Production Manager Bella Childs reflects on the challenges we overcame during NSWs lengthy Lockdown
Working to a deadline, particularly a short one can be challenging at the best of times. Add a Global Pandemic into the mix and things can be a little trickier.
We are all about F2F communication with our team members and clients. Having to collaborate and communicate on zoom meetings definitely had its challenges – as we all know.
In order to proceed with any production, we had to implement a COVID-19 safety plan for each individual shoot, this is something that added complexity and cost in some instances. A nurse on set doing temp checks and sign in’s is one, as are Covid cleaners before and after shoots in some instances.
We now include a Covid certified clean on all locations at the end of the shoot day but we have also had on occasion a need to do Covid cleans prior to and after shoots.
All people attending must have a negative covid test that is taken a maximum of 3 days prior to filming. We are looking forward to the introduction of home test kits to hopefully put this requirement to bed.
All meetings, including castings, have had to be done online, whilst this has saved time in some instances and resulted in higher turnout levels for auditions things like wardrobe checks for example are difficult to approve. So more options from wardrobe have generally been the answer.
An example of a challenge we faced was at the beginning of lockdown in 2020. We did a shoot that required two individual talents in a car. At this time, there were strict rules around who you can have in your car. You either had to be related/live together or be an uber/taxi driver. So we had to shoot each talent separately on a green screen in our studio, then merge the shots together, to make it look like they were in the car together. Thanks to our wonderful Andy, we pulled this off & you would never have noticed this was shot on a green screen.