In Italy, we are told, there are virtually no commercial directors. After years of importing foreign helmers, the domestic production industry has all but extinguished its homegrown talent.

Two years ago, when it became clear that the seminal ‘Rant’ spot for Molson Canadian was in fact directed by an American, Kevin Donovan, the Directors Guild of Canada decided it was time to get aggressive before Canada becomes another Italy.

The DGC put out the call to see if it could round up support to organize commercial directors, a group with no labor representation.

What is at stake is the slow reduction of Canadian talent as most of the best spots go to Americans. True, Canadians are getting more work lately (see story, p. 1), but in reality it is the older, more experienced Canuck helmers that continue to see budgets they can sink their teeth into. The rest are left to shoot on miniscule budgets that cannot stand up to the glossy reels of their American counterparts.

Certainly the directors are not helping their cause. When the DGC tried to bring commercial directors under its wing, the guild discovered too many lacked the motivation to carry the issue to the next level. Few saw any real benefit to joining.

So, is the DGC making another run at commercial directors? A recent opinion delivered by the DGC to the federal government that a U.S.-based director should be denied a work permit because a Canadian could do the spot equally well appears to be a first volley in a possible new attempt at organizing directors (see story, p. 1).

While the DGC maintains that this is not so, it would surprise no one if it were indeed the case. If they can coax the feds to halt U.S. directors at the border and begin to aggressively promote Canadians in the domestic market, the guild’s benefit to directors becomes suddenly tangible.

Of course the argument against heading in this direction is if you make it hard for foreign directors to come, you risk killing the industry. Work going to American directors and roadhouse production makes up the lion’s share of production revenue.

So what’s the solution?

Again, as we have done in the past, let’s put the issue back into the hands of agency creative teams. It is after all agency creatives who keep handing work to foreign directors, thus forcing the federal government’s hand in shutting the border.

But there may be a more imperative reason to look to Canadian directors – one that might appeal to a creative director’s instinct for self-preservation.

For the past decade or so creative teams have been flogging the reels of Americans as a way to convince their multinational clients that to get the highest possible production value, they should bring in directors from the U.S.

The question, as one agency creative director puts it, is: How long will it be before clients decide that the high production values on American directors’ reels are, in fact, really the result of superior creative coming out of the U.S.? Why not, then, just import top-quality spots from the U.S. and save money?

In Italy, they still need agency creatives because, well, everyone speaks Italian. In English Canada, everyone speaks American.

Perhaps, years from now, at the inquest into the death of advertising in Canada, the ruling will be that the corpse bled to death after shooting himself in the foot.