Stone and his fellow Storm director Trent Cooper are now hooked up to produce commercials through Helen Langridge Associates (HLA), London; HLA directors Rob Sanders, Othmar Sweers and Tom Vaughan will direct similar ventures through Storm in the US. Stone already had a music video deal with HLA so they were an obvious choice (Stone has shot a number of videos for Philadelphia hip-hop maestros The Roots.) "I'm looking forward to doing work in Europe," says Stone. "They are more ballsy in their conceptualization and I like that."

Currently, Stone is editing his first feature for Dimension Films, tentatively named Paid in Full. Filmed in Toronto and Harlem over the summer months, Stone says the film is a harsh coming-of-age story set in the Harlem of the early 1980s.

"In a way it was good SAG had a strike, because it allowed me to get principal photography [on the feature] done and now I am editing. Commercials are just getting back on their feet in the US," says Stone, who plans to begin directing commercials again in early 2001.

Steve Weinshel, Storm's executive producer, and Mike Wells, managing director of HLA concur that the cross representation between the two companies is a snug fit (indeed, Weinshel hopes HLA directors Sanders and Vaughan will contribute short-form content to www.stateoftheunderworld.com, a new media venture currently being put together by Storm.)

"It is always difficult to rep out-of-town directors on your own roster and vice versa, it's hard to have your own directors repped in a local market by a company that has its own directors to represent," says Wells. "Here, there is no obvious clash: neither of us believe in having rosters as long as your arm."

Stone is looking towards the future and directing more commercials as well as premiering his feature in March of next year. The first "Whassup" ad out of DDB, Chicago broke on Christmas Eve of 1999, followed by Super Bowl 2000; the rest of the year was crammed with adulation, prizes and spoofs. Grateful but unfazed, Stone rolls on: "I'm looking forward to creating more absurd stories in commercials," he says. "I am really into folks' absurdity."