INTERVIEW: Scriptwriter to Director

Filmmaker Ben Ramsey has had tremendous success in the entertainment industry writing the scripts for The Big Hit and Dragonball Evolution. As a director, he’s successfully framed Love and a Bullet, the martial arts short Black Salt and feature Blood and Bone. During a conversation with bfm, he discusses his films, moving from scriptwriter to director, and his career, which has been filled with highs and lows. All you would-be filmmakers, writers and anyone else who hope to make it in the industry, pay attention as Ben Ramsey drops science.

bfm: I heard that you started at a Blockbuster Video.

Ben Ramsey: It was a much longer journey than Blockbuster. That came about my second journey to Los Angeles. I am from Pittsburgh originally. I came out to Los Angeles in 79, when I graduated from high school, and I came out to go to college for film and television production and dropped out of that and wound up joining the Navy. I sailed around until they booted me out of that. Went back to Pittsburgh, and kind of lost track. Until they opened up these public access stations.

I started hanging out at the public access station, checking out the equipment and shooting stuff. Called my friends up and said, 'Let's shoot some stuff.'

bfm: Being around the public access world, was this a way for you to get closer to your calling? For someone who is trying to break into the industry, should they bear near their passion as much as possible?

Ben Ramsey: Absolutely. That's exactly what it was. If you ask me what it was, I needed something to fill my time with. That was something that was appealing to me. They had camera equipment and editing bays, that you could use for free. Myself and good friend, Xavier Kantz. He started out in Public Access in Pittsburgh. He was from the Northside, I was in a neighborhood called Homewood. We would look at each other's work. He was doing these kung fu movies. I was doing music videos and comedies. We were fans of each other and working on each other's projects. At that time, if you mentioned the Black filmmaking community in Pittsburgh, that was me and Kantz.

At the end of the day, what I tell a lot of people trying to break into the industry - you have to make your own film.

Filmmaker Ben Ramsey

bfm: You mentioned that you went to film school briefly. What happened?

Ben Ramsey: Finances. I was ill-prepared. I spent more time basically surviving. I couldn't focus on studies, at the time. In a way, public access became a film school.

bfm: Public access has developed into Youtube and different channels. There are more channels available for filmmakers, right?

Ben Ramsey: Way more! At that time there was no internet. This was a time before the internet. At the public access station, most people who did talk shows, they came in and talked about what they were doing. We were the only ones doing cinematic stuff.

bfm: Did you intern at all or work for free?

Ben Ramsey: I worked for free. I was not an official intern. I would work on other people's projects or work on my own. While I worked on these jobs, I had a 9 to 5 to pay the bills. That was my hobby.

bfm: There are people who crew on films, but it seems like they never get their projects developed. How do people transition? Why is it people get stuck in the routine of crewing and never make their films?

Ben Ramsey: It's kind of hard. At the end of the day, what I tell a lot of people trying to break into the industry - you have to make your own film. That's ultimately what I did when I was on public access. Over the course of a few years, I eventually made my own feature film. I wrote, directed and starred in it. I didn't star in it because of any vanity. I did that because I knew if I played the lead actor, my main actor would always be there.

Ben Ramsey: In the interim, Hollywood wound up shooting films in Pittsburg and I wound up crewing. Doing PA work and driving, and I was a production assistant on the Silence of the Lambs. Each experience was a learning experience, working on all the different movies. Through the course of my career, I've done everything you can do on a movie set, except for assistant camera. I never did AC. Although I did shoot some of my own stuff. But I did do just about every other job. I did grip, I did electric, I did craft service. I did stunts!”

Nowadays, you can be in New York, Atlanta. It helps to be in an environment that is nurturing. Where you can call and get talented people to help you.

bfm: So, you did your feature film and headed back out to Los Angeles?

Ben Ramsey: My uncle Don forked up some money. He said 'You gonna hang around here or you gonna go back to Hollywood?' He gave me a few grand and I moved.

bfm: That's a serious endeavor. Do you feel like it if you're breaking in the industry, you have to go through L.A.?

Ben Ramsey: It's not necessary. Nowadays, you can be in New York, Atlanta. It helps to be in an environment that is nurturing. Where you can call and get talented people to help you. Where you can get people to help you out on projects. To be in an environment that's encouraging. Where you can network and meet people who are doing the same thing. You can have a support group of people that are in the same boat.

bfm: You took the job at Blockbuster Video because you were influenced by Tarantino?

Ben Ramsey: No, this was before Tarantino. I worked at Blockbuster because they were hiring. And I liked them because of their movies. I said, 'If I can work around the music industry one way, I can rent them.' I would joke with my friends and say, 'I work around some of the biggest names in Hollywood!' I rent them out to people.

The truth be told, the Blockbuster I worked at, it was near the corner of Sunset and Fairfax and a lot of famous people that lived up in the hills would come down and rent videos. So, I did meet a lot of celebrities. At that time, nobody knew who Tarantino was. This was the early 90s.

I was lucky. I came in at a time where spec script was king. It was a period when everybody was looking for the next big spec script.

bfm: The Big Hit, how did you come up with this story? I remember seeing it and it was a fun film. How did you come up with that story?

Ben Ramsey: I had a roommate and she was dating a guy who was looking for a project for Notorious B.I.G. She said, 'My roommate, he does writing!'

I wrote this script called Blunt Force and it was kind of like a gangster movie. It was a gangster movie, but it was clever with a lot of twists and turns. Also, kind of funny too. So, that script went viral. The Hollywood equivalent of going viral. It was passed around all of the town. I started getting calls from all of these big studios and studio execs, agencies, and managers.

Ben Ramsey: It was my manager, who I wound up taking on named Warren Zide, who signed me. He told me, "Look, I need you to write me a script. In a month!" I was like 'I wish I could, but I have to work!' At the time, I was on a crew, working in the art department. He said "Don't worry about that, I’ll pay your bills. just get me a script!"
I said 'Okay, cool!'

I had an idea in my mind, a bunch of hitmen sitting at the dinner table in a suburban home. On the surface, it looked like a bunch of people sitting down having lunch together and then all of a sudden, they pull out guns and start shooting each other. That was the impetus of The Big Hit. The guy makes a speech about humanity and all the people from different backgrounds and races sitting together at the table in Harmony. After he makes that speech, they pull out guns and start shooting at each other. It was kind of a sociological statement.

After that, the story evolved from there. Suburban hitmen, a guy who lives in the suburbs has a normal life, but his main job was being a hitman. Kind of how it formed. The original version was a lot darker. Kind of like Cohen Brothers-Esq.

bfm: You mentioned that you wrote something and it went viral. Has that Hollywood changed?

Ben Ramsey: A whole lot. At that time, I was lucky. I came in at a time where spec script was king. It was a period when everybody was looking for the next big spec script. That was around the time when Tarantino broke. He kind of opened the door for a new mindset in Hollywood. There was another script that me and my bro Kantz had written before called The Contract, which we later went on and shot as Love and a Bullet.

Those scripts and THE BIG HIT floating around, they started to call me 'The Black Tarantino.' For a minute, I was the big deal in Hollywood. I was the new writer in Hollywood.

bfm: So, you wrote the script for THE BIG HIT and then what?

Ben Ramsey: Yeah, it was crazy fast. Within a month, there was a bidding war for it. Sony won the bidding war and within that month, they had bought on a director and went into pre-production. Everybody told me, 'Don't get used to this, it never happens!'

And they were right, I've never seen it happen again that fast. It did kind of spoil me.

... What you're doing is making friends and you might make a genuine friend. You might go in there with ulterior motives, get next to somebody who is a bigwig who can help you, but at the end of the day, it's always better if you just make a friend. Things kind of happen between friends. That's my advice in terms of networking.

Filmmaker Ben Ramsey speaking about networking

bfm: The movie that most people in the martial arts community know is Blood and Bone. That was the film that made us look at you as a director. Was that your first martial arts film?

Ben Ramsey: In terms of directing, Hollywood directorial. But I had written tons of martial arts action scripts. I have tons of scripts that are sealed in vaults all over town that will never get made. They will never see the light of day. The way that came about, I was friends with Michael Jai White. I met him from mutual friends. We would hang out and he would have screening parties at his crib. He would have fight parties. MMA or boxing matches. We'd always check, is the party going to be at Arnold's house, Mike's house or my house.

Ben Ramsey: We were a circle of friends who knew each other through our love of martial arts. Mike had the script… he approached me and said, is this something that you want to direct? We had always talked about working on something together and I was like, 'Yeah, sure. I can direct it.'

It happened like this. I did a director's pass on it. Then we went after talent since we already had the main talent attached… Things just fell into place. Mike knew all the big fighters and they were a phone call away.

bfm: How important is networking in the industry?

Ben Ramsey: It's very important to network and meet the right people and know how to network. If you say, I'm going to this networking event, there's going to be some celebrities and some big wigs there. Very rarely does anything come out of that. What happens is, you meet somebody and you're cool with them and they know somebody. Then you become friends. You don't see Michael Jai White and go 'Hey I've got this script!' because everybody gets that, all of the time. Myself included!

I guarantee anybody you come up to, with a script, they already have 100 scripts and 100 ideas of their own that they want to do!

bfm: So how do you play your position at those parties or networking events?

Ben Ramsey: You go into those situations to make friends. You don't go in there and try and make deals, especially if you're unknown. If you're known, you're an equity player, you run in there 'Hey, I have a script set up at Columbia. We're looking for an actor. I pitched you. Let's set up a meeting!'

When you're established, you can do that.

When you're trying to break in, you can't do it because you don't have a track record behind you. I wrote a series of advice on Facebook called Hollywood Bullshit 101. One of them was about networking. The idea was, you go into networking and you meet people and when you meet them, you don't say shit about yourself! You talk about the person and what they're doing! You allow them to talk. Some people in Hollywood love to talk about themselves!

You don't say anything about yourself unless they ask. Talk about everything else… What you're doing is making friends and you might make a genuine friend. You might go in there with ulterior motives, get next to somebody who is a bigwig who can help you, but at the end of the day, it's always better if you just make a friend. Things kind of happen between friends. That's my advice in terms of networking.

I can’t count how many times, I've gone to events and [dorky voice] ‘Hi my name so and so, I'm a writer, a big fan of your work and wanted to ask if you would read this…’ Nothing makes me say 'Please go away!'

If somebody approaches and just wants to be your friend, and you hit it off, and you're cool. Later on, you say 'What are you working on?'

Then it becomes a pleasure, and it's not a chore. Then I'd say 'Yeah, I'd love to read your script!’ I'm going to be frank with you. I'm going to tell you how it can be better and I'm going to also remind you that this is just my opinion. You can show this to someone else and they think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.'

Everybody out there that are trying to network, don't try to network. Go out there and try to make acquaintances, make friends, create relationships!

End of Part One

Watch this space for the next segment of the interview with Ben Ramsey!

Ben Ramsey is in the process of completing his martial arts science-fiction feature, Interface.