Los Angeles, 4/10
West Coast advertisers have been unsure what to expect in the midst of war, leaving many projects in mid-air this month. The resultant slowdown in production was anticipated by most production execs - "we've had jobs ready to go but we just can't get them signed off," says one, echoing many voices across the LA metropolis. That said, things could have been worse. "It's busier than I expected," says the exec, "but some days just drag on and on. There's definitely no sexy, cool work coming our way - it's all meat and potatoes right now."

Although houses are still declaring a strong first quarter, the numbers don't necessarily back up this assertion. The LA Film Office reports the slowest first two months of the year since 1995, with March picking up, followed by the latest slowdown due to Iraq.

"Agencies are at the point where they can cherry-pick directors," says another exec who's seeing a mere trickle of boards splutter out of his fax machine. "For us it's also compounded by the age-old problem of picking the right projects for our directors."

Some roster roosters find themselves shooting direct-to-client jobs to keep busy while others shoot mediocre boards to keep from staring at blank walls 24/7. "I may not be doing stellar work with the best clients but at least I'm keeping challenged and motivated," jokes one director. "I can only stare at my goldfish for so long before I become a sniper." Nice.

The upside of a visible end to the war may be a thicker bundle of board flow to analyze next month. In the meantime, all the prodco players are stuck in traffic trying to get home early from a sullen day at the office.

Toronto, 4/10
SARS, an endless winter, a war, a recession... can we get an apocalypse?

Okay, so it's not that bad in the T-dot these days, but considering the confluence of pressures and prejudices the Canuck industry is suffering under, it's amazing anyone's getting any work done.

"It's so quiet here that I put Easter up on the calendar so it looked like we had stuff going on," jokes one prodco head. "That's just because of the seasonal turnover. The late-season snow put us back a couple of weeks."

"We've quoted a lot of work, we haven't won much, but the agencies are talking about a lot of stuff coming in May," says another. Boards cited include telecoms, food, packaged goods and cars. Beer, they say, is on its way.

The main concern this month is without a doubt SARS. The media frenzy has blown the 'outbreak' to unreasonable proportions - Canada has made the front page of European news-papers, for God's sake. Has the world gone mad?

"It's all fear-mongering and it's such bullshit. It's going to hurt the economy," says an exec producer who hasn't lost a job over SARS yet, but is being rigorously questioned about it.

But the true effect of SARS remains to be seen, as future jobs are being prefaced by, "If the SARS has cleared by then..."