Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Thomas Gidlow. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Thomas thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I never went to school for creative writing, but my mom dabbled here and there and it would seem I picked it up without realizing it. In my youth, I often would write articles based on simulated baseball games I’d run using Pogs and a drawn baseball stadium.

In high school, college, and then in my young adult life, I seldom wrote anything. Life was happening, and it took a particularly low point for me to realize that maybe writing something down would help. I kept a diary of what I was going through, and eventually, I decided to write a novel. That eventually morphed into screenwriting.

I would study and learn through the internet. And I just kept writing, even if it didn’t make much sense upon reflection. I met a professional writer (Susan Plunkett) on Twitter who was willing to read my work, and through her help, I was able to turn 60 pages of mostly nonsense into a short film script. We self-filmed with help from some very gracious actors on a $400 budget, and all of a sudden, I was making movies.

I’ve always soaked up films and TV shows. So I had some semblance of an idea of what might make a good story. But through writing and continuing to improve day to day, year to year, I’ve been able to get myself to a point where I’ve been consistently well-rated for dialog and structure.

The only way to really learn how to write effectively is by doing it, repeatedly, and using your life’s experience to channel your voice, your essence, into the written word. It’s a powerful experience and I try not to take it for granted. I’m immeasurably grateful for the help I’ve had over this now 15-year journey, and I know I’ll only continue to get better through experience.

Thomas, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started in the creative world with a silly short film I did for ProjectDirect on YouTube back in 2008. I wrote out some scenarios using two of the many props they had to choose from, and came up with a hockey-stick-wielding problem solver that I played myself. Using a camcorder and a lot of gumption, I made that five-minute short – while it didn’t do all that well in the contest, I gained a lot of good feedback from others, and it spurned me to try to do this more professionally.

Over the next few years, I made a few more shorts. Each time out, we’d have better equipment and a better story. I took some time after meeting my now-wife in 2014 to just live life, and with her inspiring me to chase this dream since, you only get one shot in this life, I got back on the horse.

Since then, I’ve started a film and TV/streaming production company called Skyphire Entertainment. We’re developing multiple projects and have built a solid foundation to really take that next step toward finding our audience. It takes time, but the people we’ve worked with and who support us continue to inspire me to work that much harder to make an impact in the film and TV world.

I’m most proud of the relationships we’ve forged. We base our interactions on mutual respect and a common desire to create quality work. To me, sure – you can cut corners and treat people like they are interchangeable. But where’s the joy in that? Stepping on people to climb over them can get you to the top, but it can also lead to a deep, dark fall.

Our company is being forged from the work of dozens, hundreds of people who have influenced us and inspired us with their talent. I feel I owe it to them to do right by people, even if that means it might take a little longer to reach that next tier.

We’re going to be telling stories that put characters who everyone can identify with – regular, everyday people – in extraordinary circumstances. Creating mustache-twirling villains and stereotypical tropes – that’s easy. Being original and building characters with real depth and meaning is harder, but much more rewarding…for the creator and for the audience.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Just be honest with themselves, which I think for the most part, when it comes to the arts and creative works, they are. I can’t tell you how much I’ve heard people yearn for original storytelling and to move away from retread after retread. They are tired of hearing that originality is dead, and to be honest, a lot of that comes from what continues to be injected into the mainstream from the major players.

To me, it’s on us as creators to find these people. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t done as good a job as I could be trying to find my audience. That’s changing, and I’m working hard to create a plan to go out there and pitch myself and our company to them. But the main point is that it’s on us to create stories that they want to see, and then get it in front of them so they can see it.

There are so many ways to do this now. With the strikes and streaming strife of late, there’s even more onus on us as independent creators to not only fill the void, but replenish that void with quality stories. We have the ability. There are so many talented creatives out there – many of whom are finding their audiences and building those relationships that will last a long time. For the rest of us, we just need to do better to find ways to reach them.

I don’t feel the onus is on society to provide an ecosystem for thriving creatives. I feel it’s on us to bring it to them. “If you build it, they will come.” That famous (and paraphrased) line from Field of Dreams is so true in many ways. Be true to your voice, be true to your creativity, and work harder than anyone else in the room. You’ll find your calling, your people, as it were. I truly believe that. And I’m working on that myself, slowly but surely.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We are going through it right now. I wrote a short called “Inimicus” that mostly laid dormant for many years, and we finally got around to producing it in October last year (2022). It turned out far better than I ever could have imagined, buoyed by an amazing crew and some fantastically talented actors.

It’s a universal story about losing yourself in the scars of battle. A former soldier named Clyde, suffering from PTSD, struggles to reintegrate into society as his demons compel him to ‘slay the enemy within’. His friends and support group at a VFW hall try to help, but they can’t really break through his trauma. His wife has done everything she can to help him as well, but things eventually come to a short, but violent head when Clyde snaps, assaulting his wife.

He stops short of the point of no return when he realizes the very demons he’s fighting are trying to help him. The brief assault of his wife finally shows him that he has to stop blaming himself for what happened on the battlefield – in no way excusing his actions (he ends up in jail for the assault) – through the personification of this “inimicus” (played by the amazing Adwoa Duncan Williams).

After years of therapy, including while incarcerated, and rebuilding his relationship with his wife, Clyde finally breaks free of the grip that his PTSD had on him. While not “cured”, he knows that he never has to face another battle alone.

We’ve received high marks from people in the business who’ve seen it, but we haven’t been able to break through on the festival circuit. We’ve limited entries to the upper-echelon festivals, where the competition is certainly the most difficult. Every week it seems, we receive another rejection; they are all so well-worded, and many creatives know almost by heart what they say. They mean well, but with so few programming slots and thousands of qualified entrants, it’s a true uphill battle.

But the easy thing would be to give up and call it a day. To feel sorry for yourself, or to think less of the project. But I know it’s worthy and good enough. As I’ve mentioned earlier, we just need to find the right audience, the right festival, the right platform to showcase this story, and the incredible talent of the people who made it happen.

This is recent. There have been other setbacks. But this is likely the most important part of my journey. I’m 40 in April next year (2024). I’m nearing the halfway point, knock on wood. Time is the most precious thing we all have, so I’m not going to waste it by thinking I’m not good enough. There will be a mountain coming out of this valley, and as I’ve said before, it’s the people we’ve worked with that continue to help us take that next step forward without second-guessing or trying to take a step back.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.skyphire.biz
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thomas_gidlow
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SkyphireEntertainment
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skyphireentertainment
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThomasGidlow
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-gidlow-2ba701176/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SkyphireEnt

Image Credits
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