Recalling the end of the grunge era that marked his foray into music videos he adds, "I was raised on Grease, The Sound of Music and Viva Las Vegas. I thought, 'How come all of these rock and roll videos have to be such a fuckin' bummer?' That's when I started making Sugar Ray and Smashmouth videos with the dancing girls, happiness, smiling, sunshine and ultracolor. It was Pollyannic and optimistic. It seemed to resonate with what was happening at MTV because people were ready to have a good time again.

"That whole approach can be extrapolated into what I tried to do with Charlie's Angels. Given the choice between a bad time and a good time, I'd rather have a good time. That's where I found my niche. It was something that I understood and I was happy to develop that brand and that idea to the best of my abilities."

McG's sunshine sensibility was cultivated in California's Newport Beach where he grew up alongside No Doubt, The Offspring, Stone Temple Pilots and Sugar Ray. While producing tracks for Sugar Ray's first record, McG thought to capitalize on singer Mark McGrath's charisma by shooting a music video. He borrowed equipment from a friend who was a camera assistant and learned through doing.

"It's like this total Cinderella story where we shot the video on 35mm for three grand, stole all of the locations, broke every law, and everybody got hurt. The song was 'Caboose.' It ended up getting into the hands of the head of Atlantic Records who saw 10-seconds of it before saying, 'Get these guys on a plane.' They got a record deal so I made their first record and did all of their videos."

Now directing features through his own production company, Wonderland Sound and Vision, McG continues to shoot for Sugar Ray. The director's showreel includes songs "Every Morning" and "When It's Over" as well as Smashmouth's "Allstar" and Everclear's "One Hit Wonder." Among his commercial credits are Gap's "Khaki Country," Surge "Ah Nothing," and a four-spot campaign for Coors Light with comedian David Spade.

The Coors campaign signaled the director's return to commercials from the set of Charlie's Angels. "It was great coming back," reflects the filmmaker. "The one thing I learned a lot about was working with actors and learning the rhythm in the sense that some like to get it done in two or three takes while others want to work for 23 takes. You have to learn what is at your disposal in order to get the greatest performance possible."

Paraphrasing Anonymous director Mark Romanek, McG maintains that while 97% of commercials produced are fairly unremarkable, the remaining three percent still account for some of the most exciting filmmaking today.

"It's such a great exercise of your creativity. On a weekly basis you have to conceive, execute and complete a project. Whereas on a feature you toil over the same film for two years and have to deal with superstar actors. You have to get the dialog and be far more cautious and restrained. You can't just do wild things with the shutter angle and get crazy film stocks and cross process. You can do all of that in commercials and music videos."

An amalgamation of The Matrix, Austin Powers and James Bond, Charlie's Angels grossed $125.3 million in theaters domestically. When asked if he was happy with the end product, McG replies, "It's not a film that's going to make you contemplate the human condition but I feel like we created a tone that is uniquely our own."

"I had to get over a lot of hurdles, a lot of unnecessary difficulties along the way to get to where I wanted to go," admits McG. "I do ultimately feel good about it; there's stuff I would have done differently but all things considered it was a dream come true for me."

McG has begun preproduction on his next feature Dreadnought with Gladiator producer Douglas Wick.