Ride Along tells the story of a grizzled detective in the Atlanta PD whose sister’s boyfriend is desperate to join the police academy and gain his approval. The veteran cop takes his sister’s boyfriend on a day in the life in the streets of Atlanta. Director/alum Tim Story screened the film in SCA 108 to a capacity crowd on January 14th. The screening was presented by the SCA Network and Comedy@SCA.

Ride Along has elements of comedy, drama and action which was what originally attracted Story to the film. He told the students, “What I like about Ride Along is that it’s got a different switch. I grew up on movies like 48 Hours, Midnight Run and Stir Crazy. These are movies that had a really cool combination of drama and comedy. Those are the films that I studied in order to get this film where it is. I tried to keep it realistic. Sometimes it gets big but there’s always a core. That’s my tribute to the films that formed me.”

Story graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 1994 and went on to have a long career in music videos and low-budget films. His 2002 breakout film Barbershop, which developed into a franchise of films, starred Ice Cube and his 2012 hit Think Like a Man, starred Kevin Hart. Cube and Hart star in Ride Along.

Story discussed his process directing actors with different personalities. “Every actor has their own language. It’s very important to not say the same thing to one person that you would say to another. I talk to [Ice] Cube different than I talk to Kevin Hart. Some people need a lot of notes. Some people just need to be left alone. As you do more and more films, you end up just asking.”

Story also gave his advice on navigating the entertainment industry. He told students to be patient and to wait for the right moments to make films.

“Cube had the script for Ride Along for ten years and I had read it years ago. Years and years later, I did Think Like a Man and it did what it did which gave me the ability to make some choices. My agent said, ‘What do you think about putting Cube and Kevin Hart together in Ride Along?’ and I thought it was brilliant. I knew the two of them together would have incredible chemistry. When you have those two stars, you know you’re going to get something special.”

For more information on the film, please visit: http://ridealong.com/