James Davis is executive producer/partner at Jolly Roger, Toronto.

1999 was not a banner year for the commercial production industry. 1997 and 1998 were busier and likely more profitable. Much of this can be attributed to a lack of director availability during the busy summer months.

On the positive side at Jolly Roger, we produced some of our strongest work to date, for Vaseline and Nike. We had the vicarious pleasure of watching one of our directors and a close friend, Robert Logevall, become one of the hottest directors in the u.s., and we concluded the year by adding 1999 Saatchi & Saatchi/Playback First Cut winner Wayne Craig to our roster for representation in the new year.

Schedules became increasingly harried. Preproduction and editorial are counted in days rather than weeks. At best, budgets remained unchanged. There were more cinema spots finished than ever before. Unlike the u.s., we’ve yet to see the ‘dot.com’s’ become an economic consideration. Partly due to their general appeal, comparative affordability and strong showing at award shows, comedic executions continue to be popular.

The industry lost a maverick in Larry Hutson. Referring to Larry’s rather streamlined production process, a grip once assured me that ‘one day, all commercials will be made this way.’ I only wish.

By ‘road housing’ foreign productions, which primarily shoot in Canada for budgetary reasons, and by representing a large and versatile roster (30 to 80) of ‘fly-in’ directors for Canada projects, a number of local production companies prospered in 1999.

Unfortunately, and perhaps as a consequence, the same is not true for directorial talent residing in Canada. I would speculate the average number of shoot days for a Canadian director would be between 12 to 15 days. For the handful of directors shooting more than 30 days a year, there are considerably more shooting fewer than five.

Many factors have contributed to this situation, but primarily it is market globalization and an excess of talent for too few projects. In 1986, there were less than 100 directors represented by 20 production companies in Toronto. Today, if you took a tour of any large Toronto advertising agency’s tape library, you would literally stumble over approximately 1,200 directors’ show reels.

Canadian directors need to realize they are a commodity. And as a commodity they need to seek representation in as many markets as possible – North America, Europe or the Far East. There is an ever-increasing number of directors living here whose primary income is derived from somewhere other than Canada. The ‘Groucho Club’ theory applies. It is imperative for a Canadian creative team to see you are working in other markets, particularly the u.s.

The apparent wealth of riches at the immediate disposal of an impressionable creative team has created a surreal directorial search. Earlier this year I was informed of a project where the creative team viewed 250 directors’ reels. If the same amount of time was spent working with a director as viewing show reels, this particular project might have been a decent spot. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident.

Repeatedly, one will hear from advertising agencies, ‘We are hiring the best director possible regardless of nationality.’ Ironically, almost the exact words used by Molson Breweries in justifying its decision to give the Molson Export brand advertising to hhcl, London, Eng.

In Jolly Roger’s search for a sixth director, I have screened many of the same Canadian directors reels that creative teams are passing by. I admit there are better reels from other markets. But is this through a lack of talent? Or a lack of opportunity? Probably both. What I do wonder is if directors like Bruce Dowad, Jeremiah Chechik, Marco Brambilla, Paul Cade, Steve Chase, John Mastromonaco or Robert Logevall would have succeeded as resoundingly in the current environment.