Take a look through Noam Murro's reel over the past year and it isn't hard to see that the director, some 10 years into the ad-making game, has yet to shy away from diversity. Take the eclectic range of spots that propelled him to his fifth Directors Guild of America (DGA) nomination in six years (he won in 2005). NBA "Remember" plays like a character study of Celtic fans the day they discovered that power forward Kevin Garnett was traded to the team. VW "Night Drive" is a visually brooding piece set to an excerpt of Richard Burton's reading of Dylan Thomas' classic play Under Milk Wood. And Orbit Gum "Affair" humorously points out that "Pickle, you cumquat!" is as effective a way to curse out an unfaithful husband as any.

Always looking to "expand his creative expression", Murro ventured outside of the spot world for his first feature Smart People, which premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival. It's an independent film, or a "smaller" film in his words, and decidedly unlike his previous stalled effort at directing The Ring Two, the sequel to the box-office horror smash The Ring. But taking the least expected route for a first-time feature director is, for Murro, about pushing himself outside of his comfort zone. As for the fear that can come with constantly trying new things creatively, "Sure, I'm scared shitless so it's fine," he says. "Trepidation is my second name."

What drove you to choose Smart People over the other scripts you were looking at for your first feature?

At some point you have to make a decision. Looking for the perfect script is a complete and utter waste of time because they don't exist and if they do, you're not going to get them, because there are a lot of people looking for exactly the same thing. It's a combination of things and you have to decide how you're going to tackle the mountain. Some people decide to tackle it by doing a big studio film that has a tremendous amount of budget where maybe the story is not so important. There are a plethora of horror films where you can get your first shot so to speak. I think what I've decided to do is take the harder route and do an independent film and see how that works. I wanted to work with something that is not perfect, but is a lot closer to something that I feel that I'd like to go see. That was the criteria: do I want to go see the film that I'm going to be working on? I try to stay true to myself in that sense and to work with something that's a bit more manageable and a bit more humble. Humility is another important part to it - doing something that is smaller and a bit more meaningful.

What is it about a commercial script that still captures your attention?

Always the content. For me, part of the issue is we are always as good or as bad as what's given to us. There is no magic wand here. If you get a great script, chances are you have a great spot and vice versa. However, choosing a script is a tricky business because part of what I at least try to do - and I'm not always successful - is experiment. I try to make sure that I'm not repetitious. Sometimes you make those choices and they're pricey, meaning you're going to do something that you haven't done before or hasn't been done quite like it before, and that may or may not work out. But at least what you're doing is trying to expand your creative expression and do stuff that's different for the world out there.

Do you consider feature filmmaking a step up from ad-making?

I never thought of doing spots as an inferior thing to anything else - it is what it is. It has greatness in it, and it has not-so-greatness in it, like film in that sense. There's simply no class system for me; it's not a step up and it's not a step down. They are branches - one goes to the left, the other to the right - but they stem from the same roots, and that is your creative being.

How did you approach "Night Drive" for VW Golf? Was it a challenge trying to visually depict the tone of a classic like Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood?

The truth of the matter is when you have something this good, this profound, this beautiful, you could put my bah-mitzvah tape on it and it would look good. As much as I'd like to take credit for being this great director who did this work, I have to say that it's all about the text. The idea is to understand the beauty of it rather than make it better. The approach was to be humble and not to be overbearing.

Of the spots you directed last year, which did you find the most challenging?

They're all my children and they all have their own issues. The one thing I can tell you is I love them, I love doing them and I love working on them. Each one is important to me and that is what it's all about.

INFORMATION
Production Affiliations: Biscuit co-founder and president. Repped by Biscuit@Independent for the UK.

Influences: "It's endless. You learn from everyone. You learn every time from the great ones and you learn from the bad ones. And if that process stops then you're done. Who influenced me? Everybody did. It starts from the letter A and it ends with the letter Z... if there is a director with the letter Z."

Biscuit Filmworks http://www.biscuitfilmworks.com
Biscuit@Independent http://www.independ.net