Director Akim Triebsch of Applebox Productions, Toronto, has only been directing commercials for a year and a half, but he has already garnered a substantial amount of praise and notoriety within the advertising community. With award-winning spots for Yuk Yuk’s and a widely seen Bank of Montreal cinema ad, the young Triebsch’s career actually dates back to his teen years.

Triebsch started working in the film industry at the age of 18. He spent the final years of his adolescence juggling film school and a part-time job as a freelance jack-of-all-trades at Alliance.

‘I pretty much always knew that I wanted to direct,’ says Triebsch. ‘I got my first taste in high school. What happened was I started acting, I was a child actor. I did musicals and commercials – and I got bored with it really fast.’

With a few directing credits for highschool plays under his belt, he applied, and was accepted into the Film and Television Production program at Toronto’s Ryerson Polytechnic University. At the time he was working at Alliance, where he started as a pa then moved into the casting department.

‘It was a great experience and I worked there for about a year,’ Triebsch says, crediting some of his success to those early days when he just watched the pros and took mental notes. ‘I saw a lot of talent come and go and I saw a lot of directors working with the talent.’

During his time at Ryerson, taking what he had learned in the classroom while observing on set at Alliance, Triebsch made many short films, utilizing what he had learned about dealing with actors.

It was important for him to keep busy and shoot as much as possible. In his final year at Ryerson, he reports that he put together 10 short films and a documentary and used nearly 30 shooting days over the course of the year.

Before school ended, he developed an interest in editing and was able to cut together a demo reel for himself. But he soon realized the path to directorial superstardom was not as well lit as it had said on the brochure.

‘There was sort of a foggy year and a half after film school where I wondered what the hell I was doing with my life,’ he says.

After some research, Triebsch discovered that his calling might be in the commercial production industry. He contacted a friend at an ad agency who introduced him to some writers and together they developed a spec script for which he had found a client, the Yuk Yuk’s chain of comedy clubs.

After shopping himself around briefly, he was hired by Toronto’s Rave Films and immediately began work on the spot for Yuk Yuk’s. The ad depicts a store being held up by an angry robber with a double-barreled shotgun, while the cashier, an amateur comedian of sorts, performs his shtick, hitting the robber with impressions and one liners. The spot won a Silver Mobius Award and a Clio merit award.

More recently, Triebsch filmed a cinema spot that’s now running in Famous Players movie theatres across Canada. The ad is for the Bank of Montreal’s Air Miles Mastercard and involves a man sitting on an analyst’s couch confessing an addiction to using his Air Miles card. He gets progressively wackier as the 60-second spot proceeds until he winds up on the same couch in a straitjacket.

‘I really liked that one because I felt like it really came together,’ he says. ‘There was a lot we had to say in 60 seconds and it happened.’

Triebsch enjoys working with actors and good scripts and believes that laughter can be a powerful salesman. However, he says it takes more than just humor to make a good spot.

‘I like scripts that are character driven,’ Triebsch says. ‘I like edgy sorts of things that stick out. That is the kind of stuff I want to do. I like to direct spots that when you watch them you’re entertained as well as informed, and it’s not just a dry performance of some guy pushing a product in your face. I hate that.

‘The key to directing and becoming a professional director, I think, is practising the craft and being as productive as you can possibly be,’ he says. ‘I’m the kind of guy that is always directing stuff, even when I was pa-ing. I’m always working on my own stuff.’

Some day, some far-off day, Triebsch hopes to pursue a career (or at least a stint) as a feature film director. He has already penned a screenplay and unquestionably had a taste of the life on a feature set during his time at Alliance, but he says he is quite content directing spots for now.

‘[Feature directing] is definitely something I want to pursue, but [I need] a little more wisdom, a good story and the right vision before I take on something like that,’ he says.

Although he admits that he still has a lot to learn about the industry and the craft, Triebsch says he really enjoys directing commercials and plans to stick with it. He says he is still trying to discover his limitations in the area and admires the work of his fellow Canuck spot makers. He wishes, however, there were more opportunities for young directors in Canada.

‘It seems like there is not enough work being done right now and I feel that a lot of times there are too many American directors doing what we as Canadian directors can do just as well, or better.’