Vulgar - Main

Vulgar was born from a simple drawing. In the fall of 1994, longtime friends Kevin Smith, Walter Flanagan, and Bryan Johnson were hanging around the Quick Stop (a store best known from the film Clerks) waiting for Smith's shift to end, the conversation turned to a drawing Walter had sent Kevin while attending film school in Vancouver. The drawing had since been adopted as the mascot of Smith's newly formed production company, View Askew. The rendering was that of an obese clown in a garter belt, fishnets and bustier holding a clapboard. His name was Vulgar. The topic up for discussion was if there were to be a movie about Vulgar, what would the subject matter be. Many ideas were bandied about, but the basic premise was that he would dress the way he did for financial gain and would somehow fall to oppressive circumstances but would fight his way back from the ashes.

Being the resident scribe, Smith said he would someday write a film that showcased Vulgar and not much more was mentioned. A few weeks later, Johnson asked Smith if he minded if he took a stab at writing the script. Smith encouraged him and gave him his blessing with the advice ìdon't make it jokeyî. Johnson wrote a few pages and showed them to Smith who liked the tone and encouraged him to write more.

Months passed with little work on the script until the summer of 1995 when Johnson's girlfriend had to take a college summer course. Faced with ìnot much to doî, he dusted off the five original pages and began to write. Twenty eight days later the screenplay was finished and circulated among Smith, Flanagan, and another friend, Scott Mosier (Smith's producing partner). The response was overwhelmingly positive with a few suggestions as to length (the original draft was about 150 pages) and tone (a little too sinister for most audience members).

Smith and Mosier whom had executive produced two low budget films that summer, committed to executive produce Vulgar, but the question was one of timing. Johnson, whose film experience consisted of renting movies, wanted to take time to make sure he would be able to translate what he wrote on the page to what he wanted to see on the screen. Smith and Mosier were gearing up to begin work on their third film, Chasing Amy. It was decided by all that it wouldn't be prudent at that point to begin pre-production on a film that had only a script and a novice director. As it turned out, it was the best possible decision. Smith and Mosier had hired New York based producer, Monica Hampton, to Production Manage CHASING AMY. When shooting had ended, on AMY, Mosier and Smith were convinced that Hampton was the perfect match for Johnson and VULGAR.

David Klein, director of photography on CLERKS, MALLRATS and CHASING AMY, was Johnson's first and only choice to shoot VULGAR. Klein had read a draft of VULGAR while shooting CHASING AMY and was jazzed to come on board as cinematographer.

Pre-production on VULGAR began out of Smith's View Askew offices in Red Bank, NJ. With a minimal budget, the production staff began hiring a crew from New York City, Philadelphia and the surrounding local Monmouth County area. Production began on July 19 and successfully wrapped on August 16 - shooting for a total of 25 days. The film was shot on 16mm Kodak color film using equipment donated by the Panavision New Filmmakers program. The film was edited by Johnson and Mosier, the old-school way, on a 16mm Steenbeck in the View Askew office.

During the scoring of DOGMA, Hampton and Mosier met Ryan Shore who was orchestrating the score for his uncle, Howard Shore. Hampton and Mosier invited Shore to watch a cut of VULGAR down in Red Bank. Shortly thereafter, Shore composed and conducted the entire score for VULGAR using 12 jazz musicians.