Early life
Story was born in Los Angeles on March 13, 1970. From a young age, he made home movies with an 8mm movie camera when his brother became bored using it. [5] Story attended LA's Westchester High School, with jazz pianist Eric Reed and actresses Regina King and Nia Long. He was senior class president at Westchester High. He graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 1991. [1]
While in high school, Story briefly attempted a career in music. He was part of Ice-T's Rhyme Syndicate and even appeared as a member of the group T.D.F. on the song "T.D.F. Connection" from the 1988 compilation album Rhyme Syndicate Comin' Through. [6] A group member was shot and killed prior to them being signed to Warner Bros. Records. [7] Story later turned his attention to directing feature films. [8]
Film career
Story made his feature debut with One of Us Tripped (1997), where he followed the model detailed by Kevin Smith in how he had made Clerks (1994) on a modest budget; the resulting movie, made for $30,000 on 16 mm with a crew of one, the movie made its money back mostly on a distribution deal. His second movie The Firing Squad (1999) went from a budget of $60,000 to $200,000 and sent him into debt that he had to solve by doing music videos. The experience filming the videos would serve him well with Barbershop, with the resulting success making him a mainstream director, which continued with Taxi (2004). The early cut of the film, impressed 20th Century Fox enough to offer him the chance to direct Fantastic Four ; he was also a fan of the comics. [9] [10] [11] At the time, the film would be the highest-grossing superhero movie by an African-American director. He reflected on the experience making them as one with multiple lessons: "With those types of big movies, you’re directing three movies. There’s the movie you’re shooting, there’s the second-unit action stuff, and there’s the visual effects movie. You’ve got to learn how to deal with all of them. The other thing I learned from those two Fantastic Four movies, is that sometimes you can be too lax on how much control you give to the visual effects team, or the production design team, or whoever. If you end up in situations and you’re not happy with certain things, it’s because you didn’t stay on top of them.” [12]
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