Heavily influenced by the all-Canadian witticism of sctv and inspired by the films of Orson Welles, Toronto-based director Wade Sherman is making heads turn with the simplistic style and ironic humor signature on much of his recent commercial work.

‘I always wanted to be a music video editor until I became one,’ says Sherman, who made the proverbial leap from music video production to commercial directing when he joined the team at Spy Films two years ago.

Just after Sherman graduated from York University with a bfa in film production seven years ago, he moved to l.a. to become a rock star. He figured, ‘Wow man, this is Hollywood.’ But for Sherman, the American dream translated into becoming a casting assistant for various tv productions, including Fresh Prince of Bel Air and a flopped series for Fox.

Eventually, he landed a job at Planet Picture, where he gophered around on music videos. But unable to get a green card, he returned to Toronto three months later.

Shortly after he arrived home, he hooked up with Revolver Films, where he had applied for a job as a p.a. from California on Fox letterhead.

‘They must have thought that I had a ton of experience, but I really didn’t know the first thing about being a p.a.. . . I showed up the first day in a leather-sleeved Fox jacket which was trashed by the end of the day. I had no idea I’d be pumping pop and driving a cube van.’

At Revolver, Sherman taught himself how to use the post facilities and before long he started synching rushes and doing post work for such up-and-coming directors (at the time) as Floria Sigismondi, Pete Henderson and Don Allan.

But Sherman’s first signal of notoriety came with the MuchMusic Best Videofact Award for an r&b music video he made with dop Sean Valentini for Funkasaurus.

‘Once I won, people started to think `Maybe he can direct,’ but I couldn’t,’ says Sherman, who went on to direct 10 more videos with Revolver/Partners’, including Holly McNarland’s Numb, and made the transition to commercial directing by producing on-air promotions and image id spots for Bravo!, where he remained for eight months.

Three years ago, he joined up with ytv to do much of the same sort of producing/directing, but this time for kids. ‘I clicked into a market that’s good for me. I like doing kids’ stuff and writing and doing concepts, and there I became really familiar with the 30-second format on a broadcast level.’

Because Revolver wasn’t giving Sherman ‘real commercial representation,’ he switched over to Spy and since then he says, ‘I’ve really begun building my commercial reel.’

Around the same time he landed a campaign of toy spots for Tiger Toys in New York, where he shot for 10 days.

‘I like the experience. The only way I can become a good director is through directing,’ he says. And this same pragmatic approach can be seen in much of Sherman’s work, including a spot on drinking for MuchMusic, which he shot in one take, without any fancy angles or camera movement.

‘I’m interested in simple execution, in what’s going on in the frame,’ which is blatantly apparent in this particular spot that is simply one 30-second, close shot of a young girl talking about a hangover. The focus on her face and the irony of the script are effective without any camera movement or cuts. ‘There’s just not a huge sense of what’s not important,’ says Sherman, who’s interested in doing more ‘dialogue stuff.’

But Sherman’s favorite spot on his reel is ‘Shmenge,’ a 30-second, black-and-white spoof on music video directors for MuchMusic, on which he used his own Hi-8 video camera. Costing a total of $8 to produce and utilizing one fluorescent bulb, one character and zero art direction, he says, ‘it’s purely conceptual, purely humor.’

In a similar vein, Sherman recently completed an aids awareness spot for MuchMusic, in which a fictional porno star provides a step-by-step demonstration of how to put a condom on. Not a stretch for the young director who is consistently drawn to clever, humorous concepts. ‘Good ideas and performance-driven talent inspires me more than beautiful pictures and flashy techniques.’

But Sherman, who admits to having a real penchant for the creative, has struggled with the fact that commercial directing is mostly about working with already existing ideas.

‘In tv, my boss would say to me, `Come up with the idea and shoot it,’ but in commercials you don’t get a chance to pitch. It’s two different ways of thinking and it was frustrating at first.’

At the moment, Sherman is writing and directing a ytv image campaign for the summer and bidding on the Star Wars collection for New York-based Grey Advertising.