the largest audience possible, because people will say, “Well, I don’t know if I want to pay for this.” But if it’s free, anyone can give it a shot. The YouTube model allows you to build a show and put it out there. And not only can you do it for a limited cost, but you can actually earn money off of it now.

 Cynopsis: And that’s an important point – people are looking to get paid now, right?

Smith: It’s kind of a weird time. When this first started, there was no recompense except the satisfaction of getting a “Hey, job well done.” But now you can kind of get people to back you if you’re looking for money. But I’m just looking to do fast production…For me [what’s important] is the flexibility and the immediacy of being able to just go, “Let’s do this.” Because I’m not career-driven, I’m not the person that’s on track to succeed, or win an Oscar, or make money. I’m the guy who, no matter where I’m going, I’m like, “Oh my god, that looks amazing, let’s do that for a little while. Oh that looks cool, let’s do that.” I’m very easily distracted. And I like to try a lot of things.

Cynopsis: What’s your digital audience like?

Smith: It was great to jump into a world where your audience tells you what it wants to see. Think about it – I’ve been making movies my whole life trying to figure out what the audience wants to see. Jump on YouTube, they’ll tell you in a heartbeat whether they want to see something or not.

Signore: I’d say the good content always rises to the top in any medium, but what’s great about YouTube and the online field is that you can actually test your stuff and find out if you’re building up with that audience. And I think if you can build that audience up, then there will be a lot more exciting opportunities. Now we’re at this place where people who would have never previously had the opportunity are building high-quality premium content that’s competitive with a lot of TV and other outlets, just because of their audience size.

Cynopsis: ScreenJunkies launched a subscription service last year. Do you think some digital brands, yours included, might find it difficult to move to pay models?

Signore: It’s a fine line. I think doing something like a free podcast is a really fun way to get things out there…But I think the future is all à la carte. I’m not gonna want my hundred cable channels anymore, I’m gonna want the five channels I actually care about. Just like with YouTube, where certain channels rose because they were featured more prominently in a younger demo, I think it’s the same with content. We’re all an on-demand audience now, and we want it when we want it. If you can build your audience and find good programming and team up with people like Kevin, I think that’s where you can excel, and that’s where we’re trying to excel by having our own VOD platform. I think it is risky, but we have a built-in audience now, and they’re a passionate audience. And those are the people who will pay. And then that allows you to take on more exciting opportunities, like hiring Kevin. There are a lot of folks now who are jumping into the game, but they don’t have the passionate audience that we do. And of course we have people who’ll say, “I’m not paying for this,” but at some point there’s gonna be enough of a value that it’s just gonna be normal. And really it’s not that much money. It’s 5 bucks a month. It’s a Starbucks a month to get all the content you want if you’re a fan. And that’s who we’re pleading to. It’s not a bad deal. I think more and more of that’s gonna happen, where people are gonna cut the cable, and they’re gonna get Netflix, Hulu, ScreenJunkies Plus, countless others. And even if they buy ten or twelve of those, it’s still cheaper than the cable bill. I’d rather bet on that and be in a better place later than not roll the dice.

Cynopsis: Kevin, you say that creative freedom is a major draw when it comes to working in the digital space. But as the digital space becomes more and more of a business, do you find yourself losing some of those freedoms?

Smith: No, and it comes back to the theory that the cream rises to the top. Let’s say there’s something I’m really interested in doing, but it’s not generating income for anybody. As long as it’s not costing anything, this is a medium where you can do it from now until the end of time. So you don’t have to sit there and be like, “Well, if it’s not earning we can’t do it.” Sometimes it’s more about time than dimes in that world. Hopefully you find something that connects with people, and you can monetize that. But for me, making the thing is the important part. That’s the first step, and it’s a step that most people never get to take, or can’t figure out how to take….The nice thing is, in that field, it feels like if you love something and you want to do it, you can just keep doing it forever. There are a lot of things I watch on YouTube where they don’t have one or two million subscribers, but they’ve been doing it from the jump. That’s the inspiring thing to me, watching kids – and by kids I mean people in their twenties and thirties at this point – who are diving into it with the same spirit that I dove into filmmaking. [To Signore] How old were you when you started?

Signore: Probably a teenager. I was doing videos since I was in high school. And I was doing video assemblies, and starting video clubs. But this was pre-YouTube. If I’d had YouTube, it would have been a whole different game-changer.

Cynopsis: A good game-changer?

Signore: I mean, YouTube is a pro and a con, because it opens up the floodgates. So now we have an influx of content, but some of it still sucks.

Cynopsis: When you were a high school student making videos, did it ever occur to you, “One day I’m going to monetize this?”

[Both laugh.]

Smith: It still doesn’t really occur to him.

Signore: There were thoughts about how to get it online, but even that was sort of a lofty goal.

Cynopsis: Andy, I’ll ask you the same question I asked Kevin: As you face more responsibilities from a business perspective, does that put more constraints on you?

Signore: A little bit, but I think they’re smart constraints. I mean, there are some things you gotta give in order to get the money to make good projects. You have to think about how to succeed financially in the business, and make a name for yourself, and be able to make the things you want. And yes, in order to get the money you do need to have some constraints, always. But learning how to navigate those constraints, and sometimes even getting to show people that they’re wrong – those are the things that I’m really excited to work on.

Smith: That’s why he was able to turn a hobby into a business. Literally – it’s something he did ‘cause he was like, “This is fun.”

Signore: And I could be doing it by myself, but I think I’m more successful because I was able to use the tools of a better, stronger company, to build a brand and lift it up.

Smith: [To Signore] And that’s what you did. You got into a company and then you were like, “Hey, let’s do this.” And you started building something that is now of infinite value to them.”

Cynopsis: Do you think it’s in the culture of digital media companies like Defy to be more inclined toward giving their creators freedom?

Smith: It seems to be this generation of makers, and this generation of people that are bringing those makers together. Defy seems to get it: “I don’t gotta tell them what to do. These people have been doing it without our help, so now we’ll bring them in and they’ll do it for us. We’re certainly not gonna say, ‘you should do this, this and this.’” And again, there’s a lot less loot at risk at this point. If I told Andy I want to do a show where we sit around and talk about comic books, how much would it cost to get it going? A couple hundred bucks, max? And it’s the time more than anything else. So at that point, if I was Defy, I’d just say, “Let him do it.”

Cynopsis: Do you agree with Andy that the business aspect has created some constraints, smart or otherwise?

Smith: There’s money to be made, and it’s the future for sure. But there’s not so much money riding on it at this point that people are like, “Don’t be creative. Take safe bets.” They realize this is the Wild Wild West. TV, films, these have been defined. And every once in a while, something punches through to redefine them. But right now, with the canvas we get to work on with something like YouTube, the sky’s the limit. People can try something out, and if it doesn’t work, they move on to something else. It’s kind of like Web version 2.0. When they first created the web, it was like, “Here’s a bunch of content, here are trailers, here are movie websites to click around.” And then when the bubble burst and the web recreated itself, it was more about, “Here’s a skeleton, now you bring something to it. What have you got to show?” And so people like Andy started putting meat on those bones.

Cynopsis: Andy, do you think the industry has invested less money in the online video space than it should? And will that change?

Signore: There’s money, just not TV money. Part of that is just advertisers learning, “Why am I spending all this money on one medium instead of another medium which actually has more engaged eyeballs?” So I think the tide will turn at some point, and I think things like Netflix are proving that. They dropped like 90 million dollars to buy Max Landis’s new movie…I think the money will start going [to digital]. The money goes where the audience goes.

Cynopsis: And what role will TV play in that?

Signore: I don’t think TV’s going away. What’s smart is that a lot of these TV channels are building their apps. Like CBS launching a Star Trek series [on its streaming service] is a genius move, because I want to watch the new Star Trek and now I’m gonna get the CBS app. [Laughs] So I think there are smart ways to do it. It doesn’t mean TV’s dead. It just means the medium is changing. And they have to be able to adapt and make that on demand à la carte option available, and not be afraid of it.

Cynopsis: Do you agree, Kevin? TV’s not dead?

Smith: Look at the escalation of audience interaction with entertainment: Broadway didn’t go away when movies started, movies didn’t go away when TV started, TV didn’t go away when online started. No matter how big online gets, nothing’s going away. There’s always just one more place to ply your trade. That’s exciting for a creator. It used to be like, “Here are the three places you can go.” Then it was like, “Well, here’s cable, there are a bunch of new places.” Now there’s an infinite amount of places, and you don’t even need someone’s help or permission to make something and post it yourself.

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