On the basis of enthusiasm alone, up-and-coming commercial director Clay Staub has a great career in store.

The slender Californian, now living and directing in Canada through Toronto-based Stripes, can barely contain himself as he takes you through every filmic fragment of his work.

His eyes light up, his fingers tap the table, and he speaks with the same quick pace as the flashing images that appear on the television monitor throughout the screening of his reel.

‘I’m at my best when I’m getting kind of crazy, but I’m also aware that the product must sell. I’d love to get on a project that really kicksthat is really ‘out there’I like to think of people looking at the spot and saying, ‘Wow, I never thought about doing it that way.’ ‘

The 31-year-old graduate of the film department of Pasadena’s Art Centre College of Design may be still in the early stages of commercial directing, but he already shows evidence of a well-developed filmmaking tenacity and a natural flair for problem-solving.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the centerpiece of Staub’s reel – a speculative commercial for Nike shoes that is stylish and accomplished in itself, but breathtaking when you learn that it was a spec piece. There is nothing in the commercial to suggest it was anything but a national, big-budget spot for one of America’s famous advertisers.

In fact, the real production value comes from the sense of personal mission, and Staub’s unwillingness to compromise on any aspect of the spot. He literally begged, borrowed, and called in every possible favor to see the project through. All in, the commercial cost about $15,000.

At the time it began, Staub just had caught the attention of special effects wizard John Dykstra and was on board at Dykstra’s once-powerful effects house, Apogee Productions, as one of the young emerging directors.

Staub came up with the idea of the commercial for Nike.

‘I thought, a shoe is kind of like a car with all the design and engineering that goes into them. They test running shoes the same way they test cars, don’t they?’

So, in the commercial, we open in a very high-tech-looking wind tunnel. An engineer in a lab outfit is conducting tests on a car-sized Nike running shoe. A testing device sends jets of air over the aerodynamic shoe as scientists look in from a viewing station outside the tunnel. The spot ends with the graphic, ‘ReDefine Air.’

While Apogee was willing to give some support to the project, it was Staub’s ingenuity that made it happen.

The production company offered Staub a camera and stages for one day, so he and a friend built the tunnel set, which measured 40 feet, in 10-foot segments on Staub’s parents’ front lawn.

He talked some friends into helping him build an amazingly accurate running shoe model out of foam, which was then textured with wall plaster.

But even before Staub began the project, Apogee had begun a decline in popularity and by the time Staub had all the live-action elements he needed on film, the company was about to close down.

‘My enthusiasm for the project never died,’ says Staub.

With negative in hand Staub was able to infect others with his passion for the project and managed, somehow, to have the footage transferred, composited and edited at some of the top facilities and with big-name post-production talent at little or no cost.

Says Staub: ‘The best spots you see are the ones where people have been concrete about one idea, and have really thought about it a lot.

‘I don’t think you should be worrying about the money right from the start. You have to worry about the idea.’