Returning to Set in 2020

For us, SXSW was the first domino to fall. We were in preparation for a busy spring, packed city and shoots all across the country. Certainly not a story unique to us – seemingly overnight everything changed. The City of Austin closed SXSW, mandatory quarantine was put in place and seemingly every business closed its doors. The next six weeks passed as slowly as time ever has and the uncertainty of COVID-19 wiped out production as a whole. As much as everyone in the industry wanted to find a way forward, there was no denying it would be a while before that was possible. The landscape was changing daily and different in every US city. Budgets were being pulled, client’s legal concerns were understandably high and the question we all faced was what would it take to get back on set? 5 months later – I’m hopeful that the answers created with our peers, industry leaders, unions, clients and more are going to be a success

So how will we get back to “normal”?

For starters – I think we all need to accept the fact that “normal” may not ever come back. For good and bad. Do I think we will return to a world without wearing masks in public – yes – but there are lots of sanitary practices and norms now being put in place that quite frankly should have been there all along. Is washing your hands with frequency and avoiding cross contamination of popular items on set really a bad thing? If you ask me – those are things we should be doing moving forward. Was Jordan’s Flu game really being considerate to his teammates? Whether it be a COVID + person or someone with the seasonal flu, anyone with a sickness and showing symptoms should keep themselves off set to avoid a widespread hit to the team, especially in an industry with a clustering of people as closely as film production requires. This reset should help to enforce that courtesy which had been over-stretched before.

So, if “normal” might be different moving forward, what will the new normal be? Aside from sanitary standards we will keep long term, there are a lot of new protocols and creative solutions we are using for the time being to keep each set safe. For the Union folks in LA it is realistic for all productions to require testing, pay for the crew to quarantine or live in a bubble and then go on to continue testing throughout a 2 month film. For smaller productions across the US, namely commercial productions that only last 1-3 days, it would be unrealistic to assume the standard can be the same. Instead, we need to alter what and how we will film the commercial productions we are used to.

A snapshot:

• We have a new process and protocol for everyone arriving to set. Similar to most businesses open right now, we are conducting temperature checks, health screenings, mandatory masks, sanitization stations and more before entering production. Gone are the days of rolling into breakfast unnoticed. In addition, we have set new standards for who is allowed on set if you have been exposed to a COVID + person or have had COVID yourself. It simply isn’t worth the risk to everyone else if you could be carrying the virus.
• Catering has changed. No more buffets or family style meals. No more value sized salad dressing bottles or a plate of cookies. We are doing individual meals and pre-packaged goods as often as possible. For some productions with a larger crew we are also asking folks to eat in their personal vehicles to ensure social distancing during meal breaks. Craft Services is also an evolving plan as a central table with open food is a hot spot for potential contamination.
• We have created zones and tiers of clearance for all of our crew. Talent will still need to be maskless on screen, so when that time comes we have dialed back the number of people who can be on set during live takes. Required crew only. Similarly, there is assigned seating in video village and assigned clearances for H&MU, Wardrobe, etc where talent is getting prepared. Gone are the days of a wandering PA or a crowd at village.
• We are currently promoting and encouraging our clients and agency partners to consider scripts that allow talent to socially distance and overall include less bodies per scene. Until the threat of COVID has subsided, we see the limits of social distancing and small cast sizes as a creative challenge rather than a hindrance. This also allows us to have less lav mics that need to be sanitized, less dressing rooms and H&MU stations, etc.
• On the note of less cast, we are also aiming for creatives that can allow for less crew. By keeping cast smaller we can minimize the number of department assistants and PA’s we need to run a set. If we slow down our days we can avoid shooting multi-cam and having two sets of camera crew. Anywhere we can feasibly reduce the footprint of the shoot – we are encouraging that at this time. For large art builds or lighting rigs, we are encouraging prep days to allow those teams an isolated space to work without everyone on set crossing paths.
• So many more…

Those standards and more are the plans we have begun to put in place to make it safe to work again in 2020 in a post COVID-19 world. Our Staff have taken multiple COVID compliance courses as well to learn everything we can about running a safe set. We are continually learning and adding more protocols to our systems every day. We know that things will look different on each shoot and there are nuances to every production, but some things are simply non-negotiables for us moving forward. We’d love to hear from more of our industry peers and clients how they are finding a way forward and to keep this discussion alive.