This was our credo.

Johan Gulbranson and I were charged with setting up Leo Film for the Oslo offices of Leo Burnett back when television commercials were only on satellite, and a national commercial television channel was in the planning stages.

We did stuff that could get us fired just about every month.

Such as producing commercials the client had said no to -- behind the backs of the client and the account executive -- just because we knew they were good and deserved to be made. We got lucky, and the commercial won a gold in the national competition -- and started a long and fruitful relationship with a client who realized something a lot of clients don't: that what looks dangerous on paper, as a script, will turn out wonderful on film, if done by someone who is able to pull the necessary charm and warmth out of the story.

Most advertising is a waste -- we all agree on that. But for a few wonderful years in little Norway, less advertising turned to waste because there were no rules to go by. Of course, there was a broadcasting ethic to judge scripts by -- but there were no standardized tests, focus groups or any of the other expensive crap that keeps advertisers from advertising. All the BS that turns them into scared little mice showing their tails to potential consumers.

So Norwegian advertising just took off -- with Leo Burnett, New Deal and JBR/McCann suddenly springing onto the world stage in Cannes and at numerous other festivals, with trailblazing commercials that won gold after gold after gold. And for a country of just over four million people, that was quite an achievement.

Then the advertisers and the account executives got wise to what was going on. They instituted rigorous testing and pre-screening and dumped manuals we had to go by on our desks.

We still did stuff that could get us fired -- but in the end, we fired ourselves. The fun had gone out of making advertising.

Did the spots work? Yes, they did.

Scandinavian agencies such as Rönnberg McCann and Paradiset in Sweden, Wibroe Duckert & Partners in Copenhagen, and the above-mentioned Norwegian ones, turned out work that imprinted their clients on the minds of consumers. Spots that were talked about, spoofed, referred to in print and television, and that turned up on all those reels of great advertising that were assembled by foreign television stations.

We had a blast.

One high point was when Leo Film, which was strictly an in-house production company for Leo Burnett in Oslo, got a script from BBH in London. "Would we do a commercial for them?" We turned them down, stressing that we were strictly in-house, but used their fax and our reply in a trade ad for the agency.

Well, the advertisers and the account executives continue to do their damnedest to destroy good ideas and have us churn out the trite and the commonplace.

But Scandinavians are stubborn and hardy. The Swedes have turned out a pride of great directors, in music promos and commercials, and several Norwegian directors have found their ways to Hollywood and elsewhere, on the backs of ground-breaking commercials that are now imitated around the world.