For as long as Jay can remember, the fascination of using the imagination to produce something for people to see has stuck with him since he was a child growing up in Australia. A strong influence came over him when his pre-school put on concerts throughout the year, performing stories, poetry and singing songs. 

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Fast forward many years ahead, and Jay has kept his dream of creating projects of performance for stage and screen. 

Jay is a graduate/ alumnus of Sydney Film School (SFS) and Raindance Film School. In 2020. Sydney Film School was noted as being amongst the top film schools according to Hollywood's entertainment publication, Variety. Raindance is renowned for its film festival and alumni being Downton Abbey's creator, Julian Fellowes and multi-Academy Award winning director, Christopher Nolan. 

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Despite this, Jay has only entered one film festival (Raindance's 29th Film Festival), on the basis of an invitation. 

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Instead, Jay's directing experience has been enriched with a variety of projects spanning theatre, puppetry, animation, photoshoots, advertising, events, radio, voiceover, music and documentary, which arose from a combination of directing work for work clients  and as passion projects. 

Using his knowledge and experience in logistics from working in the event-filming industry, Jay has directed projects produced in Argentina, Liechtenstein, India, USA, France, Germany, Austria, Ireland, UK, Vanuatu, Spain, Czechia, UAE, China, Latvia, Australia, Switzerland, Poland, Romania, Malta, Japan, Netherlands,  Belgium and New Caledonia.  

Jay's personal focus is on practising directing as much as time and work permits and daring to try ideas, explore stories with an independent intention. This ethos sprang from the influence of two filmmakers Jay was fortunate to learn from, Jon C. Scheide, an award winning American filmmaker who really made Jay wake up to the opportunity and freedom of being an independent filmmaker, and French New Wave auteur, Jean-Luc Goddard. Jay was very fortunate to take a masterclass on directing with the prolific film director in Switzerland, a few years after graduating from Sydney Film School. 

 

An advocate of continual education, Jay is open to learning and developing his skills in directing and doesn't box his approach to any one particular style, genre or procedure. He has explored experimental, narrative, improvisational, instructional, commercial and documentary frameworks, working on a collaborative and solo effort. 

 

Since 2005, Jay has made a conscious effort to direct, at least one piece of work that he marks as a passion project. regardless if it is a short film or a play, Jay does this in the belief that it continues the allowance to use his imagination, through story and observation for many to engage.