Great things come from humble beginnings, and the origins of RSA Films are no exception. In 1968, fledgling director Ridley Scott was delving into the world of commercial production after a stint at the BBC as a set designer and then a director. While it might've required a leap of faith to start his own company, Scott, barely in his thirties, was sufficiently buoyed by his initial directing forays to take the plunge.

"Commercial filmmaking was my only film school," he recalls. Having shot a short, Boy and Bicycle, while at London's Royal College of Art, he took a BBC directing course, which led to work on assorted BBC series and offers to work on commercials. "I was successful immediately and after one year I realized it was financially sensible to go on my own."

Sensible indeed, as Ridley Scott Associates (RSA) is now a multi-continental production powerhouse in both the commercial and feature realms. And as the company celebrates its 40th year, those responsible for its success then and now cite two main factors as the pillars upon which the company's foundation rests - talent and a sense of family.

Both came into play early on. Brother Tony, star of Ridley's short and also a recent grad from the Royal College of Art, became a welcome addition to the roster at the outset. But it wasn't necessarily a love of advertising that brought him to RSA. "I had just spent eight years in art school and I owed my dad money," he says. "Then once I got into advertising I didn't look back for 10 years. It was brilliant." As a film director, he'd go on to helm Top Gun and The Hunger, among others.

Both Scotts were extremely prolific as ad directors, with Ridley shooting over 2,000 spots over the period of a decade (an early spot for Hovis, 1974's "Bike Round", was recently echoed in a 2006 campaign for the bread company and voted "favorite ad of all time" in a UK poll). By the mid-'70s, he'd wanted to move into the feature realm, and so, in 1977, he funded and shot The Duellists, which claimed the Jury Prize at Cannes in 1978. Two years later came his first major Hollywood success, Alien. Then came subsequent classics such as 1982's Blade Runner, 1991's Thelma and Louise, 2000's Oscar-winning Gladiator and 2001's Black Hawk Down, cementing his reputation as one of the pre-eminent directors of the past three decades. He was knighted for his contribution to film in 2003.

But on the commercial front, his biggest success was yet to come through the now-legendary "1984" spot for Apple's Macintosh computer, aired during that year's Super Bowl and cited in numerous polls as the best TV commercial ever made. "One thing must be made clear - people believe it was a million dollar commercial," Scott says today. "It was, in fact, $250k, with no mattes (as there was no digital then), only glass painting." Whatever the cost, it's safe to say that Apple got its money's worth.

In the mid-'80s, aiming to expand the company's reach into a new market, RSA opened a Paris branch. But unlike the UK office, it wasn't meant to be. "New York made much more sense," says Scott. Thus, in 1986, Tony and Ridley opened the New York office (now headed up by Philip Fox-Mills) and established RSA USA, Inc. Shortly afterward, Scott created a feature production company, Percy Main, and in 1995, teamed with Tony to create film/TV production company Scott Free. The Nineties also saw the brothers acquire the famed Shepperton Studios, which merged with Pinewood Studios in 2001.