Jay Finocchiaro
- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Jay is a writer/director with a background in the performing arts and film. His directing experience encompasses film, stage, animation, photo shoots and voiceover.
Born in the Philippines, Jay grew up in Sydney, Australia. At the age of 10, he played opposite Academy Award and BAFTA Award winning actress Hayley Mills in the original production of Christopher Renshaw's The King and I at Her Majesty's Theatre in Sydney. Artistically directed by Jerome Robbins, it added fresh choreography by Yuriko Kikuchi; a renowned principal artist of the Martha Graham Dance Company and former teacher of ballet legend, Mikhail Baryshnikov. The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organisation flew down Mary (daughter of Richard Rodgers) and William (son of Oscar Hammerstein) to review Renshaw's new rendition in Sydney. Upon receiving positive reviews from audience and critics alike, the season extended with additional performances in Sydney and the production made history by becoming the first Australian production invited to perform on Broadway. There it won four Drama Desk awards and four Tony awards.
Following were ten productions at the Sydney Opera House, which includes A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Baz Luhrmann, which had costumes designed by four-time Academy Award winning designer, Catherine Martin. Other productions include Robin Hood starring Australian actors Peter Whitford and Maggie Dence, and the stadium production of Aida, directed by Mauro Bolognini starring noted opera legend, Grace Bumbry.
As a singer and musician, Jay performed in many gigs and tours. Events include the Opening of Sanctuary Cove starring Whitney Houston, Peter Allen and Frank Sinatra, World Expo '88 opened by Queen Elizabeth II starring the Village People, Jermaine Jackson and Cher with guest appearances by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tony Curtis, and the legendary Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.
At the age of sixteen Jay was selected as one of ten students throughout Australia to do a course in orchestral conducting led by Jorma Panula, whose past students include distinguished conductors Klaus Mäkelä, Dalia Stasevska and Esa-Pekka Salonen. One of the other students attending with Jay at the time, was renowned conductor Daniel Smith, who at the same age of Jay had already conducted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and went on to conduct many international orchestras, including the Mariinsky Orchestra, where he was the first and only Australian invited to do so. At the ABC Studios in Sydney, Jay conducted in a concert program highlighting works of Samuel Barber and Franz Joseph Haydn with the Symphony Services International Orchestra.
In 1995, he was part of the United Nations' 50th Anniversary media campaign which was shown to over 180 state leaders, which included President Bill Clinton and President Nelson Mandela.
Jay's first film experience was an Australian independent movie, The Sugar Factory directed by Robert Carter and starred Matt Day and Anthony Hayes. It was filmed by Academy Award winning cinematographer Andrew Lesnie, known for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movie trilogies, and had James McTeigue, director of V for Vendetta, as an assistant director at the time.
In 2005, Jay worked on Heath Ledger's directorial debut, a music video for N'Fa, which starred dance sensation Carolina Cerisola and produced by Michael Gracey. It became the first of only six film projects Heath made.
For ten years, Jay worked in the event film industry. Experience includes the Sound Relief Benefit, starring Taylor Swift and Coldplay and the first Live Earth: Concerts for Climate Change, co-directed by Bruce Gowers, starring Madonna, Snoop Dogg and Cat Stevens and hosted by the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Ken Watanabe. Live Earth was performed in 7 continents (including the Antarctic) to over 2 billion people within the space of a day.
Over the years, Jay has worked on TV, event and film projects starring the likes of actors Robert De Niro andMeryl Streep, music artists Britney Spears and Gregory Porter, comedian/actors Robin Williams and Joan Rivers, entrepreneurs Steve Jobs, Paris Hilton and Richard Branson, media proprietor Oprah Winfrey, classical music artists Joan Sutherland and Plácido Domingo, sport stars Cathy Freeman and Cristiano Ronaldo, supermodels Elle McPherson and Naomi Campbell, chef Marco Pierre White, zoologist Dame Jane Goodall, media personality Katie Price and YouTuber Caspar Lee.
Film wise, Jay has worked on movies directed by Jane Campion, Spike Jonze, John Woo and Steven Spielberg. Amongst the successful movies he has been involved in are The Black Balloon (Berlin Film Festival winner), Holy Smoke (Venice Film Festival winner), Animal Kingdom (Sundance Film Festival winner), The Great Gatsby (Official movie opening for the Cannes Film Festival and Oscar winner) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (four-time Guinness World Record award winner).
As an individual creative practitioner, Jay has forged a career as a director, writer and producer. He started early, attended a performing arts school and was signed to a talent agent at the age of seven. For a number of years, Jay performed as a dancer in many corporate gigs and tours. Amongst the people he performed with was Natalie Imbruglia, who, at that stage, was also working as a professional dancer before her career in music and acting.
Later, Jay studied theatre, acting and education at the University of New South Wales. There he studied performance devising from various practitioners from theatre companies such as SITI, Gardizenice, Sydney Front and Theatre du Soleil, and was a member of the Grotowski physical theatre company Impulse founded by film director Stephen Wallace and whose past members include Daniel Webber.
From a theatre director perspective, Jay trained with the likes of Richard Wherrett (founding director of the Sydney Theatre Company), Cicely Berry (Royal Shakespeare Company), Robert Benedetti (former Chairman of the Yale Drama School) and award winning screenwriter Tony McNamara.
Film director education includes courses at AFTRS and Raindance Film School and training at Sydney Film School, to which Jay was a graduate of. Amongst his film master class profiles include casting director Mike Fenton, film producers Hank Moonjean and Judd Apatow and eminent French film auteur Jean-Luc Godard.
Undertaking both conventional and out-of-the-box approaches to directing, Jay has created a film trilogy that involved the locations and services of 20 countries, filmed a completely improvised Irish mumblecore comedy in under 2 hours, titled Converse, which was used as a case study by postgraduate students of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and co-directed the media campaign for the first ever Trans-Tasman charity event competition which consisted of two teams of Olympic, Commonwealth and World Champion athletes, alongside sporting and media personalities who ran, cycled, rowed and sailed their way around New Zealand over 5 days, covering over 1300 kilometres / 807 miles.
His films have been seen worldwide, premiered at the Opera Dendy Quay Cinemas in Sydney, Wonderville at London's West End, and the 29th Raindance Film Festival, which awarded Sir Michael Caine a lifetime achievement at that same year.
Directing wise, Jay has collaborated with a diverse range of talent, which includes Rugby star Dan Carter, Miss World Australia Erin Holland and Phillip S. Boyd, artist of Disney classic movie animations The Lion King, Pocahontas, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
As a stills photographer, Jay's experience includes Good Morning America, BBC World News, West End Live and Copenhagen Pride. Jay's photography was selected by Barbara Poma as one of a number represented in the National Pulse Memorial and Museum in Orlando.
As a researcher, Jay has been apart of a number of entertainment industry Q&As and has set up a number of interviews with various directors, producers, writers and actors. In 2014 Jay interviewed Baird Wallace on his experience working with Franco Zeffirelli and playing a teenage version of the prominent director in the movie Tea with Mussolini (1999) alongside Lily Tomlin, Cher, Joan Plowright, Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.
Jay also interviewed actress Rutanya Alda in an openly candid discussion on her career which included her experience working with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in their first movie as lead actors, studying with Sanford Meisner, Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, and working with directors Roman Polanski and Brian de Palma.
In 2024, he interviewed cellist Dave Loew in an in-depth interview about his upbringing in Kenya, his experience working with Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews, Elton John, composers Andrew Lloyd Webber, Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams and conductors Andre Previn and Leonard Bernstein.
Other profiles Jay has been in interviews with include film producers Ted Hope and Christine Vachon, showrunner Marc Guggenheim, creator of the Ice Age movie franchise, Michael J. Wilson, actor Asa Butterfield and cinematographer Denson Baker.
Born in the Philippines, Jay grew up in Sydney, Australia. At the age of 10, he played opposite Academy Award and BAFTA Award winning actress Hayley Mills in the original production of Christopher Renshaw's The King and I at Her Majesty's Theatre in Sydney. Artistically directed by Jerome Robbins, it added fresh choreography by Yuriko Kikuchi; a renowned principal artist of the Martha Graham Dance Company and former teacher of ballet legend, Mikhail Baryshnikov. The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organisation flew down Mary (daughter of Richard Rodgers) and William (son of Oscar Hammerstein) to review Renshaw's new rendition in Sydney. Upon receiving positive reviews from audience and critics alike, the season extended with additional performances in Sydney and the production made history by becoming the first Australian production invited to perform on Broadway. There it won four Drama Desk awards and four Tony awards.
Following were ten productions at the Sydney Opera House, which includes A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Baz Luhrmann, which had costumes designed by four-time Academy Award winning designer, Catherine Martin. Other productions include Robin Hood starring Australian actors Peter Whitford and Maggie Dence, and the stadium production of Aida, directed by Mauro Bolognini starring noted opera legend, Grace Bumbry.
As a singer and musician, Jay performed in many gigs and tours. Events include the Opening of Sanctuary Cove starring Whitney Houston, Peter Allen and Frank Sinatra, World Expo '88 opened by Queen Elizabeth II starring the Village People, Jermaine Jackson and Cher with guest appearances by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tony Curtis, and the legendary Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.
At the age of sixteen Jay was selected as one of ten students throughout Australia to do a course in orchestral conducting led by Jorma Panula, whose past students include distinguished conductors Klaus Mäkelä, Dalia Stasevska and Esa-Pekka Salonen. One of the other students attending with Jay at the time, was renowned conductor Daniel Smith, who at the same age of Jay had already conducted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and went on to conduct many international orchestras, including the Mariinsky Orchestra, where he was the first and only Australian invited to do so. At the ABC Studios in Sydney, Jay conducted in a concert program highlighting works of Samuel Barber and Franz Joseph Haydn with the Symphony Services International Orchestra.
In 1995, he was part of the United Nations' 50th Anniversary media campaign which was shown to over 180 state leaders, which included President Bill Clinton and President Nelson Mandela.
Jay's first film experience was an Australian independent movie, The Sugar Factory directed by Robert Carter and starred Matt Day and Anthony Hayes. It was filmed by Academy Award winning cinematographer Andrew Lesnie, known for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movie trilogies, and had James McTeigue, director of V for Vendetta, as an assistant director at the time.
In 2005, Jay worked on Heath Ledger's directorial debut, a music video for N'Fa, which starred dance sensation Carolina Cerisola and produced by Michael Gracey. It became the first of only six film projects Heath made.
For ten years, Jay worked in the event film industry. Experience includes the Sound Relief Benefit, starring Taylor Swift and Coldplay and the first Live Earth: Concerts for Climate Change, co-directed by Bruce Gowers, starring Madonna, Snoop Dogg and Cat Stevens and hosted by the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Ken Watanabe. Live Earth was performed in 7 continents (including the Antarctic) to over 2 billion people within the space of a day.
Over the years, Jay has worked on TV, event and film projects starring the likes of actors Robert De Niro andMeryl Streep, music artists Britney Spears and Gregory Porter, comedian/actors Robin Williams and Joan Rivers, entrepreneurs Steve Jobs, Paris Hilton and Richard Branson, media proprietor Oprah Winfrey, classical music artists Joan Sutherland and Plácido Domingo, sport stars Cathy Freeman and Cristiano Ronaldo, supermodels Elle McPherson and Naomi Campbell, chef Marco Pierre White, zoologist Dame Jane Goodall, media personality Katie Price and YouTuber Caspar Lee.
Film wise, Jay has worked on movies directed by Jane Campion, Spike Jonze, John Woo and Steven Spielberg. Amongst the successful movies he has been involved in are The Black Balloon (Berlin Film Festival winner), Holy Smoke (Venice Film Festival winner), Animal Kingdom (Sundance Film Festival winner), The Great Gatsby (Official movie opening for the Cannes Film Festival and Oscar winner) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (four-time Guinness World Record award winner).
As an individual creative practitioner, Jay has forged a career as a director, writer and producer. He started early, attended a performing arts school and was signed to a talent agent at the age of seven. For a number of years, Jay performed as a dancer in many corporate gigs and tours. Amongst the people he performed with was Natalie Imbruglia, who, at that stage, was also working as a professional dancer before her career in music and acting.
Later, Jay studied theatre, acting and education at the University of New South Wales. There he studied performance devising from various practitioners from theatre companies such as SITI, Gardizenice, Sydney Front and Theatre du Soleil, and was a member of the Grotowski physical theatre company Impulse founded by film director Stephen Wallace and whose past members include Daniel Webber.
From a theatre director perspective, Jay trained with the likes of Richard Wherrett (founding director of the Sydney Theatre Company), Cicely Berry (Royal Shakespeare Company), Robert Benedetti (former Chairman of the Yale Drama School) and award winning screenwriter Tony McNamara.
Film director education includes courses at AFTRS and Raindance Film School and training at Sydney Film School, to which Jay was a graduate of. Amongst his film master class profiles include casting director Mike Fenton, film producers Hank Moonjean and Judd Apatow and eminent French film auteur Jean-Luc Godard.
Undertaking both conventional and out-of-the-box approaches to directing, Jay has created a film trilogy that involved the locations and services of 20 countries, filmed a completely improvised Irish mumblecore comedy in under 2 hours, titled Converse, which was used as a case study by postgraduate students of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and co-directed the media campaign for the first ever Trans-Tasman charity event competition which consisted of two teams of Olympic, Commonwealth and World Champion athletes, alongside sporting and media personalities who ran, cycled, rowed and sailed their way around New Zealand over 5 days, covering over 1300 kilometres / 807 miles.
His films have been seen worldwide, premiered at the Opera Dendy Quay Cinemas in Sydney, Wonderville at London's West End, and the 29th Raindance Film Festival, which awarded Sir Michael Caine a lifetime achievement at that same year.
Directing wise, Jay has collaborated with a diverse range of talent, which includes Rugby star Dan Carter, Miss World Australia Erin Holland and Phillip S. Boyd, artist of Disney classic movie animations The Lion King, Pocahontas, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
As a stills photographer, Jay's experience includes Good Morning America, BBC World News, West End Live and Copenhagen Pride. Jay's photography was selected by Barbara Poma as one of a number represented in the National Pulse Memorial and Museum in Orlando.
As a researcher, Jay has been apart of a number of entertainment industry Q&As and has set up a number of interviews with various directors, producers, writers and actors. In 2014 Jay interviewed Baird Wallace on his experience working with Franco Zeffirelli and playing a teenage version of the prominent director in the movie Tea with Mussolini (1999) alongside Lily Tomlin, Cher, Joan Plowright, Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.
Jay also interviewed actress Rutanya Alda in an openly candid discussion on her career which included her experience working with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in their first movie as lead actors, studying with Sanford Meisner, Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, and working with directors Roman Polanski and Brian de Palma.
In 2024, he interviewed cellist Dave Loew in an in-depth interview about his upbringing in Kenya, his experience working with Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews, Elton John, composers Andrew Lloyd Webber, Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams and conductors Andre Previn and Leonard Bernstein.
Other profiles Jay has been in interviews with include film producers Ted Hope and Christine Vachon, showrunner Marc Guggenheim, creator of the Ice Age movie franchise, Michael J. Wilson, actor Asa Butterfield and cinematographer Denson Baker.