This week people from all over the world are playing God of War Ragnarok (or watching Viking movies). Today I want to tell you a little more about Kratos as he hides an indie action legend.
Eric Jacobs has been a stunt coordinator for Ragnarok and a motion capture stuntman for Kratos himself (since 2018′s God of War). He is an amazing director and stuntman, has made many good martial arts shorts and specializes in action films in the style of the legendary Hong Kong Jackie Chan films.
The perfect place to dive into Jacob’s non-Kratos work is his excellent groundhog day but with martial arts shorts, Rope a Dope and Rope a Dope 2. It’s a clever premise, a lot of fun (and without a single word of dialogue). ) and fights.
There’s also Blindsided, a 12-minute short film starring Jacobus as a blind man who kicks ass a lot, and his feature films Contour (an action comedy) and Death Grip (a more serious martial arts drama starring former Power Ranger partner) . star John Ni Jan Bosch).
Eagle-eyed viewers might have noticed director-rapper Boots Riley in “Rope a Dope” – Jacobus and Riley would later work together again on “Sorry Brother You,” in which Jacobus was the stunt coordinator and performer. Overall, 2018 has been an important year for Jacobus as a fight director, action director and stunt coordinator for Sorry to Bother You (Netflix), Blind Spot (Tubi) and Hindi. The action comedy The Man Who Doesn’t Hurt (Netflix) came out the same year, not to mention God of War.
Ragnarok is no exception – the sincerity of the Jacobus video game goes a long way. He’s been doing a lot of motion capture lately, in addition to being the motion director for Destiny 2 Season of the Worthy, between Ana Bray vs Scions. His non-Kratos motion capture credits include Spider-Man, Mortal Kombat 11, Call of Duty: Warzone, The Last of Us: Part II, and 2020′s Demon’s Souls, for which he was also the stunt coordinator.
In an interview with Scott Adkins for his Art of Action YouTube series, Jacobus details his passion for motion capture and the use of animation to express movement. He also talked about why over the years he has been stuck in independent filmmaking rather than the big studios. It’s worth seeing.
Jacobus also made a series of YouTube videos recreating the movements of real-life Tekken and Street Fighter characters (or, jokingly, One-Punch Man), and starred in a parody action movie called Mario Wars: The Complete Saga. : I have not seen this yet, but I’m glad that it exists).
Jacobus recently started making great YouTube videos to introduce people to martial arts movies. I highly recommend his first video, which is thoughtful about the history of the global film industry, but his second video on Donnie Yen’s legendary career is also excellent.
So now when you see Kratos using these animations in your next fight, you’ll know which line of motion she’s coming from!
Post time: Dec-07-2022