Working through Stark in his native London and (newly launched Headquarters satellite) BrandTV in the US, Holloway has directed spots for Reebok, Sony, Quizno's, Adidas, Burger King and Miller in both the US and the UK. Rather than contemplating life's mysteries on a mountaintop following graduation, Holloway applied his combined street smarts and book learning to music videos for the likes of Shane McGowan and Sinead O'Conner. After a few years of hands-on experience in pop promos, Holloway dropped out and wrote a number of feature scripts, one of which, "Stop History," is slated for production this November via the East London Film Fund. The script combines absurd humor with immigration and ethnic identity issues within the story of three East London taxi drivers and their offspring. In 1999, he shot his first spot, a test commercial for the Metropolitan Police through TBWA GGT Simons Palmer.

"Writing was great, but not shooting was a problem for me; so the initial reason I wanted to do commercials was to be shooting, but also to learn about storytelling in 30 seconds," says Holloway. "I'm quite a control freak and it's quite a control thing to tell a story in 30 seconds; in features you tell a story in an hour and a half. Movie making and commercial making are, on the surface, similar, but the pacing, storytelling and timing are quite different."

Similarities exist when directing crews, says Holloway, especially when it comes to maintaining a positive outlook on set. Holloway, himself a free-speaking fellow, frowns upon the common tendency of directors to belittle the role of crew or creatives on set.

"Creatives spend months working on scripts so you can't just walk in and take it over. There are ways of getting what you want where you can work from the idea; that's what filmmaking is like," says Holloway. He recently collaborated with Cliff Freeman & Partners, New York on a Quizno's campaign.

Each spot begins with a corporate pitchman who likens the sub franchise's innovative toasting methods to historic developments throughout history. Cut to pre-history, where a droll group of English-accented cave dwellers at first ridicule and then praise a man who learns to hunt with a stick; other spots have the same troupe discovering the fork and trousers, all tinged with a very Pythonesque humor. Taras Wayner, Cliff Freeman art director on the job, explains how and why Holloway worked on the campaign.

"He did these two-minute Olympic spots for Adidas that were very running gun, scripted, but very open," explains Wayner. "We knew we had to control the idea with the scripts but he was very good at letting the actors unfold and work with each other. After a couple of days they just kept doing different new things. He was hands off in letting it happen rather than controlling what they said."

Holloway explains one of the basics of his approach to a directing a commercial:

"It's management of time on a shoot. As soon as you deliver the boards everyone is happy and then you have time to say what about this or what about that and see what happens with improvising, filtering the bullshit," he says.