Biography

Jacob Whitley has worked as a producer and director in the film industry since 2009. During his attendance at Saddleback College, he produced and directed the short TV movie Brothers From Creatures Unknown. The film would be featured multiple times that year on a local cable channel. Jacob's other early work would also be featured in film festivals, such as his short film The Bump In The Night, which won best picture at the Moonboogie Film Festival.

While obtaining his Bachelor's degree in Communications: Radio/TV/Film from Cal State Fullerton, Jacob produced and directed his first independent feature film Edge. Being a detective thriller, he leveraged the resources of his uncle, Captain Jim Enright of the La Palma Police Department, who acted as the film's police operations specialist and allowed the crew to shoot Edge at the police station with realistic sets and vehicles lent by the police department.

After finding VOD distribution for Edge, Mr. Whitley worked on Ubisoft's promotional film project "Tom Clancy - The Division: Dark Winter" as the Line Producer. During this 17 hour shoot, he found the crew quickly falling behind. Taking the lead on the project, he rearranged the shooting schedule on the fly which allowed for production to be completed on time with all the proper shots in the can, completing the project.

In 2014 he was called in as a replacement producer on the feature film, Hide and Go Seek starring Vernon Wells and Don Scribner. Prior to Jacob's involvement, the production dates and low budget had already been set, but with less than a month to pull the project together, Mr. Whitley was able to bring the project in under budget and on schedule.

In 2015 Mr. Whitley was hired onto the country music feature film Buckshot, starring Tim deZarn. Due to the extremely low budget of $38,000, he had to pull together every resource he had as well as wear every hat in the production department just to complete the project on time and under budget. The film would go on to win 5 festival awards, including best picture at the Rockport Film Festival, before being sold to Freestyle Digital Media for distribution.

During that summer, Mr. Whitley worked as a production coordinator and assistant with commercial companies, such as Film Orange and Hawthorne Direct, Inc., on several commercial projects for clients such as Land Rover and Goodwill. He additionally worked with the pre-production team as an Office Assistant under the Coordinator for the motion picture La La Land, the winner of 5 Academy Awards in 2017. Due to the prior commitment to Buckshot, Jacob had to leave La La Land before filming began.

In 2016 Jacob began to work in the audio visual industry, setting up equipment for various events across southern California. He found himself a full-time technician job in the audio visual department at The Resort at Pelican Hill for the contracted vendor Five-Star AudioVisual. In under 1 month, Jacob was quickly promoted to Audio Visual Manager under the guidance of the company's regional manager, Eric Ortiz.

Continuing his education, he earned a Project Management Certification in 2016 from Cal State Fullerton, which he applies to his work across multiple industries. Continuing his passion in the film production industry, Jacob left The Resort at Pelican Hill in 2017 and joined his grandfather's family company. Now a co-owner of a carpet cleaning business with his father, Jacob re-branded the company's marketing strategy and is expanding the business while focusing on his film career as a producer.

In 2019 Jacob revisited a documentary he had started in 2014 about his uncle who was a fallen firefighter. The film was completed with the help of a new business partner and filmmaker, Jason Horton. While continuing to write narrative feature films, as well as his new interest in children's books and political novels, Jacob turned his focus to documentary filmmaking. He had two true crime films lined up when the pandemic hit. Shifting gears, Jacob reached out to filmmakers around the world and began a collaborative project about the global disasters that were taking place in 2020. The film titled Global Panic took two years to complete.

At the end of 2020, Jacob was approached by a fan of Brave Are The Fallen and asked to make a second firefighter documentary about her husband who suffers from mental and physical effects caused by a gas station fire. Over the course of 2021, Jacob worked with the Riley family in Florida and helped them to film local interviews of firefighters who had worked with Michael Riley. An early trailer for the film was released on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 as a tribute to firefighters.
- IMDb mini biography by: J.R. Koetzle

Jacob Ryan Whitley was named after Tom Clancy's character Jack Ryan. On occasion, Jacob has been known to use the name Jack for a character in his films as a tribute to Tom Clancy and his parents.

Seeing and hearing a beauty in their look and their cry, Jacob uses crows to symbolize life's mysteries and magic. The power of this bird provides insight and means of supporting intentions. In addition it is also associated with the archetype of the trickster symbolizing a dreadful fate.

Jacob has been known to use stylistic shadow work and reflections in his films to enhance the story or highlight a foreshadowing in the plot.

Because he was a self taught filmmaker, Jacob was able to convince his professors in high-school at Santa Margarita and in College at Cal State Fullerton to allow him to skip the intro film classes and start in the advance classes. Jacob became the teacher's aide for the Film IB class his senior year of High-School.

Having a police captain for an uncle allowed Jacob full access to a real police station for his first feature film. Despite the fact that the rooms looked like offices, the vehicles, jail cells, and interrogation room provided the film the EDGE it needed for a terrific production value.

Prior to the summer of 2010, Jacob was the co-host of a horror video blog show called the Kings of Screams. Alongside Tyler Dean, Jacob would review old classic horror films in addition to filming horror shorts and Special Effects How-Tos that he would host as his alter ego, "Jack The Scarecrow". The show only lasted one season.

In 2018, Jacob relaunched Kings of Screams as an online magazine and began to recruit additional writers and bloggers to compete with Fangoria Magazine and Bloody Disgusting.

In 2016, Jacob continued his education by getting his Project Management Certification from his Alma Mater Cal State Fullerton. He now uses the corporate business model mixed with the industry producing model to manage his productions in a uniquely professional manner. He believes in involving his "stakeholders" in a collaborative light as the projects are as much theirs as they are his. The professional guidance of Jacob and his team help the stakeholders in understanding the ins and outs of the project to help establish a project plan that will enable the best production value possible.

Film is but a medium to tell the stories that everyone has. Whether they be fictional or life impacting memories, it is the responsibility of the filmmaker to entertain and educate the world.