INTERVIEW: Eric Jacobus audio conversation

Eric Jacobus, independent martial arts moviemaker, rising action star and founder of The Stunt People recently conducted an audio interview with fellow independent filmmaker Andy Coon who runs a web site called Final Cut Producer. For nearly two hours, the pair have a casual conversation largely focused on Jacobus and his rise from running a Hong Kong action movie review site to home-grown stunt actor and short film collaborator to a martial arts star in two indie feature films, the self-produced CONTOUR and writer-director Micah Moore’s recently completed martial arts noir film DOGS OF CHINATOWN.

The interview is a little rambling and crude in places, mostly as a result of Coon’s colorful asides, yet Jacobus provides a lot of details on his experiences and they’re quite fascinating, particularly as very few people in the world are doing what he and a select few in the U.S. are doing.

Jacobus is easily one of the most talented among a small but growing community of completely independent martial arts and action stunt crews and filmmakers scattered across the U.S. Some of the top teams include The Stunt People and ZeroGravity, both based in California and Lazy Brown Productions which is based in Chicago. Inspired by their passion for Hong Kong action cinema, they have gone out and simply started to perform their own stunts and shoot their own action sequences. This has resulted in some interesting collaborations and a string of no-budget short films released to the web that rely almost entirely on quality martial arts choreography and humor to sustain interest. With few exceptions, Hollywood and the international mainstream action film industry has remained largely ignorant to their existence and/or potential. That hasn’t stopped Jacobus from building up a fan base or from continuing to build on his mounting experience.

To see what Eric Jacobus and his fellow Stunt People members are all about and to support their work I highly recommend visiting The Stunt People and then purchasing a copy of their first feature film CONTOUR. I still haven’t gotten around to reviewing it but I have seen it. I can assure everyone that despite the lack of production polish it contains some phenomenal action in it that is easily comparable to some of the best that Hong Kong filmmakers have to offer with a larger budget. This is not your typical low-budget action movie and it make very well be a sneak peak at a future star.

DOGS OF CHINATOWN is the next feature film to star Eric Jacobus that we’ll hopefully get a chance to see soon. Based on the looks of the stylish trailer, the film definitely deserves a proper distribution deal.