Marcus Thomas is a filmmaker who was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas.  He graduated from the University of Houston with a Bachelor of Arts in Media Production and Corporate Communications. His professional career began at HSI Productions where he worked as an Office Production Assistant on a number of high profile music videos and commercials.

In 2009, his short film Trust aired on BET’s Lens On Talent and his most recent short, Casting Notice, has screened at a number of film festivals and can also be viewed online.  Thomas took some time out to answer a couple of questions for JTt. 


Tell me about the film Casting Notice?  How did this story come about?

Casting Notice was inspired by different stories I’ve heard over the years from actor friends of mine as well as the weird ads people post on sites like Craigslist.  Usually stories like this are told from a female perspective so I wanted to flip it and put a male perspective on it.  I wrote the script, saved up my money, and shot the film over 3 days in Los Angeles.

Where can people check out the film?

The film can be viewed on the official site for the film which is www.CastingNoticeTheMovie.com as well as my personal website www.Marcus-Thomas.com.

When you were young, were you always interested in being a part of the film industry?

Growing up, I was obsessed with music videos, so initially I wanted to pursue a career in directing those.   Overtime, my interest expanded into narrative films.

I attended the Manhattan Short Film Festival last night at the Grandview Theatre.   The films that were showcased were amazing.  I had only attended one other short film festival in Columbus and this festival definitely exceeded my expectations.  How this film festival works is short filmmakers from all over the world submit their film entries to be judged.  Each film is no longer than 18 minutes.  It doesn’t state on the website how these initial film entries are judged but I would assume by some panel put together by the Manhattan Short Film Festival organization.  Following this, 10 finalists are chosen.  Now it’s the public’s turn to place their votes. 

This year’s 2009 festival originally had 428 film entries from over 35 different countries.  Here are the 10 finalists that were chosen.