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I have been doing commercials on camera since I was ten.

I've spent over 25 years in the television industry, the direct response industry. I met a lot of people and certainly learned the power of commercials and their brand building potential.

I started to make some commercials, which was a way for me to finally make a living at last. But it was only really a couple of films in that it looked like a viable career option.

I started modeling, doing the Sears catalog kind of thing, then did a lot of commercials when I was growing up.

I began to learn about the camera and the actors. That gave me a lot of the skills. At the same time, advertising gives you a lot of vices, for example, an obsession for a superficial look, but at the same time, it gives you the capacity to synthesize the story - tell a story in one minute.

I made a living for 10 years making very typical TV commercials. But I always wanted to reach beyond that and do stuff that people might relate to in the way they relate to my nonbranded content.

And I've always loved commercials. I like working out how to organically weave a brand's message into the writing process. It's like an improv show, where comics ask the audience to throw out a word and a skit is built around it.

At the time of Polaroid - and I did a couple of other commercials just before I stopped doing that stuff - at that point I was at the level where they respect you and your opinion and all that sort of thing.