Working in any creative environment is going to be competitive and even more so when that creative environment is one of the most influential around. But from the shadows of giants come kings, and we caught up with one prince among men, Adam Mufti to see how he's preparing himself for a career as a director.

Steal-Life.com - What first interested you in working within a visual context?
Adam Mufti - Stanley Kubrick, music, a visit to the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis and my mother.

SL - What's your current working situation?
AM - A lot of my time is taken up by my position as Motion Image Designer at Showstudio.com, an online fashion broadcast initiative conceived by Nick Knight and Peter Saville. Aside from this I work as a freelance director and continue to develop personal film projects.

SL - You now work closely with Nick Knight, how do you find that?
AM - Informative. Nick is rigorously devoted to his work. Our relationship has provided me with certain skills that are fundamentally aligned to creating original work.

SL - Do you approach a personal project differently to a work one?
AM - No. I'm lucky enough to be in a position where they're pretty much the same thing.

SL - How would you describe the style you've developed?
AM - I would hesitate to reduce my style to a phrase but I try to make sure everything I do is unlike anything else that exists. I don't see the point of riding visual trends.

SL - You use digital still photography in your work, do you find this limiting in a motion capacity?
AM - Not at all, once still imagery is placed in sequence as montage it infers motion. If your question is one regarding the merits of digital photography then I would say it is very useful in a motion capacity, it fosters a quick workflow and it's aesthetic is very modern. The synthetic intensity of colour and intricacy of compression fragments can be very beautiful.

SL - Are there reoccurring themes and references in your work?
AM - Pretty much everything I do is based around digital video technologies, there's still so many possibilities to explore with DV, digital photography, webcams and video phones. I love the aesthetics of these formats and the emotional resonance they afford. DV seems to cut through that MTV shrink-wrapped filmstock gloss that puts the viewer at such a distance.

SL - At the G8 summit in France last week there where huge protests about globalisation, what are your thoughts on this?
AM - It's no secret that the world's most powerful nation is in the palm of voracious corporate power, as such we're all subject to their whim. What happened last week was a natural reaction to an increasing sense of misrepresentation by government. It is important that people exercise their rights as consumers and remind these powers they are subject to our whim.

SL - Describe the piece you've submitted to us?
AM - It is a section from a video I directed for The Nextmen and Rodney P a while back. It's colourful.

SL - What's next for you?
AM - A short film for Alexander McQueen, a piece to celebrate the anniversary of Clements Ribeiro. Release of my Digital Diaries series on DVD, adaptation of a J.G Ballard short story, fashion photography, relative financial stability, babies, mid-life crisis.

But not necessarily in that order…
http://www.showstudio.com