Clerks - Production

Production

The film was shot in black-and-white and roughly edited due to a very modest budget of $27,575. To acquire the funds for the film, Kevin Smith sold a large portion of his extensive comic book collection in 1993, maxed out eight to ten credit cards with $2,000 limits, dipped into a portion of funds set aside for his college education and spent insurance money awarded for a car he and Jason Mewes lost in a flood. The film was shot in 21 straight days (with two "pick-up" days). Smith based the character of Dante Hicks on himself, and Randall Graves on Smith's friend, Bryan Johnson, who would later appear in Smith's subsequent films.

A Quick Stop convenience store (located at 58 N. Leonard Avenue in Leonardo, New Jersey) where Smith worked was the primary setting for the film. He was only allowed to film in the store at night while it was closed (from 10:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.), hence the plot point of the shutters being closed due to a vandal having jammed gum in the padlocks. Because Smith was working at Quick Stop during the day and shooting the film at night, he slept no more than an hour a day. By the end of the 21 day shoot, Smith was unable to stay awake while some of the most climactic scenes of the film were shot.

Several members of Smith's family played roles in the film due to budget constraints. When Dante is discussing the "Milk Maids", the shopper shown is Smith's mother, Grace, and the customer whose job it is to "manually masturbate caged animals for artificial insemination" is played by Smith's sister, Virginia. Several of Smith's childhood friends also play roles in the film. Walt Flanagan plays four roles in this film: The "Woolen Cap Smoker" in the beginning (which he reprises in Clerks II), the "Egg Man", the "Offended Customer" (during the "jizz mopper" scene) and the "Cat Admiring Bitter Customer,". Smith never intended for Flanagan to play this many roles and would often, in jest, refer to Flanagan as "the Lon Chaney of the '90s". As one of Smith's friends who was present often during filming as either extra help or just moral support, it fell to Flanagan to play these characters when the actors Smith originally got to play them just did not show up.

Dante's beard changes throughout the film because Smith asked Brian O'Halloran to shave his goatee before filming started. After seeing what O'Halloran looked like without it, Smith told him to grow it back. Thus, the scenes earlier in the shoot show a thinner beard, while later ones show Dante with a thicker goatee.

In the scene where Randal lists the names of the porno movies he needs to order, he and the Happy Scrappy Hero Pup lady are not actually in the room at the same time. Jeff Anderson refused to read the list of porno films in front of her and particularly in front of the child (although the reaction shots of the Happy Scrappy Hero Pup lady were obtained by a crew member reading the same list to her). In fact, Anderson also felt uncomfortable about knowing his mother would watch the film and hear the list and he, embarrassed, gave the list back to Smith to cut it down. Mere seconds before shooting, however, Smith passed the list back to Anderson with a few more added for good measure. The young girl in this scene is Ashley Pereira, niece of Vincent Pereira (Director of A Better Place and "resident View Askew historian").