by Katy Doyle

Danielle Jacobs grew up in the Santa Clarita Valley, remembers the onion fields that grew along McBean Parkway, and was still in diapers when her family’s photo was featured in the local paper as the first Meadows residents.  She has always loved expressing herself creatively through dance and art, and in 1999 she started acting. After appearing on television, in commercials, and in several independent feature films, her behind-the-camera interests were launched in 2005 when she was asked to produce an episodic pilot pitched to NBC.
Last year, Jacobs partnered with Ben Staley to co-found Present Day Pictures, a Santa Clarita-based boutique production company with a unique visual perspective. Recently, she wrote, directed, shot and edited the short film Boy | Man, which won the award for Best of Festival-Short Drama at the International Family Film Festival 2009. Describing the film, she says, “It’s a heartfelt, coming-of-age story about the journey of loss, friendship and hope.” She continues, “Instead of telling the audience step by step what is happening by cramming a ton of expositional dialogue into an 11-minute short, my goal was to deeply affect the viewers through the progression of pictures.  I wanted to create a film with a strong storyline, but using very little dialogue while allowing the pictures to evoke emotion and unfold the plot.”  
Shot on location in Idaho while she and Staley were on location themselves, the film was created in tough conditions with a crew of only two. The filmmakers cast an inexperienced 8-year-old local boy as the lead with Staley playing the other lead. Jacobs says, “I had my hands full with lining up the shots, operating the camera, directing the actors…this kind of filmmaking is fast and furious… but it represents being proactive in an industry that can seem suffocating.”
Present Day Pictures is in the process of developing a feature film and two episodic pilots. Jacobs adds, “We are also working with local animation students from
College of the Canyons to create a futuristic festival piece.” While throwing herself into the production side of the industry, will Jacobs continue pursuing her acting career? She answers, “I started craving behind-the-camera knowledge to educate myself as an actress.  Comprehending the technical and creative process of a story has been invaluable to my acting.  I’ve always been kind of techy though…now I’m hooked.”
View the trailer for Boy | Man at www.presentdaypictures.com/boyman.