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English Valleys grad discusses film making
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
NORTH ENGLISH — Local history has driven the film production career of an English Valleys graduate, but he’s also lent his talent to an Italian film project that explores a historical international incident.
Jacob Glandon spoke to an audience in North English Sunday, the last program of the year for the English Valleys History Center.
Glandon grew up in Webster, a town of fewer than 100 people in Keokuk County, west of South English. He graduated from English Valleys school district in 2019, attended Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa and graduated from William Penn University in Oskaloosa with a Bachelor of Arts degree in video production.
Glandon filmed a documentary about What Cheer while at William Penn and unveiled it to an audience at the What Cheer Opera House. More than 200 people showed up during the two-day showing.
Glandon shared a clip from that documentary in North English Sunday. The full version is available on his YouTube channel, Black Oak Films.
In August of 2023, Glandon and some friends filmed Flotsam River Circus on the Mississippi River from Clinton to Davenport.
Flotsam puttered down the river on a boat that resembled a raft from Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer” and performed music and circus acts on the boat in river towns.
Glandon and his crew recorded the group during three, very hot summer days.
“They’re a very interesting group,” said Glandon. He recorded their music and uses it as the soundtrack for a documentary about the Circus.
Last month Glandon worked on a feature film about U.S. Gen. James L. Dozier, who was held hostage for 42 days by Red Brigades terrorists in Italy in 1981.
The director, Max Leonida, is from Italy. When he began teaching filmmaking at William Penn, he decided to shoot the film about Dozier there.
“He remembers it as a kid,” said Glandon. The kidnapping was big news in Italy, but Glandon said he hasn’t met anyone in the U.S. who is familiar with it.
During the first week of filming, Glandon worked in several locations, setting up and taking down equipment at each location and making sure it worked correctly after each move.
Later, filming moved to a set that recreated the apartment in Padua, Italy where Dozier was held.
Glandon transferred footage from memory cards onto computers six or eight times a day, he said. The cards hold only about 30 minutes of recording.
Glandon prepared the dailies for the director and producer to view for continuity errors and other problems that might make reshooting a scene necessary.
“It’s a very intense movie to be filmed at a university,” said Glandon. “He was subjected to some pretty intense torture.
Glandon showed still photos Sunday of the creation of a dream sequence written into the film to show Dozier recalling his past while in captivity.
Producers rented the camera and other equipment from Renovo Media Group in Clear Lake, said Glandon, so they used a single camera to save money. Leasing the equipment cost about $800,000 of a $2 million budget, Glandon said.
Producers plan to release the film through Netflix streaming, so they had to have a camera that would meet Netflix standards, said Glandon.
“This was the best camera that Renovo had.”
The film crew is in Italy to finish the film, but Glandon couldn’t make the trip.
Glandon continues to pursue his own projects. He produced a piece about English Valleys Care Center and one about the 150th anniversary of Gritter Creek School.
He created an advertisement for What Cheer’s flea market and created a promotional video for Sigourney to enter in a contest. “We didn’t win,” Glandon said, “but we did make it in the finalist round.”
Glandon shoots video with his Mavik 3 Classic drone and showed the audience in North English some sequences shot outside the Badlands, over farmland west of Webster City and in Estes Park, Colorado after a storm.
Glandon recently began digitizing video and audio tapes for clients who don’t want to send their tapes away to someone they don’t know. Glandon can do it locally.
Glandon’s next project will be a short film called “Digitized.” He’s got eight or nine people lined up to for production and will send out a casting call in January or February. He’ll need two actors for the leads and a few extras.
Filming will take place in Sigourney and Oskaloosa.
Glandon can be reached at Jacob.glandon@gmail.com. His work is online at blackoakfilms.com and on YouTube.
