When the North American economy began to slow early last year, commercial production was one of the first sectors to feel the drag. That trend appears to be holding as economic indicators out of the U.S. point to recovery and, true to form, production work appears to be picking up as well.

Commercial producers have been seeing a lift in both board flow and true production out of domestic and U.S. agencies since late January, and many report more shooting days through February than over the same period last year.

‘Right now we’re finding a huge amount of confidence in our customers,’ says Jeff Bradshaw, president and CEO at six-year-old, Calgary-based spot shop Zoom Communications. Since January, Zoom’s shooting slate has been full with spots for Telus, OK Tire (with hockey legend Gordie Howe) and Corus Entertainment radio stations Peak 107 and Country 105.

‘They’re coming back as if nothing ever happened. There’s no mention of Sept. 11; there’s no mention of recession. Everybody seems to be looking forward and saying, ‘We’ve got work to get done; we’ve got businesses to run; let’s get it done.”

Similar riffs are being heard from production executives across the country including The Partners’ Film Company president Don McLean. Partners’ shot 28 days in February, McLean says, a significant jump from single-digit shooting days that the spot shop had to endure through several months in 2001.

‘We’ve still got some distance to pick up,’ he says,

‘January and February of last year were just awful. [But this year] we did a little over $3 million in February. If we can come even close to that a few more times this year, then everything will be fine.’

Still, McLean like many production executives remains cautiously optimistic. The troubles of the last 12 months are still too fresh in his mind to allow for a unilateral pronouncement of better times ahead.

That said, there is cause for optimism.

At the top of the list are indicators out of the U.S. hinting that recovery is at hand, including stable interest rates and the largest surge in the purchase of big-ticket items since 1987. According the New York Times, Madison Avenue media buyers are feeling the swing too through increased demand for commercial time.

Indeed, much of the good news to Canadian production is coming via work from the U.S.

‘There is absolutely more work out of the States; absolutely more roadhouse work out of the States,’ says McLean.

Alex Sliman, executive producer at Cinelande in Montreal, is seeing the same. ‘We’re quite busy. What we’re getting is not just local work but outside work…more and more business from different countries for local directors,’ he says.

Sliman estimates that since the new year, work has been split 50-50 between domestic and foreign, a shift for a company that reported only four clients out of 76 last year sourced from outside the country.

But while the up-tick in work bodes well for the industry, it also acts as a vivid illustration of just how closely linked spot production is to the well-being of the U.S. economy. In fact, the ups and downs of commercial production in Canada have been a near-perfect barometer of large-scale economic shifts in the U.S.

While Canada by and large seems to have avoided the recession felt in the U.S., Canadian producers have had a much tougher time. The decline south of the border was felt full force in the production sector as were the effects of Sept. 11.

According to data out of the U.S., the recession there began in March 2001. By November, thanks to the decline and terror attacks on New York and Washington, the economy was in a deep slump. Meanwhile, commercial producers here were estimating a drop in production anywhere between 25% and 50%.

It was a dramatic change from the booming market a year earlier when, thanks to a strong market and a SAG strike in the U.S., commercial production could barely keep pace.

Tim Turner, executive producer at Circle Productions, which has offices in Toronto and Vancouver, says the commercial production sector is one of the better indicators of the direction of the economy, a kind of canary in the mineshaft.

‘We’ve got a pretty instant feel for that. It happened very readily [last year],’ he says. ‘You could see it coming for about six months’ before other sectors felt it.

That being the case, increased board flow and production work could represent good news all around.

To wit, work is also picking up at Canadian agencies. Neil McOstrich, creative director at Palmer Jarvis DDB in Toronto, believes the ad industry, like so many others, was in a state of shock toward the new year. But that has changed, he says.

‘I think in the spring it’s going to get real busy. There’s going to be lots of pitching and carrying on and lots of production,’ McOstrich says, predicting that this will continue through the summer.

Still, many producers are keeping their rose-colored glasses in their breast pocket for the moment. While many report increased board flow and an upward shift in production, the budgets remain abysmal, they say.

‘There’s a lot of work that is fiscally challenged,’ says James Davis, partner and executive producer at Toronto/Vancouver-based untitled, which recently completed spots for Canadian Tire, BC Children’s Hospital and Toyota.

‘You’re getting people phoning up and giving you a budget that would be maybe a half or a third of what it really should be. That is becoming more and more prevalent.’

In that respect, little has changed as spot shops continue to undercut one another just to keep work coming in and their directors’ reels fresh.

According to Circle’s Turner, as long as this continues, it’s hard to view the recovery as a completely positive phenomenon.

While there is activity, he says, ‘it is almost undoable’ because of the budgets. ‘But someone will buy [the work]. So there are the beginnings of action, but it’s not sound action.’

But as any 17-year-old boy will tell you, some action is better than no action at all.

-www.partnersfilm.com

-www.cinelande.com

-www.pjddb.com