Around a year ago, Keith Rose hit the wall. The cumulative effect of directing commercials for over 17 years had gotten the best of him, and, with his 50th birthday approaching, he found himself flirting with the notion of hanging 'em up for good. If he had, his legacy certainly wouldn't have been wanting - with close to two decades of spots under his belt, he's already regarded as the dean of South Africa's directors. In addition to a mantelpiece chockablock with Lions (his most heavily awarded ad: BMW's "Mouse"), the Velocity co-founder, who's also repped by Velocity@Crossroads in the US, recently made history by becoming the first South African director to be inducted into the Clio Hall of Fame. So what was left to accomplish?

As it turns out, a lot. Newly re-energized thanks to a six-month sabbatical, Rose now has his sights set on the rarefied champagne-room guest list reserved for guys named Budgen and Glazer. Fresh off a pair of epic PlayStation spots ("War" and "Duel") that he proudly refers to as "probably the strongest and the best work that I've ever done", Rose's excitement belies his 22-year career. We caught him over the phone from Velocity's Johannesburg office, where he talked about his early days as a director, his career-saving holiday and his ambitions for the future.

I started as a lighting cameraman for commercials - I did that for about four or five years, and then I started directing. I'm 50 now - I've been directing commercials for the last 17 years. As a lighting cameraman, I was always assisting directors on the visuals, and I thought if I could design the visuals [myself, as a director], then I'd have no excuse, I'd have complete control. I think my work's got a strong visual appeal to it. Maybe that comes from being into design and style and wanting to make everything look as beautiful as you can.

Every time I get to go out and shoot, it's my reward, it's the fun part. The tough part is the bullshit in terms of getting the work - the frustration, the disappointment, your wishes being taken away or changed. Maybe Frank Budgen gets his wish list, but for 99.9% of the other directors out there, it's frustrating. You rarely get everything that you want. But I also think that for every one thing that's taken away, you need to bounce back with another. You need to be constantly modifying [the idea] - if you get knocked out in the third round, you're not going to be the champion boxer. So you need to know how to recover from those blows quickly.

Most of the work that I do is South African work, and in South Africa the agencies expect and demand a complete involvement in the entire job, which goes down from art direction through to post. You're involved with the edit, the telecine, all the optical effects and even the soundtracks - most of the time you actually choose the soundtrack and do the sound design. When you supervise and see your jobs through completely, it really makes a difference.

I could never imagine just shooting a job and handing it over. Even for the work I do in America, if I can't be involved in the edit, I don't want to do the project. All the English directors are involved in the entire process, and at the end of the day, I think people like Frank Budgen and Jonathan Glazer will shoot four or five spots a year and I think Joe Pytka shoots 20 or 30. He's just a factory; he's turning them out one after the other. He's never in an edit, he's never in a telecine, and it shows.

Last year I actually took six months off. I went on a bit of a sabbatical. I needed a long holiday. I was tired and frustrated and I just needed to recharge my batteries again. Right now I'm up and running and firing on all cylinders. Taking a break was the best thing I could've done. I've got two children, and I spent a month in Mauritius with my family, I took my wife over to London and France for a month, I renovated and bought a house and I spent more time getting to know my family.

I worked seven days a week, at such late hours, and I was exhausted without even knowing it. I never had a proper life. Now I've got into a routine - I lost like 20 kilos [approx. 45 lbs], I stopped smoking, I started going to the gym, and I've just got a new lease on life. It's probably extended my career by another 10 years, and I feel like my best work is all about to start happening.

I've never seen myself as having reached the pinnacle of my career. I feel like I've got a lot to prove. I'm still desperate to create and shoot the best ads. I suppose when that desire goes away I'll move on to something else, or sit back and enjoy the kids and the house, but right now I'm just so motivated to play on the same kind of field as somebody like Ivan Zacharias. Next to Frank Budgen, he's the man; his work and his commitment are just phenomenal. There are probably only two or three people that are working on the same level - they're amazing.

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