Harold Einstein has a little over a year's experience directing spots, coming to the field as an award-winning former creative. He's worked at DDB, Wieden+Kennedy, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and BBDO. But while he isn't necessarily what you'd call a fresh fish in the ad game, Einstein still feels like the new guy. Actually, he wears "new guy" like it's a badge of honor.

"I think it's the greatest feeling in the world," the Los Angeles native enthuses. "I'm going to do everything I can to always be the new guy: [to have] that incredible enthusiasm, work ethic and feeling that you can't fail. The trick is how to remain [like] that for the rest of your career."

It's an interesting proposition, but one Einstein probably won't spend too much time fussing over. He's a come-what-may type - a former studio guitarist, he stumbled into advertising after attending night-school ("I was easily the worst in my class," he offers). Indeed, Einstein's more likely to first bust through the door and then ask what the opportunity is.

This readiness has served the director well. He signed with Hungry Man in June 2007, and when founder/managing partner Stephen Orent left to start Station Film in February, Einstein followed. That move led to comedy work for Avis ("Accents") and more recently a slyly humorous Crest campaign via Saatchi & Saatchi, New York ("Lice", "Pre-nup", "Bulldozer"), which won gold this past summer at Cannes. Next up, Einstein is working on a spot for FedEx, which he says will be "reminiscent of how good the best FedEx spots are."

I don't think anyone was having as much fun as I was making ads. But I was finding myself in a lot of meetings. I liked winning new business, but I wasn't making as much work as I wanted. I had an idea for a book, so I left full-time [working] to write it. My last job was at Goodby and a wonderful thing happened: the guy sitting across from me was Gerry Graf. He took a job at BBDO [as ECD in New York], called me and said, "Listen, we're both writers and that's why we couldn't work together at Goodby, but would you like to work together now?" It allowed me to freelance in the most ideal way imaginable because there were always incredible projects, working with an incredible person.

After a while, I finished the book, self-published it and the moment it was about to come out, some agents got a hold of it and that kicked open the door to writing screenplays. It got to the point where I realized that what I wanted to do was make what I wrote. At that time, a few friends pulled me aside and said, "Why haven't you thought about directing commercials?" It's funny: advertising was such a huge part of my life, but it never occurred to me that maybe I'd like to direct commercials.

One of the great experiences I've had in advertising was working at Cliff Freeman & Partners. Cliff was my first great teacher in advertising. He really believes that things have to be strategic - they have to communicate what needs to be communicated for the client. After that, if what you're doing isn't entertaining people - if it doesn't cause people to come to work and talk about what they saw - then you have no business asking a client for money.