Following a three-year hiatus from the world of commercials, award-winning industry vet Bill Irish is back in the director’s chair.

Irish has been in the biz for almost 30 years. His shoots have taken him to every area of the country (aside from the Yukon), and at last count, which was back in 1985, he had shot well over 2,000 spots.

His ad career started in the early 1960s with a job at McConnell Eastman Advertising in Calgary. In 1963, he relocated to Toronto and took a job at McKim Advertising and then moved over to Ronalds Reynolds. He started directing in the early ’70s and from 1974 to 1990 was a partner in The Partners’ Film Company.

Over the years Irish has been repped out of Rabko Film Productions, Circle Productions, Kessler Irish Films (now blink pictures) and now, coming out of retirement, is on the roster at Vancouver-based Aviator Pictures.

Trading in his camera for a canvas and a brush, Irish spent the last few years painting ‘very large and realistic Canadian vistas.’ Now, with eight of his works hanging on the walls of the Edward Day Gallery in Toronto, he decided it was time to switch hats once again.

‘I started out as a graphic artist so painting has always been a part of me, but I never had a chance to do it and I always had some art director looking over my shoulder saying, `No Bill, not that way, this way,’ ‘ says Irish. ‘So this was wonderful and complete freedom.’

As a young man curious about film, Irish would sneak in after-hours at the studio where he was working to shoot some still life with the film camera and build himself a reel. His advice to young directors: ‘Get your hands on a camera, read the manual, write and make yourself a reel.’

Of all the spots helmed by Irish, the one that stands out as a favorite is the 1990 Gold Bessie winner ‘Bike Story’ for Canadian Tire featuring a little boy, a catalogue and a shiny new bike.

Throughout his career Irish has lensed ads in every genre covering action, vignettes, dialogue and children and has always considered himself a communicator rather than a director.

‘What I fell in love with about the advertising business was learning to communicate and what makes a good communication,’ says Irish. ‘I have continued to look at myself not as a director or a writer but as a communicator, and that has gone into my painting.’