Revolver Films’ Geoff Ayres is among this year’s First Cut honorees for whom the top-five plaque will not be the only hardware sitting atop the mantle at home. Ayres already has a gold BDA Award to his credit from his early forays into advertising as an editor and writer, experience and accolades he parlayed into a commercial career beginning at Revolver Films two years ago.

While pursuing an English Lit/Theatre degree at the University of Toronto, Ayres was already dipping his beak into the production world, teaching himself how to edit and practicing the craft at Scarborough’s Cable 10 outlet.

A musical friend with a Videofact grant burning a tiny hole in her pocket, called Ayres’ editing skills into play on a music video which made it to the MuchMusic Video Awards and into the view of FashionTelevision producer Jay Levine, who offered Ayres a part-time editing gig.

So, in the latter part of his academic career, Ayres spent his spare time sifting through hours of supernipples and bottoms as editor for ft, signing up full time on the show and its sequel, Ooh La La, after his degree was completed.

From that post, Ayres began writing promo spots for MuchMusic, including a psa for an aids charity walk. The spot, depicting a ‘Lawrence of Arabia-style character’ walking through fields with a red flag, used a dictionary definition of walking as the basis for the copy. ‘They had $500 and I was teaching myself to shoot Bolex,’ says Ayres. That spot ended up with bda gold and provided an entry point to spot directing and Revolver.

Ayres began his official directing career at Revolver with a spot for gm minivans, and was also called back to direct a Nintendo spot for Much. He says the transition from editing to directing has been ‘huge,’ with nailing down the agency-director banter one of the biggest challenges.

‘The roughest stuff for me in the beginning was getting the boardroom down,’ he says.

His approach to establishing agency communications is emphasizing the creative, says Ayres. ‘For me, it’s all about the board; where can you take the board to make it better? Storytelling is paramount.’

Ayres cites an aptitude for visuals as one of his main strengths, and his eye-catching reel backs up the claim. The reel includes the visually engaging Coors Light ‘Talking Can’ effort shot in New Zealand, the ‘Saran Wrap’ installment of the Pizza Pops campaign, Nintendo’s ‘The Dove,’ the death-defying ‘Street Speed Skaters’ for ReMax, and ‘Coach’ for 3M.

The director’s personal favorite is the ReMax spot, which illustrates the professional superiority of the real estate company’s sales force with a rolling metaphor.

The spot depicts besuited real estate agents in an all-out street rollerball race, with the hell-on-wheels ReMax super-closers skating to victory through the streets on which it deals.

‘It was shot on a shoestring budget, but I got to shut down the Lakeshore,’ Ayres recalls fondly. The shoot took place on the aforementioned Toronto artery last November and provided Ayres the challenge of delivering the death-defying acts of the roller sales warriors without mishap.

The director says getting the skates right was a large part of the challenge, with Ayres shooting them from numerous angles and compositing in sparks at Axyz. To accelerate the danger quotient, a Mack truck – seen bearing down on the skaters – was moved in closer to the action at Axyz than shooting would prudently allow.

Looking down the road, Ayres is aiming at stretching his directorial limbs further in the commercial realm.

‘I want to keep working and continue to define myself,’ he says. ‘That encompasses a lot of different things – great dialogue as well as visual images that grab you and give you a rattle.’