Blitz - June-July 2017

48 ƫđƫ333ċ(%06)#ċ*!0 | (^) FEATURE STORY
role from cameraman to writer,
to all-star ass-kicker and stunt
man. Where does the passion
to do all that come from?
My father was a self-made
man who, to this day, has the
best work ethic of anyone I
know. He’s always been a huge
inspiration. I think he’s where I
get my motor from.
There doesn’t seem to be
a ready market for short films
beyond YouTube (at least, not
that is financially viable). How
did you make that work and
manage to do so many of them?
Short films are as viable as
open-source software: you use
them to demonstrate how far
you can take a concept. Nobody
would have funded a Te k k e n
IRL [in real life] video because
it seems pointless on its face. To
this day, companies come and
ask me to budget an IRL video
but it never happens because on
the corporate level it’s absurd.
So I had to invest my own time
into these things, and a year later
I started getting motion-capture
jobs in video games, as well as
advertising gigs.
The same goes for short
films. I couldn’t have made
Rope A Dope without Clayton
Barber, and that was my demo
reel for years. So you just have to
find the right people and keep
making projects that nobody else
has thought about. Sooner or
later you’ll have people throwing
money at you, but you have to
start by showing that, one, you
can come up with good ideas
and, two, you can execute them.
You portrayed a blind
martial arts expert in
Blindsided and during the
end credits you show your
‘method acting’ efforts to get
the feeling of being blind by
walking around blindfolded
with a stick, with a real blind
person leading you. Did you
practise the fighting moves
blindfolded as well?
We created a system for [my
character] Walter’s fighting that
allowed him to fight without
turning around. I trained
blindfolded for everything in the
film, but experimenting with the
idea of not even having to turn
my head opened lots of doors for
new choreography ideas. For the
sake of safety, I couldn’t perform
the fight scenes with my eyes
closed, but all the non-action
scenes were easier to perform
without looking. So all those
shots of Walter walking around
Long Beach were literally done
with my eyes closed.
How did you manage to get
Roger Yuan in your action film
to just sit and watch you do all
the action?
Roger’s actually hovering in
horse stance over the chair. You
could yank it out from under
him and he wouldn’t move!
Your physical martial arts
comedy is reminiscent of the
great Jackie Chan/Sammo
Hung films. Who have been
your key influences in what
you do?
The filmmakers who worked
outside of monolithic studio
systems and reinvented the
genre are the most inspiring.
Remember that at the beginning
of his career everyone was
trying to make Jackie Chan the
next Bruce Lee, but he showed
Chinese producers that you
could innovate in the martial
arts genre rather than recycling
old heroic tropes, and he had to
pick up a camera, write scripts
and edit film himself most of
the time.
Takeshi Kitano is the
Japanese equivalent, who
combined double-act comedy
with the Yakuza film. Seeing
how innovative these people
could be by working outside the
system was inspirational because
I was always a geeky outsider
as a kid. So I just did what they
did but used a different formula,
combining my physical abilities
with my knowledge of computer
tech, watching Hollywood
continually screw up the martial
arts genre and taking pot shots
with my own films. The freedom
to do whatever I want, as long
as the fans are happy, keeps me
going. I’d quit if I were beholden
to execs, managers and agents to
make decisions.
What’s next for you? (And
do you think we might one
day see two of the martial
arts’ Internet sensations come
together in an Eric Jacobus/
Master Ken production?)
We’re creating more
adventures for Walter Cooke,
there are some exciting video
games on the horizon that I’m
involved with, and of course
more IRL videos.
Master Ken seems like a real
gentleman, it’d be great to work
with him.
Who is Eric Jacobus?
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“THE FREEDOM
TO DO WHATEVER
I WANT, AS LONG
AS THE FANS ARE
HAPPY, KEEPS ME
GOING. I’D QUIT IF
I WERE BEHOLDEN
TO EXECS,
MANAGERS AND
AGENTS TO MAKE
DECISIONS.”
SCAN PAGE
TO SEE ERIC
JACOBUS
BEING A
TEKKEN
CHARACTER