Future of TV Briefing: Hollywood returns to production as stay-at-home orders, advisories lift

Hollywood has returned to set — although, it hardly left.

While the coronavirus crisis’s resurgence in Los Angeles pushed some TV and movie productions to go on extended hiatus over the holidays, those pauses in production were voluntary and not universal. “We’re pretending like there’s not another giant outbreak in L.A., so we’re still shooting,” one entertainment executive said in early January.

To be clear, there were no rules barring TV shows, movies, digital videos or commercials being shot on location or in studio in Los Angeles as coronavirus cases increased in the area. There haven’t been since June when California governor Gavin Newsom announced that production could resume. Even when Newsom imposed new stay-at-home orders in November, entertainment industry workers were classified as essential workers and thereby exempted.

However, even without rules barring physical production, entertainment industry groups, including SAG-AFTRA, the Producers Guild and the Joint Policy Committee — an advertising-specific industry group — asked producers to temporarily pause production. Some followed the recommendations; others followed through with production, while following health and safety guidelines to protect cast and crew members and try to prevent shoots from spreading coronavirus. But that’s all in the past now.

On Jan. 25, the state of California lifted its regional stay-at-home orders. Those orders may not have directly preempted production, but their expiration would seem to be a symbolic gesture that could bolster confidence in the safety of shooting on set or in studio. Then on Feb. 1, entertainment industry groups’ recommendations that commercial and independent shoots pause production in Southern California were officially lifted.

However, the guardrails have not been entirely let down. On Jan. 22, the Los Angeles County Department of Health updated its production guidelines to require polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests — which are more reliable than rapid on-site tests — for all projects, including short-term and one-time productions. The updated guidelines also dictate that crew members who “consistently work within six feet of cast or talent who are not wearing face coverings,” such as hair and makeup artists, must wear a double-up their face coverings, such as by wearing a shield over a mask.

The lifting of stay-at-home orders and production advisories combined with the updated guidelines is likely to spur a wider return to production in Los Angeles and the surrounding area.

“When everyone came back from the holidays, obviously case numbers were devastating in the country and L.A. and everything was shut down, so we pressed pause on a couple things that have just been re-lifted with the stay-at-home orders and the new guidelines. So we’ve started back up again,” said one producer who works on digital and branded video shoots.

On the TV and film fronts, media companies are anxious to fill their programming pipelines. During AT&T’s earnings call on Jan. 27, CEO John Stankey said that WarnerMedia is “still fighting through getting the pipeline” and that he hoped “we got the worst behind us” after California lifted its stay-at-home orders.

Similarly, commercial productions may …read more

Source:: Digiday