Michael Schwartz and Paola Lazzeri are partners and executive producers at the Toronto-based commercial production company, Avion Films.

Living through tough times has become an accepted fact of life – almost an occupational hazard – for those of us associated with the advertising and commercial production industries.

In that respect, the year 2001 was neither a new, nor an exceptional, experience.

The flow of commercial work last year was uneven at best, sputtering to a complete halt it seemed at one point, rebounding to a healthy level for a moment, then simply carrying on month by month, though with a slightly irregular heart beat.

We’ve been through this before, in retrospect, probably every other time that the economy has softened or been jolted, as over the past couple of months.

We took our knocks, worked a bit harder and tried to remain focused on doing what we do, and while it’s true that 2001 was not a banner year, it also had some terrific highs.

The total thrill of sending Paola Lazzeri, Tim Hamilton and David Chiavegato to the Cannes Film Festival as the creative and production team behind the acerbic comedy short film Truth In Advertising, Canada’s only finalist at Cannes, is an achievement we will remember for many years to come.

But while we’ve lived through uncertain periods in the past, there was a subtle difference this time around. It was the sense of being part of a much larger world, and that what we were going through wasn’t just happening here. We never felt isolated or confined to a Canada-only experience.

It has been said over and over again that our high-tech age is eliminating political, economic and geographic boundaries, and replacing them with global communities of common interest.

How true.

Our phone lines were not just buzzing between cross-town friends and rivals. We were constantly exchanging notes with agencies and production companies in the major advertising centres around the world. New York. Chicago. Los Angeles. London.

In fact, the big news – the kind that directly affects our business – whether an agency layoff, a production house closing, or the overall volume of commercial work, is no longer of local interest only. An agency layoff in New York, a production company calling it quits in Los Angeles, or a contraction of board flow in London potentially affects us all.

It reminded us of how interdependent and interconnected our community has become. And not just from the global perspective, but as an ongoing, functioning creative network. We are a tightly connected supply chain that begins with the advertiser and extends to the agency, to the production company, to post-production services, to the sprawling infrastructure that helps make a commercial progress from storyboard to broadcast air.

The prospect of an expanded universe, and all of the opportunities that come with it, is truly an exhilarating thought. An open frontier of free exchange is sure to benefit us all, provided – and this is an extremely important point – that we do not neglect our domestic base. We must never forget or compromise in any way the need to replenish, nurture, support and stimulate our own homegrown creative talent.

Because without that, we have nothing.

Frankly, the most troubling consequences of these, or any tough times for that matter, come from the pressures and the strains that develop among our many client-supplier relationships.

Agencies understandably challenge production companies to give them the best possible deal, and the production companies in turn pass their own heightened demands and expectations directly to the people they hire. The tension builds, and often it intensifies as it makes its way down the supply chain, so that the most vulnerable people often end up feeling it the most.

We need to remind ourselves that we’re in this together, and to the extent that we can, we must be reasonable and realistic in the demands that we make of one another.

There will always be the opportunists who will try to take advantage of the situation. They are what they are.

The rest of us, who are here for the long haul and who care about the business, must consider what we can do to uphold the standards we have worked so hard to establish, and to help each other make it through trying times.

Our common interest is making great commercials. Our common bond is creative talent and mutual respect.

We really are a community.

-www.avionfilms.com