Whether the task is to have horses jump across rooftops, dolphins swim beside cars, or cover an entire town in lava, Rupert Sanders is game. For the London-based director, these are merely problems waiting to be solved.

"The real job of being a director is damage limitation," says the 30-year-old director. You have to have a good mechanical common sense so you can work your way out of problems."

On Nike "The Great Return", for instance, the brief was to show movement in a different way. Sanders used 50 video cameras at various angles and captured somewhere in the neighborhood of "380 to 500 hours" of tape to create the stuttering forward motion of the spot.

In the Guinness "Lava" spot for AMV.BBDO, London (see Boards, Aug. 2002), Sanders pulled off the epic destruction of a town in three weeks, catching 90% of the action in-camera. He also added textural and comedic elements such as exploding Guinness kegs, half-dressed women running for their dresses, and villagers dancing with beer in the midst of pure chaos.

Sanders' reel is teeming with large-scale projects full of visual flair. In the last year, he has directed "Lava"; Nike's "Great Return" and "Pull Up" for Wieden + Kennedy, Portland; Nissan's "A NewIntelligence" for TBWA, Paris, and at press time was steering stallions on behalf of Lloyd's Bank for Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R, London.

Robert Campbell, managing director of Outsider, credits Sanders with an analytical mind. "He's incredibly bright in the intellectual sense," he says. "When you're doing the type of work that Rupert does, you have to have that quality. You can't just be some madcap creative who says, 'Let's get the shot in 50 takes'. When he's shooting dolphins or a job like Nike, he sits down and figures out how to deal with problems."

Sanders, who says he prefers working in the visual realm, attributes his filmicsensibilities to mentor Tony Kaye. "He taught me many things about the business - how to be bold and real, and to treat commercials like small films, like a work of art."

Though he'd studied graphic design at London's St. Martin's college, it wasn't until Sanders met Kaye in 1995 that he realized directing was exactly what he wanted to do. Traveling the US that year in an old Cadillac, sleeping under freeway bridges and generally drifting around, the neophyte landed a job on one of Kaye's shoots through a production designer friend. Kaye urged Sanders to go back to London and start directing.

He duly made the rounds at the agencies with a portfolio of ideas but no reel, and received a chilly reception. "I realized that was going nowhere because I didn't have anything to show for what I thought I could do, so I wrote a commercial for Sony Walkman and got some friends to shoot it." He took the finished commercial to BMP - Sony's UK agency - and showcased the £800 film. They loved it, bought it for £35,000 and put it to air.

Following that relative success, Sanders returned to Kaye in '95 with work in hand and began directing for Tony Kaye Films. Two and a half years later, after Kaye shut his prodco, Sanders joined Campbell, who had worked with Kaye as well, at Outsider in the UK and Omaha in the US.

Now fully versed in the world of commercials, Sanders says he is particular about the work he does. "You get a short career in commercials, and I'd like to enjoy what I do," he says.

It's this level of care and thought that Campbell says makes Sanders a special kind of director. "No matter what the project, I know he's going to come home with a good film," he says, citing the horse-laden Lloyd's project as an example. "This job is an absolute nightmare logistically. But Rupert just sat down and worked it out. He's got a real balance between the logic and creative."

What's more, his director always maintains control over the situation. "That's the point - Rupert never gets into the fire because he's thought it through first, even given just a little time."

Information:
Representation: Outsider (UK, Europe); Omaha (US)
Years directing: Eight
Jobs per year: Eight
The conference call: "He asks the right questions of people. You can't go on a conference call telling everyone how fucking great they are, or how great the script is. He finds out what they need and comes back with solutions" - Outsider's Robert Campbell
Blood and sweat: Directing is hard to do every day. You're not a performing seal who can bounce the ball. You have to take your time and enjoy what you're doing
Love and Loathing: It takes me a while to like my commercials again - Guinness was hell for months and it took me a while to look at it [afterwards], but I really like it now

WEFILES:
Outsider> http://www.outsider.tv
Omaha> http://www.omahapictures.com