Greg Fay was born in London in 1971. On leaving school he served his apprenticeship as a pattern cutter and from this background entered the world of fashion.
Between 1993 and 2000 he held associate editorships at both iD and The Face magazines, where he helped create some of the seminal fashion editorial of the period. In 2000 he stepped back from fashion editorial, as a possible conflict of interest, after helping to found the photographic agency Orang-Utan.
His own wardrobe work was now concentrated in the inter-connected worlds of film and commercials, from whence an intense interest in the process of film-making developed. In 2005 he wrote and directed his first short “Last Trip to Cardiff”, a film is based around the experiences of five livelong Arsenal fans, in their early 40s, travelling to the FA Cup final in the back of a hired white limousine. On the back of this film he was signed (as one half of directing partnership Ben & Greg) to Partizan Films.
Whilst there he directed music promos for acts including Lily Allen, Oasis, and The Streets and commercial work for clients including Orange, British Airways and Yellow Pages and Reebok for whom he created a number of long format documentary pieces featuring sports stars such as Thierry Henry, Ryan Giggs, Iker Casillas, Amir Khan and Carolina Kluft.
He also had the opportunity to film many die-hard fans from Barcelona and Real Madrid. He relished the experience and returned ladened with commerative plates from both clubs, which now form part of his football memorabilia collection.
He joined RSA/ Blackdog as a director in his own right at the beginning of 2008 and has notably shot commercials for The Guardian (with Wieden & Kennedy), Asda (the whole 2009 campaign with Fallon) and Vodafone (with BBH).
In 2010 he was one of five directors selected to direct a short film for the ground-breaking Philips Parallel Lines campaign. His film El Secreto De Mateo was an earnest arthouse take on inner city deprivation and certainly shone both critically and in popularity.
Greg is also a lifelong Arsenal fan and season ticket holder. He attended his first game at Highbury in 1978 at the North End wearing an Everton scarf. He didn’t wear it again.