His dad is famous for taking chances. Like father like son, it seems. "I work well when there's a bit of risk, danger or trying to catch lightning in a bottle," says 37-year-old Roman Coppola. "Maybe it's something I've observed from him. Or it could just be part of my nature."

Definitive evidence of this ability to create and capture chaos is found in Coppola's work on Fatboy Slim's groundbreaking "Praise You" video - co-directed with Spike Jonze and the recipient of three 1999 MTV Music Video Awards - where an amateur dance troupe flails to a portable radio outside a movie theatre, and on Mansun's "Taxloss", in which the director ignites the video by tossing handfuls of money off a public balcony.

"To catch something special you need to throw ingredients together and hope they combust," he says.

His spontaneous energy attracted creative directors Ken Erte and Blake Ebel of Y&R, Chicago, who picked Coppola to helm the first three-spot pool for the newly landed Orbitz account. The three :30s feature Thunderbird-inspired marionettes.

"Roman has a quirky, smart, sophisticated look and feel to his work," says Ebel. "And he is extremely collaborative and detailed."

Y&R was also impressed with Coppola's ability to quickly gather the right people for the job. "We won the pitch and were shooting three weeks later," says Ebel. "We had to design the puppets and sets from scratch. Roman immediately brought in Fantasy II [Film Effects] who he had worked with on Dracula and CQ."

Coppola defines his style as more thematic than visual. "The things I'm interested in are more playful and have a certain curiosity, a sense of delight." Witness his "Dance Man" spot for Nike Asia from Wieden + Kennedy, Portland and Tokyo, where Coppola dresses Toronto Raptors' dunk master Vince Carter in a big smile and spiffy new sneaks and sends him down the street a la Gene Kelly, saving a treed cat and stopping a purse snatcher on his way to the stadium.

Coppola, who won a Cannes Silver Lion in 2001 for his Game Show Network spots, points to Fellini, Jonze, Michel Gondry, and Directors Bureau partner Mike Mills as influences who share his love of playfulness, surprise and magic.

For all the magic, Coppola says it fades a little on large commercial shoots. "Because there is so much money at stake, safety and security and covering your ass become a big part of life. And that is a conflict for me," he says. "When you're trying to catch that spark... you have to be flexible and take advantage of what may evolve."

Coppola's restless desire to avoid repeating himself is evident in his rambling pastiche of text and pre-existing images for the new "Funky Squaredance" video for Paris-based band Phoenix. The project recalls the self-referential treatment that Charlie Kaufman brought to Adaptation and, Coppola says, might point him in a new direction.

"There may be a new chapter ahead for me that could be very unusual."

Information:
Home base: LA
Represented by (and a partner in): The Directors Bureau
Years directing: 10
On directing: It's like throwing a party and inviting the people that are going to fit well together

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