Artist and Filmmaker Gary Thomas looks at the relationship between art and film, why it's sometimes uncomfortable, and how he deals with his own 'strands', (including disability), both personally and professionally. He'll also be writing about his own work as well as developing other projects, including films about the Olympics.

Live live live!

27 March 2016

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Super excited to announce numerous things I’ll be working on this year: In December last year, shortly after a friend posted about it on Facebook, I applied to The Wandsworth Fringe for funding to do a new version of my one man play ‘Hidden’ during the fringe in May. This was one of the few funding applications I’ve done all on my own (including the budget!) and I was delighted when I found out I was successful. Yay! So this means I’ll be producing my one man play...

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Where is my place in the world?

26 June 2015

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I’ve just seen Jurassic World. And whilst it didn’t have any obvious disabled characters in it (apart from after someone’s survived being half eaten) it really got me thinking about my place in the world as a story teller. What would my franchise be? What is my career path as a director? I’ve been making short films since 2003. It’s now 2015. That’s over ten years of making films, most of which have been funded by Arts Council England. I find myself, as...

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When Is Giving Up Not Giving Up?

18 November 2014

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It’s almost a month since I went to the annual London Screenwriters Festival, and as with previous years, it was a great experience. It was made easier this year (awesomely easier) by the fact that I gave up my pitching ticket at around 4pm the day before I pitched. The festival runs from the Friday – Sunday, and like most years, they do optional training that week. So I was super excited (awesomely exited) to go to the Lee Jessup Career Transformation Day. This was exciting to me...

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Mad Men?

24 August 2014

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*includes spoilers to the series* I’ve just watched Season 6 of Mad Men, the American drama series which airs in the UK on Sky Atlantic. I’ve watched it on DVD, so I’ve seen the last five episodes one after the other with one sleep in between, waking up wanting to know what happens next. Mad Men, about the advertising agency biz in 1960’s New York, has been great to watch, but also left me wondering about characters, main characters specifically. I read an article online...

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Robin Williams & lots of talk about suicide.

12 August 2014

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In the wake of Robin Williams death, at the time I’m writing this there’s still no confirmation of how (do we really need to know?) but there’s a lot of talk about suicide. With this in mind, here’s a couple of scenes from my one man play, written last year, and based on personal experience I had some years ago. I feel distant from these feelings now, and am grateful for that, as its allowed me to write about it in this and my book. I will never forget that I’m one...

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Come And Support Our Time Travel Football Film!

26 May 2014

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Show Me The Money! So said Tom Cruise to Cuba Gooding Jr in that show me the money movie (oh I mean, Jerry Maguire). So together with my producer we’ve launched our first crowd funding campaign and I have to say its been interesting. This for a film where we have former Dr. Who star Louise Jameson (The Tom Baker years) attached, and will be working with stunt men a long with an entire football team for the first time. After making ten (or is it eleven?) films we’re going up the...

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Here's my round up of last year

16 January 2014

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End Of Year Round Up. By Gary Thomas So, that was 2013. No seriously, I did a quick check, and that’s the end of it. I was hoping to hear some news, but haven’t heard, so will have to wait a bit longer for that. Whilst there’s a few things I’m struggling to remember, there’s nothing I particularly want to forget, which must be a good sign. The year started with me directing a music video for Rob Lever’s song ‘If This Isn’t Love’, which...

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This world that we live in...

27 September 2013

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“Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead.” Adele. As I sit here I'm thinking about the World that we live in. It is 11.12 am and I have just got up having not gone to bed until 4am last night. I wasn’t thinking about anything major last night, I just forgot to take my tablets, and so, naturally, as always happens when I do that, I didn’t sleep much. Once I got to sleep, funnily enough, I slept really well. I watched the Madonna interview about...

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I want what????

3 June 2013

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“Women have to reshape our own perception of how we view ourselves.  We have to step up as women and take the lead, and reach as high as humanly possible. That’s what I’m going to do, that’s my philosophy.”
- Beyoncé in her documentary ‘Life is but a dream’. I was really taken by the above quote as I was watching a BBC documentary about Beyoncé. She was talking about her performance on the Billboard chart show in the US, and said...

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My first live one man show.

27 April 2013

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HIDDEN Performance. What an amazing, spectacular day it was yesterday. My one man show, starring Jonny Collis, called ‘Hidden’ had its premiere at the first Disability Arts In Surrey Festival to around 20-30 people - not bad for 10am on a Friday morning! Jonny did a fantastic job, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more from his performance. The show was based around my own experience of what I call psychosis after a stop & search by Police in London when I was 26...

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Priorities Shmiorities

7 April 2013

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OK, so having been kind of stressed lately (although I say lately this isn’t unusual) today I tried to do some writing on an outline / treatment I haven’t looked at for a while. And as I was looking at it, I realised I couldn’t get my head round it without re-reading it. It wasn’t that long (about 6 pages so far) so that wasn’t the problem, but it became a problem because I couldn’t even re-read it.  So I thought I’d do a blog that lists my work...

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My three words for 2013

11 January 2013

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I’ve never ever done new years resolutions. I think it’s cos I heard all those jokes about all those people joining the gym in January and never going again. From the first time I heard about them I remember thinking it’s not a very good idea. I mean, if you really want to do something why wait? Why not do it now? If I do have something in mind that I want to do, and I can do it whenever, i.e. it doesn’t take money or anything else to do, I’ll make sure I start it...

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End of Year Round Up

27 December 2012

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I thought I’d blog about how 2012 has gone for me. It’s sometimes confusing being a creative person, as the ‘personal’ and the ‘professional’ easily gets mixed up. My ideas, which are sometimes personal, become something I want to write about, then make work from. Anyway, this is a run down of what I achieved this year, and there have been a lot of ‘firsts’ for me. In January I ran a 7 week workshop at The Orpheus Centre, teaching filmmaking, and...

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Under What Grounds?

29 November 2012

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I’ve been thinking about a couple of posts I saw recently. Well, one on Facebook and one article in the local paper. Both were about suicide, and the one on Facebook in particular mentioned that the person who knew the man who committed suicide had no idea he felt that way. Which left me thinking about why I, and others like me, don’t talk. I’m not going to go on about any male ego bullshit, I’m trying to come up with helpful answers. Stuff that I’m not 100% sure...

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My life through the Hare. (DADA-South)

4 November 2012

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“Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.”  sometime attrributed to Dr. Seuss, and sometimes to Gabriel García Márquez in Spanish: "No llores porque ya se terminó... sonríe, porque sucedió."   I received an email last month from Ardent Hare saying that they were closing. You can read the original release here.  So Ardent Hare, or DADA-South as they were known, is no more. When I linked to the newsletter on my...

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Bionic People - Two day filmmaking workshop

12 August 2012

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Bionic People was the 3rd and final event in the series 'Specimens to Superhumans' run by The Arts Catalyst, with support from Shape and DADAFest and funded by The Wellcome Trust. A 2 day filmmaking workshop was run by John Williams, who's made a number of short films including the award winning ‘Paraphernalia’, about a child’s complex feelings towards his robotic dialysis machine. As a filmmaker myself I was asked to review the event for DAO & take part, and...

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Images & Words

15 April 2012

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Those of you who’ve known me for a while may know that I’ve done boxing & wrestling for some time. (Although I haven’t done either for a couple of years). You may also know that a few years ago I had a photo-shoot which I wore my ‘Disabled’ T-shirt.  That idea came about because I was so pissed of with having to explain why I had hidden disabilities and what they were, that I decided to start blatantly telling people.  It was really me saying,...

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State of the Arts 2012 Conference Sessions (Blog 2)

29 February 2012

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Probably the most interesting session for me was the first session about the audience. It certainly presented a different way of thinking. The main speakers were Alastair Spalding from Sadlers Wells and Helen Marriage from Artichoke, who produced the Sultan’s Elephant outdoor spectacle as well as The ‘Spider’ in Liverpool in 2008. Alastair was interesting in that he started by talking about the iPhone, saying that no one could really imagine 10 years ago that there would be a...

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State of The Arts Conference, 14th Feb 2012 (Blog1)

16 February 2012

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I was selected as one of 50 bursary winners to attend the State of The Arts Conference in Manchester, on 14th February. You can read the twitter stream by looking up the hashtag #SOTA12 and podcasts will be available soon. OK. Lets start with the really obvious thing, that shouldn’t have been obvious at all. Throughout the conference, even on the film, there were no subtitles, and no BSL Interpreters. What were ACE thinking? Has it been like this for the past three years? This was my...

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My 2011

2 January 2012

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  Happy New Year! I thought I’d start this year by recapping last year. Why do I think last year was so good when I had a family bereavement in January & I was assaulted by 2 'youths' in August? I think, at least for the past year, I've been feeling pretty well, and simply didn't want to let things get in the way of what I was doing -  possibly because I had such a terrible 2010. The other reasons are work & funding.  I've done more this year than I ever have,...

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Stephen Merchant Live at Hammersmith Apollo (Review)

1 December 2011

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For those of you who've been offended by someone recently who I'll just simply refuse to name, his comedy writing partner, Stephen Merchant, seems to be a bit different. A friend had tickets to see Stephen Merchant at Hammersmith Apollo, London, and I went, with slight trepidation. Was he going to be as offensive as Ricky Gervais? (Damn, OK, I had to mention him) Was I going to sit there & cringe most of the way through? Was I?  Well, no, as it turned out, I didn't at all. Stephen...

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The Dog & The Palace, Phase 2

24 November 2011

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Hooray! Let me say that again. Hooray!! The Dog & The Palace, my split screen film installation inspired by a dream I had way back in 2009 (complete with original alternate ending) has received a second lot of arts council funding so it can be completed. This means that come January, it’ll be full on finding locations, finding a Queen look a like, and finding a handful of Paralympic / Olympic athletes who’ll agree to take part in the film. And maybe a small crowd too....

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Save the Date! - 31st October 2012

14 November 2011

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 So, that’s it then… Well at least I’ve sent the form off to book the room, now I have to write the thing! Good Lord. What am I on about? I’m on about the 31st October 2012. That’s right, when everybody’s absolutely stuffed with anything to do with the Olympics and Paralympics (except for my short film of course, which will be playing for many years after ;) 31st October 2012 is when you can all come to the lovely Dorking Halls and hear the first ever...

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Gary talks to Mark Lever about their film 'Moving In'

6 November 2011

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Last year I worked with Mark Lever on 'Moving In', a comedy drama about University life. I directed the pilot episode, which can be seen on youtube. I interviewed Mark about the process and how it came about. So how did Moving In come together? Moving In spawned from an idea I had about this family where, the main character, (Michael) has Asperger's Syndrome. I wanted to explore how he dealt with things when he first goes to college and has this support assistant breathing down his neck at...

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Gary asks what is the difference between film, and artist film & video?

29 October 2011

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As I walked around Tate Modern in 2002 I was struck by so many things while watching Eija-Liisa Ahtila's work. My main question was, 'Why is this Art?' How is it the Arts Council don't fund film yet this has clearly been deemed as art by others with suitable knowledge? This was before I spent a year working on my first Arts Council application with Abbie Norris, and before I was successful in receiving my first commission from DADA-South (largely inspired by Eija's work). During that time I...

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