Film in the time of COVID
As COVID-19 cases eased over the summer, many professionals began looking into getting back to the office. For filmmakers, that meant getting back on set. After over a year of wondering when this might happen, many were thrilled to finally get back to business. But it was anything but business as usual, and rightly so.
In order to keep people healthy and prevent the spread of COVID, intense safety measures were put in place. Wearing masks and social distancing are required, as well as frequent COVID testing. Rules were put in place for catering—only single serve and individually wrapped options, people have to eat in shifts (or better yet, outdoors) to keep the number of unmasked individuals exposed to each other at a minimum. Many other requirements had to be followed. Frequently our work involves using on-camera talent who are working on set without a mask on. Because of this, we adopt some additional precautions, such as face shields for anyone who is going to be within 6 feet of them (such as hair and makeup artists) and testing regularly. Production unions like the Screen Actors Guild also require a staff member serve as the Covid Compliance Officer (CCO) during any union productions—this person’s sole job is to make sure everyone stays safe. For larger productions, we will typically bring a CCO on even if we aren’t working with union talent.
But the recent surge of the omicron variant has the entertainment industry rethinking things. Check out this article from The Hollywood Reporter for more on this issue.
Regardless of how rigorous safety standards are, they are in place for a reason. The safety of the cast and crew has to come first on set. Bard Tales takes COVID safety seriously and has been navigating precautions on a variety of projects. Whether you want to film on set with a full crew, limit the number of people on a set, film outdoors, or even have a contactless shoot (yes, we have a camera studio in a box that we’ll ship right to your talent’s home or office, and we can control it remotely from DC), Bard Tales has you covered. And if you want to go totally contactless, we even have software that uses your webcam to record footage on your computer—which means you don’t have to worry about internet issues messing up your footage. Check out our work and reach out to us for all your video production needs.
