How a North Texas Director Turns 30-Second Commercials Into Resonant Art

You’ve seen Nolan Goff’s work, you just don’t know it. His storytelling flickers across your screen during the commercial breaks of your favorite shows and as you scroll online. They are short, potent bursts of stories — for brands like Taco Bell, ESPN and Pacifico. For Goff, these are not simply ads but rather crafted worlds, shaped by the imagination of a director whose creative roots are planted deep in North Texas soil and nourished among the highways and neighborhoods of Dallas.

From filming with Sarah Michelle Gellar to capturing the high-stakes energy of the College Football Playoffs, Goff has become a go-to director for brands seeking a touch of cinematic soul. He operates in a world of 30- and 60-second slots, a landscape often defined by focus groups and corporate messaging. Yet, he has carved out a space where artistry thrives, transforming marketing briefs into moving pictures with heart. His journey from daydreaming in the passenger seat on Interstate 35 to commanding big-budget sets in Dallas and beyond reveals a quiet truth: even in commerce, there is room for poetry.

Goff’s story begins in the suburbs of North Texas. Denton played a defining role in his formation — not just as the backdrop for his return to family life, but as the vibrant playground where his creative ambitions took flight.

“I would daydream in the car on the way to school, watching the landscapes roll by,” Goff recalls. Those moments of watching the world as a series of unfolding scenes became the foundation of his craft. He believes the environment shapes you and what you observe, a philosophy evident in the texture of his work.

Growing up, his family wasn’t particularly artistic, though he credits his mother’s creative cooking and love for reading as early influences. The dominant culture of his Texas high school was sports, a world where he felt like an outsider.

“Growing up, sports were a major piece of social equity,” he says. He quickly realized that wasn’t on his path, however. But the feeling of being on the periphery turned him into a keen observer of social dynamics.

A similar feeling followed him to the Spinning Wheels roller rink in Denton, a place of childhood birthday parties that later inspired one of his short films.

“I always felt a little bit outside of the rink,” Goff admits. “I was constantly trying to find a way into the center of it.”

The persistent feeling of not quite being where you want to be became a central theme in his personal projects and, unexpectedly, a powerful tool in his commercial career. It taught him to deconstruct a scene and to understand its emotional core from a distance.

His pivot toward the visual arts began with photography and art classes, but it was the discovery of cinema that truly ignited his passion. After getting his driver’s license, he made frequent trips to Blockbuster, consuming films with an analytical hunger.

“I became obsessed with what the films were doing to me and how they were making me feel,” he says.

He started dissecting movies, trying to understand the alchemy of light, sound and editing that could evoke such powerful emotions. Years later, Goff discovered that his grandmother’s family once owned a single-screen movie theater in Bernice, Louisiana — a bit of family history he hadn’t known growing up.

“I’ve always thought that my path has reconnected me to some forgotten history that was always there, but I wasn’t aware of,” he says.

This obsession became his superpower in the commercial world. While many directors are handed a script “that’s been focus-grouped to death,” Goff’s job is to breathe life into it. His process is anything but superficial. To win a job, he creates a comprehensive treatment, a document that can run up to 60 pages long. He storyboards everything, meticulously planning how shots will be juxtaposed to create a specific rhythm.

“I drill into every aspect, like a film,” he says. “Laying out my ideas for lighting, camera movement and music.”

His connection to North Texas isn’t just nostalgic. It’s inventive. The area has become a character in many of his stories, and the commercial world has taken notice. For the Taco Bell ad tied to the College Football Playoffs, Goff returned home to bring the vision to life. The shoot took place at TCU, using a Dallas-based cast and mostly local crew.

“It made sense to shoot in Texas. The cost was right, and there’s just a spirit to the place,” Goff says. He noted that the North Texas setting offered aesthetic advantages, such as the iconic purple of TCU seamlessly matching Taco Bell’s branding, and the familiar backdrop grounded the spot in both authenticity and spectacle.

“For that ad, I drew on a deeply personal ritual,” Goff shares. “I call my granddad after every LSU game.”

He translated that simple, heartfelt connection into the commercial’s final scene, where an actor pulls out a phone to make a call. It’s a small detail, but it’s real. It’s the “me” he brings to the project, the touch of authenticity that elevates a spot from an advertisement to a relatable moment.

“I try to stay true to myself,” he says. “Even if it’s a Taco Bell ad.”

In an industry dominated by formula and focus groups, these Dallas details — the specificity of place, the sense of home — make all the difference.

Goff’s unique approach has made him a sought-after collaborator. He’s able to observe what a brand is doing, digest the feeling they’re trying to create and then filter it through his own artistic lens, whether the set is on a backlot or a Texas campus. He learned the ropes at a marketing agency, getting his reel together while admitting he was often “making it up as he went.” That early hustle taught him to be resourceful and to trust his instincts.

Of course, sometimes those instincts place him in the orbit of Hollywood royalty. Goff’s ability to bring cinematic depth to commercial projects landed him an opportunity to direct Sarah Michelle Gellar in a Halloween-themed campaign for Turo, the car-sharing marketplace. For the “10 Days of Slay” campaign, he set out to embrace everything that made Sarah “Sarah” and Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Buffy” by tapping into the spooky, campy energy of that era of television.

Sometimes you’re not imposing yourself on something, you’re embracing what it is and leaning into what it is,” Goff explains.

That meant atmospheric lighting, playful in-camera effects, and most importantly, giving Gellar room to be herself.

“The Sarah of it all means I didn’t have to do much on that end — just let her fly,” he explains. “We built a world she could walk into that brought out that signature personality.”

Looking back, Goff sees the project as a lesson in observation and adaptation.

“If you observe something for long enough and understand how it works, you can drop in and out of these varying worlds, embrace what they are, and pair that with your personal POV — and that’s where the sweet spot is,” he says.

The experience, he reflects, reminded him that regardless of the project’s scale or the notability of the cast, what matters most is emotional honesty. It further cemented his belief that every commercial, no matter how fleeting, can leave a lasting impression, so long as it’s made with intention.

Today, those instincts guide him on sets with celebrities and for global campaigns, but North Texas remains his inspiration. He brings a filmmaker’s sensibility to a marketer’s medium, finding the narrative thread in a product pitch, the humanity in a brand message. For Goff, powerful stories can be told in any format. Sometimes, the canvas is the Dallas area, bustling and bright; sometimes, it’s a fleeting moment during a football broadcast. But the goal is the same as any artist: to make you feel something.

He is a director who found his way to the center of the rink and onto the center stage, not by joining the crowd, but by observing it, understanding it, and ultimately, reshaping it in his own image. As he looks ahead, Goff’s ambitions are set on directing feature films — a lifelong passion that continues to shape his creative journey. He’s already teasing a cinematic vision: his take on a “Dog Day Afternoon in the sky.” For Goff, each project he takes on as a commercial director brings him one step closer to that dream.

“Everything I’m doing on set now is preparing me for that moment,” he says. “And I’m ready.”