GORD McWatters lives in the ‘best of both worlds.’ The Spy Films spot helmer is also the creative director for Space: The Imagination Station and the soon-to-be-launched Drive-In Channel. For him, the balance of Spy jobs and full-time work within the ChumCity empire is the perfect blend.

In 1985, McWatters started out with MuchMusic as a producer. It was there the director cut his teeth producing station IDs and in-house commercials. The ‘low-budget,’ City-style work earned him a reputation and got the director noticed by (and signed with) Spy Films, around the time of its launch in 1994.

By 1997, the commercial director had been promoted to creative director at ChumCity, and he continued to revel in the creative freedom and mini-budget mentality of his full-time employer, while taking on larger-budget commercial jobs through Spy.

‘[ChumCity] has always been flexible, because I think [directing commercials] strengthens my work. I have complete creative freedom at City. I write, direct, produce and actually shoot my own spots. I don’t really have the budgets to always do film shoots but I get that on the commercial side,’ he says.

Even though directing through Spy often offers McWatters more money and toys to work with, he still says his preferred jobs are ‘the lower budget ones, where they’ll take a chance.’ The director points to a 1996 campaign for the Toronto Zoo promoting the Komodo Dragons as his favorite directing job.

More recently, McWatters directed a PSA for The Alliance to Save Energy, through DDB Seattle, that brought a PSA ‘world-class award’ home to Spy from PROMAX in Miami this year.

McWatters describes his directing style as ‘straightforward, but in a twisted way.’ Above all, the director concentrates on the performance. ‘I like spots where you put normal, everyday people in really bizarre circumstances. It’s the idea, the punchline – it [rests] on the actors, the characters,’ he says.

As much as McWatters’ work with Spy ‘strengthens’ him in his job with ChumCity, his efforts within Chum have also aided the director in his jobs for Spy. ‘It’s the training at MuchMusic and Space,’ he begins. ‘You’re in control of everything. I love to edit my own work, so I bring that to it. I know what the completed picture is going to be at the end. And because I work with non-actors all the time [McWatters’ has cast his wife’s grandmother on ChumCity work before], I really know how to work with them.’

McWatters would like to see the Canadian commercial business taking more risks: ‘I just wish people would take more chances with their spots, not playing it so safe – like they do in Europe, where you can go for it, you can be offensive. I can be offensive doing my spots at Space, but it just seems you can’t do it as much here. So I would like to get those kinds of [controversial] spots, and branch out a bit more.’

As for his future, McWatters says ‘I’d love to get more into short films.’

McWatters explains that in the age of specialty channels, ‘Your work has to stand out from the others. I try to do that with my work in commercials, too – stuff that looks different, that people hopefully will remember,’ he says.