After 30 years in advertising, veteran commercial director Bill Irish, 65, has tried to retire a few times, but to the industry’s good fortune, his wife keeps telling him to get out of her kitchen.

In addition to creating a series of four-foot by five-foot paintings and writing a book about Canadian heroes, Irish takes to the director’s chair again with some longtime friends at Avion Films in Toronto.

Irish started directing in the early ’70s and spent 16 years as a partner at The Partners’ Film Company where he met Michael Schwartz and Paola Lazzeri, now partners at Avion.

‘Avion is a company that has done a wonderful job of building itself as a professional organization and I’ve looked at it with admiration for a long, long time,’ says Irish, who shot his first spot with Avion on July 25, a PSA for Scouts Canada in Rockwood Conservation Area north Hamilton, ON.

Several well-established producers have told Schwartz they’ve always wanted to work with Irish, but have never had the opportunity, partially because they couldn’t find him. Now Irish’s new home at Avion ‘will reestablish him as probably the only guy in this country who can do what he does well,’ says Schwartz, who adds that with today’s challenged budgets, it is a great asset to have somebody of Irish’s stature locally.

Known for directing emotionally driven spots like his ‘A Bike Story’ for Canadian Tire, where a boy’s father surprises him with a shiny red bike in the back of a pickup, Irish is eager to jump back into directing and is also looking forward to working with younger talent. ‘Being an older director, when younger, less experienced people come along, I can be very useful and that’s a rewarding form of self-affirmation,’ he says.

Although he has won the Bessies’ Speiss Award and the Art Directors Club’s Les Usherwood Award for lifetime achievement, among others, you will not find them displayed throughout his house. ‘I don’t save awards because they talk back to you,’ says Irish. ‘They hang on your wall and say we’re lonely, we need one more, and it’s a form of pressure so I don’t save them.’

Canucks win for

Bud Light in Cannes

Canadian spots won gold and silver in the competitive ‘alcoholic beverages’ category at the 2002 Cannes Lions Festival, June 16-22.

Industry Films’ Bud Light spot ‘Fridge’ won gold and Avion Films won silver for ‘Ulterior Emotions,’ also for Bud Light.

In ‘Fridge,’ a guy tunnels through the wall in his apartment into his neighbor’s fridge to steal Bud Light. Directed by Paul Middleditch, through Downtown Partners, the spot was written by James Lee and art directed by Dan Pawych, who was also creative director. Griff Henderson of School edited.

Industry president Tina Petridis was at Cannes to accept the award. ‘I was very proud for Industry Films,’ she says. ‘Industry is still quite a young company, so the recognition is quite overwhelming and extremely gratifying.’

The festival’s Palme D’Or award ranked Industry ninth among the world’s production houses. Industry was the only Canadian prodco in this year’s top 10.

Director Martin Granger’s ‘Ulterior Emotions,’ also through Downtown, mocks the compilation CD ad format, and since being released has spawned a real CD, currently for sale at HMVs all over Canada. Dave Chiavegato and Rich Pryce-Jones, both now with Grip, wrote the Bud Light spot and Brian Noon of Flashcut edited. Granger also worked with Chiavegato and Pryce-Jones on other Bud Light spots, including ‘Sin and Sentimentally.’

‘To win a Lion in what is probably the stiffest category [alcoholic beverages] in terms of competition was pretty remarkable,’ says Granger.