Production affiliation: Internationally - Partizan
Years directing: 14
Shoot days in 2001: 17 days since mid-December, 2001
Geography: British, based in New York
Favorite project: "Doors" for Volkswagon Passat
Age: 37

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Dominic Murphy's latest commercial was for a Mastercard-sponsored internship with MTV's Music in High Places, a program that hands famous bands free trips to exotic locales and then follows them around with cameras.

The McCann-Erickson, New York spot stars a wide-eyed, 17-year-old Ethan Hawke look-a-like riding a bus. You don't know where he's going but you know that he's excited about it, and maybe a little nervous. The typically vague Mastercard voiceover catalogs hourly rates for the internships that nepotism might provide until we get to the "priceless" moment as the boy steps off the bus and into a throng of screaming music fans.

"The kid was just perfect," he adds. So was the amount of teenage excitement Murphy distilled in 30 seconds.

His most famous spot was "Just Two Minutes..." for Heinz soup via Leo Burnett London. The spot shows a woman getting out of bed just after sex, in time to retrieve a hot bowl of soup that's "ready in two minutes." The footage almost has a hidden-camera quality. It took a Gold Lion at Cannes last year.

A favorite project involves a neurotic scientist type on his way to work. The man obsessively taps his coffee pot lid, shuts his front door, latches the gate and closes his car door. It's almost musical. He arrives at work and starts opening and closing the door of a VW Passat (BMP DDB, London). He's a quality control inspector. It's pure BBC mystery right up to the tag.

The common thread is authenticity.

"I try to get very believable performances. I'd like to think they have a very subtle sense of humor about them."

Murphy studied method acting while living in London. "It really helps you get the emotional essence of what's going on in the scenes. It's had a massive effect on my work."

For now, commercials offer a chance to experiment, but Murphy intends to get a feature project off the ground soon. He's currently got five or six on the go and is working on a script with Shane Smith, one of the founders of Vice magazine.