My Gadget Life – Kevin Smith
The screenwriter, podcast king and Silent Bob lookalike talks RED cameras, huge TVs and Batman's lair
For me, the gear was never the sexy part of being a filmmaker.
RED cameras are amazing, but if I’d had one when I started out, I wouldn’t have known what to do with it. When I worked in a video store I’d have movies on all day, but I couldn’t look at the screen much because I had customers. So I became a filmmaker who was more interested in what a movie sounded like. Sure enough, with Clerks people said, “It looks sh*t, but it doesn’t matter because what they’re saying is funny.”
I have a huge TV. Huge.
Panasonic gave it to me to watch movies on while I was judging a contest. It’s a 103in flatscreen, and I have it right at the end of our bed. I lie on my stomach and watch films literally four feet away. My wife hates it; she used to be able to sleep when I was watching TV, but when that thing’s on it’s like nuclear winter, man.
Home cinema almost got me arrested.
We were watching From Dusk Till Dawn, and at the beginning there’s a hostage situation. About half an hour into the film I looked out the window and there were six cops outside. They said they’d had a report of someone screaming.
My office is turning into Batman’s terminal.
Every Batman film has a scene where he’s sat in front of a bank of monitors. I’ve got a couple of iMacs and a laptop, so I’ll be watching a movie on one screen, editing a podcast on my laptop, and I’ll have a few windows open with Twitter, email and so on. I just need Commissioner Gordon to pop up on iChat and I’m there.
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Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 
