Careful strategic planning, witty creative, streamlined budgets and the slickest of special effects amount to naught in the absence of el director.

Filmmaker, plotter, charismatic leader or tyrant, the top director brings together the rather abstract components of 21st-century branding. The director buffs, shines and shapes these hopefully sales-inducing missives and ultimately, rams them into the waiting minds of the world's increasinglyunreceptive viewing public.

We have assembled a roundup of 23 commercial directors from the US, UK, Europe and Latin America whose solid work has been riding high atop the heaps of reels bombarding Boards HQ.

As an added bonus, each has submitted their personal favorite piece of short-form goodness. These pieces are available for viewing at:

http://www.boardsmag.com/screeningroom/2002topdirectors

• Jonas Akerlund


• Bruno Aveillan


• Brian Beletic


• Bryan Buckley


• Tom Carty


• Curtis Wehrfritz


• Laurence Dunmore


• Craig Gillespie


• Paul Goldman


• Colin Gregg


• Michael Patrick Jann


• Walter Kehr


• Gary McKendry


• Dominc Murphy


• Mehdi Norowzian


• Klaus Obermeyer


• Peluca


• Lisa Rubisch


• Ralf Schmerberg


• Zack Snyder


• Traktor


• Malcolm Venville


• David Lodge