Andy McLeod has a very direct, no-nonsense way of describing his on-set ethos as a director. After 18 years as a creative, eight of which were spent as a founding partner and ECD at Fallon, London, he's well aware that when he goes after a script, his career history might precede him.

"You don't want to put anyone's noses out of joint," he says over the phone from London. "I'm a pretty easy going bloke - I'm not going to stand up in a pre-prod and be a prima donna and embarrass the creative director. I'm going to be an easy buy for a creative director if it can allow me to do something great for my reel."

Having racked up a few directing credits while still working as a creative at Fallon, the 40-year-old felt it was time for a change and decided to quit the agency world to focus on directing full-time. Last December, he parted ways with his long-time art director partner Richard Flintham and joined the roster at Rattling Stick.

Since then, he's added two impressive spots to his reel: Skoda "Giggle" for Fallon in which the machinery at the company's Czech production plants makes satisfied, human noises and a tension-filled, single-take PSA for BBH, London and UK children's charity Barnardo's. Based on a real incident, "Never Give Up" shows a stony-faced child answering a social worker's repeated questions about his friends and family with a dismissive, "I told them to fuck off."

After shooting two versions, both McLeod and the agency preferred the more impactful single-take version. "Weirdly, my editor's got it as the first thing on his reel," he says.

In "Never Give Up", he saw a pure, dialogue-driven story. The challenge was to ensure the spot had impact beyond the F-word. As a copywriter, he admits to being "very hands on" when it came to the dialogue in his spots. Though his reel to date boasts mostly naturalistic performance-based comedy work, he's hoping "Giggle" and "Never Give Up" will be the start of more varied, visual jobs to come.

For the time being, he's focused on getting a few music videos under his belt and continuing to build his spot reel.

"Advertising is the thing I'm good at," he says. "What I can bring [to directing] is a strong background in ideas, making them work as best they can and telling a story as best it can be told. I couldn't say that I'm being hired for my lens-craft skills as such. I'll be getting better and better at the 'looky' side of things as I go on."

Rattling Stick http://www.rattlingstick.com