United Kingdom
My business is catching ideas. Storyteller since birth, I'm now out writing about the entertainment industry and crafting narratives for all forms of story.
Currently on a new screenwriting venture. Looking for homes where my words can live.
He/Him
Journalism
Online Screen Editor Jacob Heayes is won over by Noah Baumbach's relationship parable. Marriage Story opens with a stark contradiction - this isn't at all a story about marriage. At least, not the story we've come to expect from the annals of romantic comedy tradition, one of glamourous meet-cutes and blossoming love against all odds.
Online Screen Editor Jacob Heayes finds Lulu Wang's latest film a touching and elegant work. Could lying ever be an act of love? This is the question that pulsates at the core of Lulu Wang's stirring new dramedy The Farewell, a true story that presents itself as an 'actual lie', drawing from Wang's real family dilemma.
Online Screen Editor Jacob Heayes interviews writer/director Sam Barlow on his new project Telling Lies and the interactive fiction form. Four years have passed since writer/director Sam Barlow released his independent project Her Story, an award-winning interactive fiction title that quickly made waves in the industry for its innovative use of live video and non-linear storytelling.
Online Screen Editor Jacob Heayes runs through some of the highlights of 2019 in video game storytelling. Last year was a strange one for video games. It's hardly a secret that the next-generation of consoles (the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X) were heading our way in 2020, resulting in plenty of developers staving off their high-profile releases until this anticipated new wave of systems hit.
In the first edition of his narrative gaming column, Online Screen Editor Jacob Heayes reflects on the achievements of What Remains of Edith Finch. Where there's a house, there's a story. Critics reminiscing on Psycho's gothic prowess inextricably fall into Bates Motel's orbit, as do those examining the infamous Manderley estate in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.
Filmmaking
A one-location horror short film made for XTV's 2018 Halloween Live broadcast. Written, directed and edited in a week.
An episode of XTV's sci-fi / horror anthology series Visions from the Void. Inspired by "The Midas Touch" myth.
A found-footage comedy short made in 48 hours for the Exeter Two Short Nights competition.
Screenwriting Samples
A horror short film. Quarter-finalist in the 2019 Screencraft Short Screenplay Competition. After moving to an innocuous village, a single mother finds herself allured by an indescribable dark presence attached to the local park.
An adventure short film. A new draft of the heat-winning script in the NYC Midnight Screenwriting Challenge. A teenage artist discovers a magical spray paint can and must quickly use his living drawings to escape pursuit.