Many know that Sir Ridley started out directing commercials back in the UK, where he honed his highly tuned sense of visual composition. This one, from 1973, was voted the UK's favorite ad of all time (set in Yorkshire, Northern England, but actually filmed in Dorset, which is as Southern English as you can get). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFLBvLxLJMI (And yes, John August, that's a colliery brass band playing Dvorak's new World Symphony) You can tell that it wasn't that big a jump for Sir Ridley to make the transition to big budget sci-fi/action movies.