A female beauty shakes her sumptuous body in tune to a high-tech party beat; a hipster Heineken boy sits besotted with eye-popping appeal. Their passions mount as the siren sways to a crescendo, her gyrating hips knocking over a fishbowl between the two lovebirds. Heineken boy seizes the day, dives across a coffee table and catches the bowl only inches from the floor.

Director Richard D'Alessio follows yet another high-energy beer scene on set in Toronto, shooting a series of spots for Heineken Italia with BRW through Imported Artists in Toronto.

Repped by Shooting Gallery in the US and Imported Artists in Canada, D'Alessio's latest visual treat is another alcoholic accolade that follows on from his enormously successful "Bud Light Date," through DDB Needham, Chicago, that blew the competition away at the Superbowlfest of advertising this past January.

"Let's face it; beer advertising's all about the entertainment value -- nobody's selling the contents of the bottle anymore," says D'Alessio, taking a breather as his crew sets up for another action/comedy scene. "It's the lifestyle, the image and the moment that's important to capture. Plus the Heineken campaign is particularly North American in style with a healthy dose of quirky comedy to play around with."

D'Alessio's visual eye had graced the young director with a plenitude of memorable spots. Well-composed camera angles, excellently handled pacing, appropriately directed talent and deftly handled editing run rampant throughout his reel. This has left D'Alessio in an enviable place in the world of commercial production with work of late seemingly privy to the elusive know-how of advertising modernity. His spots thoroughly engage contemporary audiences worldwide, the huge success of his "Bud Light Date" being a major case in point.

"Budweiser's about making it entertaining and funny," notes D'Alessio when asked about the success of the spot. "When I see their creative, it's about being funny and getting that cultural pulse -- they don't focus group the shit out of everything. They react on a gut level, go with it and don't waste a million dollars when they come out of the gates. Budweiser's doing it with ideas and comedy which I love."

Whether his work is comedic or dramatic in nature, visuals flow together seamlessly to create energetic and engaging narratives. Pontiac Sunfire's "Squeegie" and "Blind Date" through MacLaren McCann, Toronto display D'Alessio's talent as a director, particularly with the talent being filmed. "Squeegie" sees the colloquial window swiper foiled by the majesty of the Sunfire, the menacing streetwise kid conveyed through the slightest of gestures and facial movements, while "Blind Date" conveys the horror that a lady experiences with a date who displays the kind of etiquette to make any frat boy proud. But how does the director know he's on to a winner and keep the challenge alive?

"It's totally visual when I pick a job," answers D'Alessio. "It's that visualization that drives me; when I receive a script and it somehow connects, I see the characters and the story unfold. That initial spark is when I know it's right and I know that I can do a great job...the visual storytelling makes my job so challenging."

Yet transferring the idea from paper to the moving image is admittedly no easy feat, no matter how stunning the boards. D'Alessio sidesteps this problem by familiarizing himself with his technicians to free his artistic eye and convey the creatives' ideas.

"I work alongside people that I have a good working relationship with," says D'Alessio.

"People who can accomplish the technical aspects of the job -- it allows me to freely capture what I need. I've been working with the same people for 10 years."

Good relationships leave D'Alessio to probe good ideas, the manna to nourish his creative palette within the Canadian landscape.

"You have a lot of idea-driven advertising in Canada," explains D'Alessio on Canadian advertising. "Canada doesn't have the huge budgets to support the visual extravaganza and image campaigns so popular in the US, but I came here because Canadian advertising is driven by the writing, the comedy and the idea. That's at the heart of it, no matter what."

"It's a lot like the UK here in Canada," adds D'Alessio of his job as a director in the land of Canucks. "The director's expected to perform the edit, expected to be at the transfer -- your input is recognized as a filmmaker."

D'Alessio is also working on an intriguing feature entitled Back to Zero, a bizarre film containing documentary footage of recovering drug addicts, real actors and junkies as actors shot on 35mm. "I took one of the stories [in the documentary] about a methane clinic counselor and wrote a script around his devastation that the clinic was going to be closed down. The whole thing turns into a hostage situation and it all goes to rat shit."

Webfiles>

Imported Artists> www.importedartists.com

Shooting Gallery> www.shootinggallery.com