Local's film premiere makes 'ripple'
The film had a $12,000 budget and many first-time actors.
Published Oct. 10, 2006
The premiere of Aron Cho's latest film, "A Ripple in the World," stuffed Ragtag Cinemacafé on Sunday with actors and crew members, friends and a few curious viewers. People associated with the movie laughed at parts that weren't supposed to be funny, and friends of the stars sometimes giggled when the amateur actors became really serious. The event did not feel like the premiere of a real movie, but instead like watching a home video with friends.
But that doesn't detract from "A Ripple in the World," Cho's second full-length feature, a film made with less than $12,000 and with almost exclusively first-time actors.
"My experience with 'serious' actors is that they are very busy or play up their business, and with an amateur movie it's obvious that performances can be bad, so I needed to rehearse with them," Cho said.
The film revolves around Sam, a 22-year-old working and living at a resort town at the Lake of the Ozarks. He routinely sees a call girl come into the resort, and he becomes determined to win her heart and also lose his virginity. But he's also looking for "love and understanding," and the only person who empathizes with him is the call girl's transvestite brother. The transvestite, Chris/Crystal, visits Sam at the resort while he works the graveyard shift. Cho used the idea of a resort as a metaphor.
"The resort town is a metaphor for change. If you're vacationing there, you're coming and leaving, but if you work there it's just stagnant work, and the story has to do with people that are stagnating," Cho said.
Stagnation also explains why the showing of "A Ripple in the World" coincided with Cho's last night in Columbia.
"My creativity is stagnating from being in one place," Cho said. "My next film involves childhood, and I'm moving to Oregon where I spent my childhood, and I feel like I can learn something there."
Cho hopes that "A Ripple in the World" will go places too. He submitted the film for consideration in the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, and he is hoping that exposure there will help him follow the career arcs of directors he admires.
Although the Ragtag provided a natural springboard for Cho's film, the theater benefited from the showing as well.
"It's important to us to show films by local directors because it's fun for us to see our 'Ragtag community' get excited about local work," Ragtag projectionist Jonathan Westhoff said.
It's also important to the Ragtag that they show works done with low budgets.
"Just because you're making a movie for a few thousand dollars and making it on video and using inexperienced actors doesn't mean you can't make something great," Westhoff said.
This goes along with showing the "evolution of cinema."
"Video cinema is a very specific genre that we don't get to see much, and we [Ragtag] can show video stuff with artistic purpose," Westhoff said. "Video doesn't look as good as film, and it gives the viewer a chance to see how certain things have to be done on video."
For Cho, his ultimate goal is simple: Make a splash at Sundance.
"You leave an impression, and people give you a little bit [of money] and they say 'Let's see what you can do with a little bit' and you keep building up," he said. "I want to sell my soul to Hollywood."