Ben Ramsey: From Homewood to Hollywood
Six months into his education at Columbia College Hollywood, where he studied film and TV production, Homewood native Ben Ramsey was running out of money. So, he quit school, which had been his dream to attend for years, and enlisted in the U.S. Navy.
But Mr. Ramsey, who was 19 in 1979, had not given up his dream of becoming a filmmaker. He simply reordered his priorities about how to get there.
Mr. Ramsey returned to Pittsburgh and shot a well-received, low-budget, black-and-white film that he wrote, directed and starred in: “Off White,” a film noir take on cynicism and racial self-loathing.
“I shot it through the course of two years [1989-1990] using equipment from PCTV, the local public access station, and from a company I worked for called Video FX located in Homewood,” he said.
In 1992, he returned to Los Angeles with the intention of remaking “Off White” with more established actors.
“My uncle, Donald Ramsey, gave me some money to move out to LA and ‘start taking this thing seriously,’” he said. “At the time, you could only go so far in Pittsburgh as a filmmaker.”
While he now considers it crude in terms of an industry calling card, the film attracted the attention of the Hudlin Brothers, who were black Hollywood royalty at the time. The Hudlins screened the film for Mr. Ramsey in both New York and Los Angeles. “This one kicked off my writing career in Hollywood,” he said.
Before making his debut as a screenwriter, Mr. Ramsey worked at the Blockbuster video store on Sunset Boulevard, then later for director Roger Corman’s studio. He wrote a spec script called “Blunt Force” that generated a lot of buzz. His apprenticeship lasted roughly five years.
On April 24, 1998, “The Big Hit,” an R-rated action/comedy martial arts-gangster thriller that he wrote debuted worldwide at No. 1. It was directed by Hong Kong legend CheKirk Wong and starred Mark Wahlberg, Lou Diamond Phillips, Christina Applegate, Bokeem Woodbine and Antonio Sabato Jr.
Secondary characters included film veterans Elliott Gould and Avery Brooks. Not a shabby cast for a rookie screenwriter to play with on his first big-budget outing.
“[‘The Big Hit’] spent one week at No. 1 and grossed around $30 million worldwide,” Mr. Ramsey said. “It did considerably better after going to DVD. Surprisingly, it [is]
“It did considerably better after going to DVD. Surprisingly, it [is] more popular than ever now. I guess it was a little ahead of its time.” The film’s budget was about $13 million, according to The Numbers, which tracks film industry data.
That’s Mr. Ramsey’s way of saying that critics weren’t very kind at the time. At Rotten Tomatoes, “The Big Hit” has a 41% score on the Tomatometer and a 57% audience score. Still, for one glorious week in 1998, it was the film to beat.
“The only other bigscreen film I got made besides ‘The Big Hit’ was ‘Dragonball Evolution,’ which was universally panned and hated by Dragon Ball fans,” Mr. Ramsey said. “I still periodically get hate mail from disgruntled fans. Something that goes with the territory.” He wrote that film with director James Wong. It grossed over $58 million worldwide against a $30 million budget, according to The Numbers.
“Love and a Bullet,” a 2002 gangster film he wrote and co-directed with his fellow PCTV filmmaking brother-in-arms, Michael “Kantz” McCants, went directly to video. It starred Naughty by Nature frontman Treach. It was also the first film Mr. Ramsey selffinanced out of pocket.
“It became a bit of a cult hit although I find it hard to watch these days as all I can see are the things I wish I could fix or do over,” he said. It has a 65% audience score at Rotten Tomatoes.
“Blood and Bone,” a 2009 martial arts action film starring Michael Jai White, showed Mr. Ramsey’s considerable chops as a director, though it was written by Michael A. Andrews. It, too, went straight to video.
Still, “Blood and Bone” has a relatively impressive 71% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. “It was very well received by the action/ martial arts community and the black community,” Mr. Ramsey said. “I’m proud of that one. It’s been over 10 years, but I still get requests worldwide for a sequel.”
For every movie that gets made, there are many scripts by the same writer that linger in studio vaults after they’ve been purchased or “optioned.”
Mr. Ramsey wrote a feature adaptation of “Luke Cage” for Marvel Studios that will never be used, as well as the third installment of the Alex Cross franchise created by James Patterson and starring Morgan Freeman. Still, the checks generated by the films that don’t get made as well as those that did provided a financial cushion for him to pursue his own vision as an independent filmmaker.
“It would have been difficult to do if I didn’t have residual checks coming in quarterly,” he said. Mr. Ramsey, who recently turned 60, is working on his most ambitious project yet: a dystopian sci-fi series called “iNTERFACE.”
“iNTERFACE is a cyberpunk proof-of-concept short designed to pitch a TV series,” he said. “It is ‘Blade Runner’ meets ‘The Wire’ with a dash of ‘The Matrix’ thrown in. Think Michael Mann doing a science-fiction story.”
His half-hour-long taste of “iNTERFACE” is already on Vimeo. It is a very strong pitch for an ongoing, visually stylish TV series that is both dark and satirical. It’s all the more amazing because much of it was filmed at his Southern California home, where he installed a green screen in the living room.
“I did three-quarters of the visual effects myself after my VFX artist, Jess Brydon, passed away. I taught myself after effects from YouTube videos,” he said. “This is why it took nearly 6 years to complete. It was, by far, the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my filmmaking career.”
Ben Ramsey knows there are folks back in Pittsburgh eager to get advice from him about how to proceed in their quest for a piece of their Hollywood dream. He once would have agreed that it would be necessary to relocate to LA or NYC, but now feels technology and platforms like YouTube and Vimeo make that unnecessary. “Don’t come looking for Hollywood — get Hollywood to come looking for you,” he said.
“I started off in Pittsburgh getting friends together, getting some equipment and shooting for fun. That’s exactly what I just did with ‘iNTERFACE,’” he added. “I really enjoy the process of telling a story without the influence of studios or financiers.”
The Westinghouse High School grad also advises endless hustle: “Study and constantly hone your craft,” Mr. Ramsey said. “Shoot movies any way you can even if you have to shoot with your cellphone. Don’t wait for the ideal time — start. Do it right away.”