SHOOTING FOR THE MOON LOCATION FILMING FOR TV, ADS HITS 10-YEAR HIGH.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

Soaring local production of commercials and television shows resulted in the busiest March in more than a decade for location shooting in Los Angeles, the Entertainment Industry Development Corp. said Wednesday.

Overall, off-studio-lot filming of movies, television shows, commercials and music videos was up a combined 17.3 percent from March 2002. At one point, there were 270 different productions filming throughout the city on a single day, up considerably from the typical figure of around 150.

Television production days climbed by 33.6 percent when compared with March 2002 and leaped 57.8 percent from February. Because of the television pilot season, an increase in March is expected but had never occurred at such a level.

``It's the biggest television pilot season we've seen in the 10 years since we've been tracking the numbers,'' said Daryl Seif, the EIDC's vice president and general manager of operations. ``You have a lot of cable outlets now doing original content.''

But it was commercials that saw the biggest boost, with a 45 percent jump in production days compared with March 2002 and a 20.3 percent increase from February. This represents a dramatic reversal of a downward trend that has plagued local commercial production in recent years.

``We are cautiously optimistic,'' said Steve Caplan, senior vice president of external affairs for the Association of Independent Commercial Producers. ``The increase in ad spending has helped create more opportunities and jobs. People need to sell and they need to have commercials about their products.''

Seif said the surge in commercial activity also ``seems war-related.''

``Given what is going on in the world, the companies are choosing to film here,'' Seif said.

Music videos, which had also been slumping, picked up in March with a 17.4 percent increase from the year before.

But feature film production dropped by 22.8 percent from March 2002 despite a slew of high-profile movies that began filming in Los Angeles during the month.

Studio projects currently filming at various locations around Los Angeles include the Steve Martin-Bonnie Hunt comedy ``Cheaper by the Dozen''; the feature film version of the '70s cop drama ``Starsky and Hutch,'' which stars Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson; the comedy-drama ``Providence'' starring Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin and Calista Flockhart; and the thriller-drama ``Paparazzi'' with a cast led by Tom Sizemore.