Rock 'n' Roles

hen Fuibright scholar Marcus Nispel arrived in New York, he was a Gennan wunderkind who had al ready worked for several ad agencies, but Madison Avenue wasn't impressed. "So I ended up in film production," he recalls. When the twenty-eight-year-old turned his attention to music videos, the results brought a sense of innovation to a genre that constantly reinvents itself. Nispel has directed all of the videos for the hot-as-a-pistol C+C Music Fac tory, garnering two MTV awards, and has worked with Aretha Franklin and L.L. Cool J as well. "I like groups that don't have a preconceived notion," he says, "because I'm always motivated by a concept." Ironically, the advertising world wants him back. "I can barely tell the difference anymore. The music videos look like commercials—and vice versa."

K.M.