Christopher P. Jacobs
Senior Lecturer, Film

UND English Department
Grand Forks, ND 58202
(701)777-3321 / voicemail (701)777-3865
email: christopher_jacobs@und.nodak.edu
Office: Merrifield 110 (mailbox)/Sayre 302 (actual office)
Office Hours: Wednesdays and Thursdays at 1:00 pm in Merrifield room 122, or by appointment

English 225
-- Intro to Film Sections (Tues-Wed or Tues-Thur):
Tuesdays (films for all sections) 2:00-4:00 pm, plus
Wednesdays 2:00-2:50 and 3:00-3:50 / Thursdays 2:00-2:50 and 3:00-3:50 (lecture-discussions)

Christopher P. Jacobs - short biography

Christopher Jacobs has been a film buff and collector since his junior high school days, with a particular interest in the silent cinema. The lure of film history eventually took precedence over an equal interest in filmmaking, although he has made several short films on 8mm and 16mm, and several feature-length movies on video (both analog and digital). He earned a Master's Degree in Film and Dramatic Production Criticism from the University of North Dakota, where he now teaches “Introduction to Film” as a senior lecturer, handling one or more of the Intro to Film sections since 1995. In addition, he has taught a Creative Writing class focusing on screenwriting, a Special Topics class on creative movie production using digital video equipment, and has done occasional guest lectures on film for the History Department and the School of Communications. Since June 2006 he also has conducted a summer moviemaking workshop for teens along with fellow English Dept. lecturer Kathy King. A movie theatre manager for over nine years until his company was bought out by a larger chain, Jacobs continued to work as a projectionist/“staff leader” at the former Midco 10 Theatre, now called the Carmike 10, until the theatre switched from 35mm film to digital projection in 2007. Besides teaching film and making movies, Jacobs is the movies editor for The High Plains Reader, a regional weekly tabloid arts & entertainment newspaper, and was on the building committee for the renovation of the Empire Theatre into a home for the North Valley Arts Council. He co-authored a reference book project with Donald W. McCaffrey for Greenwood Publishing, Guide to the Silent Years of American Cinema. It is a one-volume critical encyclopedia of notable silent films, directors, actors, and screenwriters, published in September of 1999. In October 2001, he presented a paper at the Northern Great Plains History Conference on the history of movie theatres in Grand Forks. In fall of 2002 he helped organize the first Forx Film Fest at the Empire Arts Center, now held annually in November. Most of Jacobs' once-substantial book and memorabilia collection was lost in the Grand Forks flood of 1997, as well as a substantial portion of his film and tape collection, but his interest in film has survived.

Jacobs' other interests include filmmaking and video production; using computers for desktop publishing and graphic design; music listening, performance, recording, and occasional composition (almost all kinds -- classical, ragtime, jazz, blues, hard rock, heavy metal, etc.); live theatre (viewing, performing, and directing); and ancient history (particularly ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome). He worked briefly on the Coen brothers' Oscar-winning film, Fargo, during their stay in Grand Forks in March of 1995. In the spring of 1998 Jacobs served as Associate Producer on a low-budget direct-to-video 16mm movie entitled Dead and Too Stupid to Know It, which was a sequel to the even lower-budget 4 Cheerleaders of the Apocalypse. Filmed in Grand Forks that May, the comedy-horror-sex spoof appeared on regional video shelves in March of 1999. In September of 1998 Jacobs was Script Supervisor on another independent film production, Dead Dogs. Also shot in Grand Forks, this 35mm black & white feature is a moody, character-driven film noir heist picture well-suited for the film festival and arthouse circuit. Although not acquired by a distributor, it won a number of festival awards, including Best American Independent Feature at the 1999 Seattle International Film Festival and Best Picture at the 1999 Chicago.Alt.Film Festival, and was selected as the climactic closing night film at the 2000 Minneapolis International Film Festival. Dead Dogs also earned glowing reviews in Variety and the Los Angeles Times, as well as at European festivals. These film production experiences, coinciding with rapidly dropping costs of digital camcorders and computer editing equipment, inspired Jacobs to revive his moviemaking activities using digital video.

During the summer of 2001 Jacobs produced and directed a movie on digital video from his own script, entitled The Threat of the Mummy. He premiered the social-political satire/fantasy in April 2002 at the historic Empire Theatre, and released it on VHS in August. In May 2002 he began shooting on the movie’s sequel: Vengeance of the Sorceress, which premiered at the Empire the first weekend of November 2002, played at the Forx Film Fest in December, came out on VHS just before Christmas, and played at the Fargo Film Festival in March 2003. Using several of the same actors, he began production on Working Nights, a sort of yuppie soap-opera/murder mystery, shortly before Christmas of 2002. When cast schedules caused its sporadic shooting to be put on indefinite hold after it was half-completed, he started production on Dark Highways, a North Dakota neo-noir thriller, which finished principal photography in August 2003, premiered at the Forx Film Fest in November, played at the Empire the following week, and came out on both DVD and VHS in December. Dark Highways was selected as an official entry in the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival, with public screenings in Los Angeles, New York, and Las Vegas, while its trailer and music video were shown at two other New York festivals. The feature was screened three times at the 2004 SMMASH Film Festival in Minneapolis, where it also received a “Best Screenplay” nomination. Dark Highways was represented by ITN Distribution at the Cannes film market in May 2004, and added to ITN’s catalog of movies for their new “subscription video on demand” Independent Movie Channel on the Akimbo internet cable TV network. Jacobs shot his next movie, another supernatural thriller entitled Miss Mystic, in spring of 2004, editing it over the summer. Miss Mystic premiered at the Empire in August, played a five-day run in mid-September 2004, and again at the Forx Film Fest in November, where it won the award for “Best Feature.” It later received an “Honorable Mention” at the 2005 Subrosa B Film Festival in Syracuse, NY, and played at the 2006 "It Came From Lake Michigan" horror/sci-fi/fantasy film festival in Racine, WI. All four movies have been carried for rent at Grand Forks Blockbuster Video outlets, Videos Plus in Mayville, ND, and Fargo’s Take 2 Video stores. In summer 2005 Jacobs began work on an ambitious backstage movie musical entitled Music to My Ears, shooting largely at the Empire Theatre through January 2006. After premiering there in February and undergoing some minor re-editing, Music to My Ears was submitted to a variety of film festivals around the country. It was awarded third place in the "family feature" category at The Indie Gathering film festival in Cleveland, OH. During the summer of 2007, Jacobs made Dangers from Within, a gothic thriller with some darkly comic elements and his first feature in the HDV format. Dangers from Within premiered at the Forx Film Fest in December 2007 and played theatrically at the River Cinema 12 in East Grand Forks, MN from Feburary 22-March 6, 2008. DVD copies of Jacobs’ six digital features can be purchased at the Empire Arts Center gift shop, at Budget Music and Video in Grand Forks, or directly from the producer.

Before embarking on annual feature-length movie productions, Jacobs worked on and off at writing a series of full-length novels in the historical romantic-adventure genre. He completed the first book, The Treasure of Isis, in November of 1998. Throughout 1999 he revised and polished it while working on the sequel, which he finished on December 31, 1999. In January 2000 he started on the third in the series. The story is set in Egypt during the early 4th century A.D. (1087 A.U.C.) amidst the sociopolitical and religious turmoil of the late Roman Empire, while Alexandria, Egypt with the comprehensive collection of papyrus scrolls in its world-famous library was the center of scholarly research. To help get a feel for the period, he has been sporadically struggling to learn the (very rudimentary) basics of Egyptian hieroglyphs, Coptic, ancient Greek, and Latin. Other writing projects include several short stories and more screenplays, one an updated reworking of a classic Greek comedy by Menander.

FILMOGRAPHY (feature-length and short movies made on film and video)

BACK to Jacobs Homepage

Last updated December 10, 2008

(Please report any dead links!)