Barnaby Clay graduated from the London International Film School in 1996 where his short film Justice in Mind was the school's entry to the Fuji Film Scholarship Awards and took home the top award of Best Film. Soon after leaving film school he moved into directing music videos and commercials. He has directed music videos for influential bands including John Spencer Blues Explosion, TV on the Radio, Gnarls Barkley, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Dave Gahan. In 2003 Clay traveled to Russia with the gypsy punk band Menlo Park to make his first documentary for Britain's Channel 4 entitled Greetings From Beartown. In 2005 he wrote and directed a 10-minute narrative short film for Ritz Fine Jewellery titled Carousel, starring Chloe Sevigny. Clay's fantasy horror short, Finkle's Odyssey, won the Méliès d'Argent at the Fantsporto Film Festival, also collecting awards at the Brooklyn International Film Festival, Marvais Genre, IFCT, 24 FPS Film Festival. Clay re-worked Mick Rock's classic music video for David Bowie's "Life On Mars" as part of Vice Media and Intel's Creators Project series, traveling globally under the name Life On Mars Revisited. Clay's collaboration with Vice continued as he directed the Vice Films feature documentary on Mick Rock entitled Shot! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock, which was theatrically released by Magnolia Pictures in 2017.