Production affiliations: Internationally - Go Film / Canada - Players
Geography: Irish, based in New York
Years directing: 2.5, post the agency years
Favorite project: Ikea "Uptight"
Shoot days in 2001: "My first year I had 40. People said it would be good to have 15."
Education: Self-taught

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Gary McKendry is shooting a Johns Manville job for Denver's McClain Finlon. He's in Whistler, British Columbia, trying to determine whether or not a St. Bernard can run through a 12-foot snowdrift. "It's beautiful," he says, after a day of scouting the Coast mountains in a helicopter. "But kind of weird 'cause we're shooting dogs."

Weird for an actors' director.

"Amazing visuals and vignettes are just so boring to me. All I'm really interested in is some kind of story. It doesn't have to be a big story."

One of his fondest projects was for Ikea through Carmichael Lynch in Minneapolis. "Uptight" shows a woman gazing wistfully into an Ikea showroom-style apartment across the street. "I wish we could be that organized," she hints to her husband. "People like that never have any fun," he retorts. On cue, the couple across the street runs into their living room, he in underwear and her in leather with a whip. Tension and puzzlement resonate on the cluttered side of the street.

"Almost everyone who watches that spot can relate to it," McKendry says. It's a matter of simple, straight acting and intimate performances.

McKendry gained notoriety for another intimate performance in Carlsberg's "Knowledge," which shows women discussing cunnilingus. The natural performances speak volumes for McKendry's ability to make actors comfortable.

"You just set a really tight frame. You set up some kind of visual tension and let the actor relax within that."

Two post-9/11 spots for New York City's Downtown Alliance (Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, New York) show a quirky side. A near-bald man goes for a haircut. An off-duty auto-mechanic walks into a chi-chi salon and asks for a manicure. "You may not need it, but downtown does," the tagline reads.

That quirkiness comes from imposing a point of view on what seems like a "found" moment. A bit like documentary photography. The former agency creative also attributes his behind-camera behavior to his Irish storytelling grandfather.

"He used to sit by the fire and bullshit all the time. It's one of the earliest memories I have."

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