National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

Clerks arrived in 1994 through Miramax Films, shot by Kevin Smith on a shoestring budget of roughly $27,000 in the very convenience store where he worked. The film became a defining document of American independent cinema, its black-and-white photography and sharp, dialogue-driven humor announcing a new generation of filmmakers working outside the studio system. Its Sundance premiere and subsequent theatrical run cemented its place in the decade's cultural conversation.

This cell captures the animated Clerks title card, with the film's signature colorful stacked lettering set against a black background. The frame appears three times across the strip, with the final instance showing a partial obscuring from film curl and reflection — a small artifact of the original 35mm presentation that gives this piece its particular character as a physical document of the film's opening moments.