It takes great skill to tell a compelling story in under 60 seconds. These five directors have mastered the format, using their talent, craft and imagination to provide us with some of the most innovative filmmaking out there today.

I'd love to direct commercials on Caribbean beacheswith luscious women rubbing on suntan lotion, but all I get arethese documentary-type things.

Now that I can edit the whole thing on AVID and edit the whole thing on tape, maybe I will do the next digitally, because maybe the quality will become less obvious between tape and film.

Music video directors, who conceive, write and direct these works, enjoy no creative rights, receive no ongoing financial benefit from the sale of our work, and many times are not even credited.

When I joined Granada - which, you don't want to start crying about these things, but Granada was a very, very hot place to be, it was my good fortune to be there at that time - the BBC was firmly asleep.

I'd always wanted to do something about the Second World War, but I didn't want to do another combat film, whether it was air, land, or sea.

He wasn't, but producers are by definition annoying because they have a different agenda from you. They're trying to stop you spending money and you're trying to not spend money, but at the same time we're great artists.