Today we’d like to introduce you to Ralph Lucchese.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Well, I knew I always wanted to be in the film industry. I remember watching Martin Scorsese’s “Casino” when I was six years old and being amazed by it (I used to sneak it. It’s not like my parents didn’t care what I watched, they just had no idea) so I guess I was introduced to film at an extremely young age. Growing up, I was the kind of kid that would watch a movie frame by frame with the subtitles on to write the script for the movie (I can quote the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy while watching it almost word for word. It’s that bad). I didn’t want to be known as that “weird” kid going through school and I never wanted it to show through so instead, I became a jock and would just watch movies in the quiet of my room.
I was fairly popular throughout High School and had friends in every clique so my name was thrown around a lot. I played soccer for the entirety of my High School career and wrestled for a brief moment. I sometimes would drive to the city for auditions to see if I had what it took but that mostly ended in failure. Senior year, I decided to take a chance and auditioned for DeSales Universities “Theatre” Program. I remember walking in and being asked for a headshot, and the only thing I could provide them was the headshot I took that day that had my audition number (mind you, everyone else there had pages and pages of experience and their portfolio was off the chart). For the audition, we had to act out two monologues that portrayed contrasting roles (so if one was a comedy, the other should be drama). My films? I chose Justin Long’s monologue at the end of the comedy “Accepted”, and Ryan Gosling’s small monologue in “The Notebook”. Both performances earned me a round of applause and then a round of questions afterwards. The final question was “You know, everyone that comes and auditions for this program, acts out scenes from plays like Hamlet and Macbeth. Why did you choose to act out scenes from those movies you did?” and I simply said (probably sounded like an asshole) “Well I don’t want to be in plays, I want to be in movies.” That earned me a phone call from the program director the following day saying I’ve been accepted into the program.
BUT, as fate would have it, tuition was too much and I wasn’t about to put myself in so much debt because of a hope and dream, so I decided to further my education at Bloomsburg University. It was cut short (only half a semester in), and I failed out because I didn’t want to go to college, I just wanted to party (and it was a very expensive party).
Let’s fast forward time because my military career took four years of my life (from December 2011 – April 2016) and nothing really happened besides being deployed, a life-threatening car wreck, and the start of my professional poker career before I moved to LA to pursue directing.
My time in the military made me realize that yes, I might have the creativity and talent to be in the film industry, but it wouldn’t be in front of the camera. I’m considered obese for my height and weight, I have a minor lisp, and now that I have an arm full of tattoos, my time in front of the screen would probably be cut short. Five days before my honorable discharge from the Air Force, I checked an email address that I haven’t checked ever since I joined the military (the address I used for acting gigs and other film related stuff). The first email at the top of the list was from “The Los Angeles Film School” in Hollywood California. Being curious, I clicked on it and decided to look into it.
April 2016, I was honorably discharged; August 2016, I moved to Los Angeles. I lived in an artist house right on Wilcox Ave with some of the most talented people I’ve ever met. Darrell Simms, a talented artist whose music career was beginning to blow up. Salih or “Mekfly” who was a 19 years old artist from Oakland CA (and mildly looked like Chance the Rapper), Danny Jimenez, an LA-based dancer who could contort his body in ways that would freak the normal person out, and lastly, Antonio Pena; a screenwriter that came from New York. Together, we were all chasing a dream of making it in LA.
After about a year of film school, I managed to move out of the house and into my own apartment in East Hollywood. During this time, I was just reading a lot of scripts and watching movies. I became friends with Jay Harmon, an extremely talented gaffer and cinematographer, and together we shot: his first short film “Turquoise”, my first short film “The Morning After”, and then “3 Minute Man”, which went on to win a couple of awards in the 2018 festival circuit. During 2017-2018, I suffered from severe anxiety (for various reasons) and was at the point of moving back East but Jay and various others convinced me otherwise. Through these tough times, I met Alex Casella (my current cinematographer and now lifelong best friend) and BJ Jensen, a small-town kid from Indiana that was WAY ahead of where I was, and together we moved into a three-bedroom apartment in North Hollywood. Our time in the apartment together was filled with nothing more than consistent creativity, beer drinking, gym going, and music video shooting. BJ was somewhat connected in the music industry and was working with the upcoming artist “Kid Quill” who was a friend from Indiana and whose music was becoming more and more popular (and I actually enjoy listening to it as well). So, with BJs connections, we shot a bunch of music videos for various clients (I will not mention names) and during all that, Alex presented me with a topic for a short documentary: Pararescue.
From there, “How To Be A PJ” was kicked off and we filmed the week before Christmas. Sitting at 14:48, “How To Be A PJ” is currently SWEAPING the 2019 Film Festival Circuit with various nominations and wins from numerous festivals. The purpose of this short documentary was: 1) shed light on the military and the toll it has on the lives of family and friends, and 2) show the industry that we’re not messing around and that we take our jobs as story creators and filmmakers extremely seriously. “How To Be A PJ” is not only used as a solid foundation but also a way in. There’s more to the story and more that can be done with it, and we plan to do more with “How To Be A PJ” in the future after the festival circuit is complete (hopefully).
Currently, we just completed filming on my first feature-length documentary “Blue Ridge: The Randy Detrick Story”. I can’t really say much about it because I truly believe this film will get sold once it’s completed, so I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize the integrity of the film until then. The film itself is beyond inspiring and motivational and sheds light on my little hometown in The Pocono Mountains, so this holds a special place in my heart.
My end goal is to film narrative feature films. Just currently, it’s a lot cheaper to film documentaries but I honestly feel documentaries are harder to shoot. The story consistently unfolds in front of you and you need to be able to adapt to change and figure out if it’s beneficial for the story, or if it doesn’t add any sort of value to what story you’re trying to tell. I’m learning story more and more and sharpening my skills at what it takes to have a solid story with solid beginning, middle, and end. It almost feels like everything I’ve worked at ever since I was that six-year-old watching “Casino” up until now is coming full circle. It’s really exciting and I’m excited to show the world what we created!
Until this is finished, I am just currently reading more scripts from some pretty brilliant writers. Over the past couple of years, I managed to make enough of small connections that will hopefully pay off in the future and really take off my directing career. So, if you have a script and want someone to read it, please send your loglines and synopsis to [email protected] and if it’s in my realm of film style.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
If it was a smooth road, then I wouldn’t be where I’m at right now. The time period of when I was in the military leading up to when I moved to LA might’ve been some of the best and also worst times in my life.
Joining the military after failing out of college twice, I had the mentality that I would just be stuck in the Air Force for my entire life. I was miserable. The thought of being an aircraft mechanic for the remainder of my life just didn’t appeal to me, so I was in constant search for something bigger and better. July 2014, I wrapped my car around a telephone on my way to work, and my life changed drastically ever since. Being bedridden for six months, there was nothing much to do besides watch movies and television, and eventually I picked up poker.
I played online poker for a couple of months, losing money to people left and right. Instead of dropping it, I decided to take it seriously and began watching hours and hours of poker hands and various professionals and I began to learn strategy. After weeks and weeks of practicing, I decided to take my new found skills to the poker table at Mt. Airy casino.
I made $1450.
From there, I made it a point to play poker daily to sharpen my skills and to play in tournaments all around PA. Once I was able to walk again, I was sent back to work on McGuire Air Force Base as an administrative assistant to the 305th MXS Squadron Commander. From 7:30am – 4:30pm, I was an airman; from 7:30pm – 3:30am, I was a poker shark. I would get out of work and take the 45 minute commute to Atlantic City and play at Harrahs or Borgata, or I would head to Parx Casino in Bensalem PA (my real stomping ground). I would play for hours and hours but the real reason? What I would make in a month working in the Air Force, I would make in a single night at the poker table.
I was representing “Deeg Poker Apparel” on the table and repped them in tournaments… I never had any luck in the tournament circuit, but I would cash in the top three almost every time I would play a daily tournament offered by the casino. The money from that was more than enough. After that, I would play cash games until about 4-5am and then drive home, change into my military uniform, and then head back to my day job. It was one hell of a life.
With gambling and being a degenerate, there’s certain characteristics that tend to follow with it if you allow it to. Whether it be drugs, women, alcohol-dependent, it all depends (that’s another story). I got out of the military with an honorable discharge in April 2016, played poker full time until I made my move to Los Angeles to pursue directing. I met an insane amount of people in the poker world and especially the poker Instagram community (@ak_poker, @polarizingchris, @michael_loncar) and I’ve had the pleasure of watching their poker careers take off and launch and I get to watch from the rail and route for them.
Obstacles in the film industry? I think one of the biggest obstacles in the industry today is that everyone that knows how to use their iPhone camera considers themselves a filmmaker. Over the past couple of years, there has been a different version of filmmaking (Instagram filmmaking) where the idea is to create as much content as possible with the hopes of you getting noticed and therefore becoming an infamous “influencer”. There’s a huge difference between quality and quantity and unfortunately, we’re in an industry that somewhat praises quantity over quality.
As a person that takes the industry and everything it has to offer seriously, I feel that with the way things are currently, it makes it harder for the people that genuinely care about story and their audience, get the s*** end of the stick because we have to show through thousands of videos made strictly for a specific type of audience and certain levels of the industry glorify that.
I think one of the greatest pieces of advice from a mentor of mine is: “Not every project that comes your way should be yours. It takes a true artist to realize the story that they need to tell. You can’t just tell every story with the hopes that it’s good. Tell your story and let your talent in storytelling shine through and the rest will fall into place.” I truly believe I’ve found my soapbox and I have learned to take on new projects with that mentality.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Strime Entertainment story. Tell us more about the business.
So recently the team decided to put a name on our products because we feel that we have the same goals and motives in the industry. We go by “Strime Entertainment”. Over the course of three years, we have worked on countless music videos, documentaries, and film sets and we’ve retained the knowledge and experience needed to make sure a production see’s a complete follow-through.
Regarding the music video portion, Brandon Jensen specializes in that department and I either come on as a creative producer or just strictly a producer and aid in the production aspect of filming. In return, he works side by side with me on the documentaries I produce and direct and he aids me getting me to tell the best story that can be told, as well as, edits the projects (I can edit but I’m to anal and end up getting overwhelmed).
Alex Casella is our Director of Photography. Gotta tell ya, without him putting me in my place, I wouldn’t be where I am currently. He comes from a military background as well and we work together seamlessly because he cuts to the chase and just gives me the facts. Working with him constantly allows me to think on my feet and to think critically and logistically with camera workflow and other various production aspects. Underneath him is Andy Flores. Andy is far beyond where I was when I was his age (he’s 21). He takes his job seriously and isn’t afraid to tell me why certain things won’t work, or why lighting needs to change and for whatever specific reason. As a gaffer, Alex and he work so fluently together that it takes a certain weight off my chest and I can focus on other pressing matters
As a whole, we make a solid little team and we’re consistently challenging each other to be better and we push each other to our creative bounds so we can bust through them and create a new level for us to break.
I feel the one things that sets us apart from other productions/production companies is that we all think the other person is better than us. We surround ourselves constantly with people that are better than us which forces us to work at our fullest potential. A crew that works at 110% every second of every day? That’s dangerous.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I used to believe that without bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all. My views on that have changed drastically over the course of three years.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. There’s no other way around it. If you work on your craft and truly take it seriously and you’re constantly growing and learning, eventually, an opportunity will arise for you to take on that will give you the chance to leverage yourself. Being at the right place at the right time WITH the knowledge and understanding of what it is you need to be doing…that’s luck.
One of my favorite quotes of all time, comes from Denzel Washington: “True desire in the heart, for anything good, is God’s proof to you, sent beforehand, to indicate, that it’s yours already.” I don’t think we have dreams just for the sake of having dreams. We dream because there’s a certain desire in us that wants us to pursue that dream. It takes a special person to recognize their dream and to, therefore, capitalize on it. Dreams, without goals, are just dreams. If you want to make it happen, you got to put in the work for it so that once that “lucky” opportunity presents itself, it’s just what needed to happen because you already put your time in and ultimately paid your dues.
Pricing:
- Script Reading w/ General Overall Notes = $100
- Script Reading w/ Act I Scene Breakdown – $200
- Script Reading w/ Thorough Director’s Notes and Meet Ups – $300
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ralphlucchese.com/
- Phone: 5708077533
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ralph_lucchese/
Image Credit:
Andy Flores, Evan Makuvek, Brandon Jensen
Suggest a story: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
