Jabbar Thomas spent most of his childhood and teen age years in Tampa, Florida. He
decided on a career very early in his life: he wanted to be a super hero! Upon
discovering that he has no super powers, he settled on being an astronaut and an
engineer (just like his hero Montgomery Scott from the T.V. series Star Trek). Jabbar
relocated from Tampa to Atlanta, Georgia in his senior year in high school and
graduated from the legendary engineering magnet school Frederick Douglass High.
After graduating from high school in 1990, Jabbar enrolled at Morehouse College and
immediately declared physics as his major. Though he had many grand adventures at
Morehouse (even interning at a NASA facility working with spacecraft just like his hero
Montgomery Scott from the T.V. series Star Trek), this second dream would also go
down in flames! After four long years of torturing the tutors in the math labs at
Morehouse with every conceivable wrong answer to calculus equations, Jabbar decided
that it was time for a change. Since childhood, Jabbar had voraciously read comics,
watched cyberpunk anime and written short stories. Though he was an ardent fan of the
science fiction films and T.V. shows of the 70's and 80's, as a college student, it had
never occurred to him that he could actually make a living doing what he enjoyed in his
spare time. Until now. Jabbar now wanted to do what came naturally; he wanted to tell
stories similar to the ones that inspired him as a child and use motion pictures as a
medium.
Jabbar changed direction, changed schools, and changed his major. He completed his
college education at Georgia State University with dual degrees in Communication: Film
and TV and Psychology. On the advice Mary Tucker (mother of his childhood friend, actor Chris Tucker), Jabbar left Atlanta in 1998 for Los Angeles and film school at Loyola Marymount University. This was a big step: Jabbar was leaving everything and everyone he had ever known to gamble on Hollywood. Jabbar met with success soon after arriving at LMU.
He quickly developed a reputation as an excellent writer, producer and director. As such, he was awarded a scholarship and tasked to supervise the camera, light and grip departments
at the film school. He used this access to professional film equipment to thoroughly
learn production procedure and the technical side of film making.
Despite nearly running over Steven Spielberg in a golf cart on the Universal backlot (Mr.
Spielberg was actually quite nice about the whole misunderstanding), Jabbar was
awarded the Cosgrove Award at Paramount Studios for directorial achievement on his
second year student film entitled Starchild. One year later, his thesis film The Advent (a
science fiction film with spaceships AND superheroes) earned him the prestigious
Kodak Young Film maker’s Grant.
After graduating from LMU with an MFA in Film Production, Jabbar worked freelance in the LA film industry, determined to found his own production company and tell his own stories. He established Starchild Films LLC, shortly after graduation and rapidly developed an extensive list of high-profile credits.
From 2003-2007, Jabbar served as a film production instructor at the legendary
Crenshaw High School in its Media Art and Design Academy. As a full-time film maker,
part-time teacher, Jabbar steered innumerable inner-city high school students from
careers in the comparatively shaky fields of medicine and business towards “very stable
careers in show business�. At Crenshaw High, Jabbar was instrumental in developing the Feiberg Fellowship with Loyola Marymount University, a program dedicated to inner-city high school students, affording them a head start on their college careers in film school as well as entrée into the entertainment industry.
Having moved his production company from L.A. to Atlanta, Jabbar is an active member
of the local film community having filled his showreel with many excellent projects from
clients the metro-Atlanta area. Jabbar also served as the line producer for The
CW/WUPA-TV’s weekly talk show “Focus Atlanta�. Jabbar is currently a proud husband,
a part-time professor of Digital Film making and Video Production at the Art Institute of
Atlanta, a member of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), a
volunteer with Atlanta Film Festival 365, and a member of Kappa Kappa Psi National
Honorary Band Fraternity. Jabbar is also an Apple Certified Trainer for Final Cut Pro 7
and X.
