Jacob Joyner started making films at the tender age of 12 years old. Running around in backyards and using neighborhood kids as actors, Jacob found his love for the medium at an early age.
After high school, Jacob attended film school, and learned the conventional techniques and methodologies for creating narrative films. The period was a time of learning and growth. Jacob created 4 films that had sizable budgets (for a college student) and crew. 803, Swoon, and Healing were ambitious, impressive and lauded local attention, yet they missed something ineffable.
The next several years in Jacob's life were a struggle to find meaning and a clear path in life. Flirting and expanding his skills through photography, collage, and business; Jacob found himself lost and disoriented at the beginning of 2020 when the COVID pandemic arrived.
With not much to do, and no prospects in sight. Jacob went to the state nature park located next to his house. At first, he went for a hike, eventually it would be several hours, and finally Jacob would spent every single day outside in nature. Jacob found his Walden moment, reconnected with himself and realized that his true calling in life was to create cinema.
With no resources or crew, Jacob began to devour the singular voices in the filmmaking medium. Bergman, Tati, Kubrick, Lynch, Goddard, Truffaut, Wilder; anything and everything Jacob could watch he did. The television became a cinema carousel, one film led to the next, and he couldn't get enough.
As the desire to create cinema grew and grew inside of him, Jacob decided it was time to go back to film school, the only place he knew that would allow him to make films, find his voice, and be apart of a larger community that was focused on creating work.
The first film Jacob made after returning to the medium was called Last Call. A film about a struggling woman fighting for her life in a town bar in the middle of the south. The film dealt with heavy themes. A twist on the noir genre. The black and white film was met with praise by a newly formed local fan base of Jacob's work. But, others criticized its audacity and lack of conformity. Jacob was finding his cinematic voice.
After the growing lesson of Last Call, Jacob began to work on a film about a clown. Based off of Arianna Tysinger's stage character Lextacy, the film was designed to be a carnival fun house. Shuffling the audience from one set piece to the next, with Clementine Rodeo at the center of it.