Luke Toyne has just rolled into Rushes as their new commercials producer, bringing a wealth of experience. We decided to catch up with the new member of the Rushes family to pick his brains about all things ‘post’, the evolution of the industry and why he’s looking forward to some legendary Rushes parties…

Which pieces of work that you’ve been involved in are you most proud of and why?

For sentimental reasons, my first credit as producer: a Tarantula music promo for the Sneaker Pimps’ “Sick” – one of the first promos shot entirely on HD and a lesson in not giving the band too much creative control; a couple of years later, while at Blue Zoo, I worked on a large-scale CGI anti-smoking campaign for the American Surgeon General who flew us to Washington to thank us in person; and more recently, getting the Daily Mail’s Pick of the Day for “Win My Vote”: a Media Trust documentary where I trained young people from really tough backgrounds in the basics of location reporting at the party conferences, including interviewing the Prime Minister.

What are your favourite commercials of all time and why?

I grew up believing that “happiness is a cigar called Hamlet” and that Stella Artois is “reassuringly” expensive – I particularly like their current, slick, campaign for “4%”. Speaking of stylish commercials, whichever post company composited Steve McQueen’s return from the grave for the “Ford Puma” launch certainly deserves more commercials through its doors…

Then there are the renowned examples of campaigns working as an art form: Guinness, Cadbury’s, Sony Bravia. I thought Honda’s “The Cog” was 2 two minutes well spent, and their “Hate Something, Change Something” campaign was an excellent example of nicely stylised CGI working a treat in conjunction with a catchy tune.

What’s the most useful piece of advice anyone’s ever given you?

First: if you’re a production freelancer, make sure you enjoy any work you do as a ‘second string’. Second: think before you speak. And finally: don’t get too drunk at wrap parties – you are guaranteed to insult the one person you shouldn’t. Sadly I tend to only follow the first of these tips.

How did you first get into the industry?

Aged 16 I rang a lot of production companies and posted a lot of CVs. Then I made a lot of tea, carried a lot of kit and photocopied a lot of paperwork. I gained another useful piece of advice on my first running job, ITV’s “Link Programme”: if you’re shooting in a hospital resist the temptation to transport the camera kit in a wheelchair, it doesn’t go down at all well.

How have things changed since then?

That bulky digi-beta camera has been superseded by kit half the size with super-advanced capabilities, enabling us to do even more in post. Meanwhile a stack of tape boxes containing your rushes are now files on a hard-drive. Similarly the scope, quality and speed of what we can do in CGI has evolved massively. When I think back to the first CGI job I worked on – a title sequence for Hat Trick – compared to what we’re creating at Rushes now, it’s like a whole new medium.

These advances, and the growth of online audiences, have blurred some of the lines between production and advertising, generating the success of digital agencies and virals – which themselves are a whole other conversation. True, budgets haven’t fared quite so well and many production jobs have doubled up, but now is definitely an exciting time to be involved in commercials production.

What are you looking forward to most about your new role at Rushes?

The potential for producing career-making content – the commercials that other producers will list as their favourites on sites like this in the future. Then there’s the legendary Rushes BBQs and parties…