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PART 2: STATE OF THE FILM & TV INDUSTRY ONLINE DISCUSSION
ONLINE DISCUSSION TRANSCRIPT
Beth Davenport:
Hi to everyone who is joining us, welcome. If you don’t mind turning your video off, it will make our experience a little bit smoother here. So if everyone can please mute and turn your video off, that would be great. I’m turning things over to Marie, our executive director at Stockade Works to kick us off.
Marie Nachsin:
Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us today for our second in a series of state of the industry online discussions. As Beth said, I’m Marie Nachsin, I’m the executive director of Stockade Works. For those of you who may not know, Stockade Works is a nonprofit organization based in the Hudson Valley that creates workforce development programs for film and television productions in the region. We run intensive crew bootcamps, we run specialized workshops, apprenticeship programs that train local residents for crew jobs on film and TV productions that are shooting in the region. Once our trainings are complete, we work to place graduates on productions and provide them with lifetime mentorship services. Our focus is not only on ensuring that local residents benefit from the economic opportunities that a production shooting in the region provides, but on ensuring access and inclusion for everyone, making sure that those who often experience barriers to entry into the industry have those opportunities. That includes women, people of color, veterans, and those who generally face barriers to employment. While our in person trainings are on hold right now, we’re trying to remain a resource for local crew and others in the community through alternative methods. One way is through these speaker series that will continue throughout the summer, possibly beyond, and through career awareness programs. We’re engaging in industry partnerships and trying to create online training programs where we can, all of our training programs of course are very hands-on. So we’re trying to adapt to this new reality and we’re doing this all in an effort to remain crew ready for when productions do resume in the region, which we know they will in full force and probably bigger and better than ever before. So thank you again for joining us today. I’m going to turn things back over to Beth Davenport, co-founder of Stockade Works and director of programs and she will moderate today’s panel and introduce our speakers.
Beth Davenport:
Thank you. We’re going to be using our zoom chat functionality for a Q and A coming up later. Feel free to chat. Shirlee Alkosser, who is not only working with us at Stockade Works, but who is also one of our bootcamp graduates, will be our maven of the chat. So she will be on there with you. Let’s kick it off! Thank you speakers for joining us. I’m going to go round Robin so everyone can do a quick self intro and also if you can include how you’ve been involved in this industry wide problem solving, safety and best practices movement that’s been happening to prepare us for getting back to work when we can, which we can’t answer on this panel, but we’re going to talk about how prepared we’re going to be. So Deb, could you start us off?
Deb Goedeke:
Hi everybody. Thank you for having me. I also want to say I hope everybody’s families are safe and healthy. I’m Deb Goedeke, the Albany County film commissioner out of Albany, New York. It’s with film Albany, a division of Discover Albany. My main focus is to market Albany and the capital region to productions. And then once they get here, make sure those productions use all of our services and resources. Because, as Marie said, it provides a real economic impact to our region. What I’ve been doing is trying to educate myself as much as possible from a city standpoint, how our city can be safer and cleaner when productions resume as well as our two qualified production facilities, or working with them on those guidelines and then also working with all of our vendors, our hotels, our craft services to make sure that they’re going to be ready and up and running when production all starts back up again.
Beth Davenport:
Great. Mary Stuart, over to you.
Mary Stuart Masterson:
Hi. I’m Mary Stuart Masterson, founder of Stockade Works, which is well represented here. And also very recently launched a soundstage facility in Saugerties, New York called Upriver Studios. Also, I’m a filmmaker and an actor and a mother of four who lives full time in the Hudson Valley. And what I’ve been doing in the last couple of months is really utilizing all of my access to all the different facets of the industry. Whether it’s the unions that I’m a member of, the associations like the Academy that I’m a member of, the new position as founder of a soundstage, our relationship to NYPA. We’re now members of NYPA, both Stockade Works and Upriver Studios. Sitting in on a lot of these conversations that really feel like think tanks, that are looking at this problem of safety and also the urgency of the business to reopen. And this tension between trying to do better and at the same time trying to be aware of the financial risk that our industry is in. And in terms of the tax credit program in the state, we’ve been very involved with trying to allow the Hudson Valley to be considered part of upstate as opposed to part of downstate and the way it’s considered in need of the additional 10% incentive. And so we’ve worked hard to get this incentive up here to be increased enough to give the industry further incentive to look at our region in addition to New York and other regions, New York city. So going forward my feeling is that we all have to work to build coalitions like these and have these be permanent changes that we all really do talk to each other, particularly the entire state of New York sees itself as one New York, to allow upstate New York that we’re now considered a part of to be insurance against the whole state losing its footing with this tax credit. So we are working to build the coalitions, working together, not seeing each other as adversaries or even really competitors as fiefdoms in regions, but to work all as one, the rising tide lifts all boats, and Stockade Works is across the whole region and so it does that naturally. And that’s why this kind of conversation can be so healthy and I hope that we can keep having these.
Flo Mitchell-Brown:
Hi everyone. So I’ve spent 30 years of my life in the New York community, making sure everyone gets paid for many, many years. And I currently work in and am head of industry engagement for a payroll company called Extreme Reach. I am also a filmmaker now producing socially impactful content that I’m really excited about. And I’m also a mom of four amazing boys. So that’s probably my most favorite hat. I have found myself in the center of leading the charge for the New York state community and have spent the last six years working as co-chair of the New York Production Alliance and making sure that our voices are heard in solidarity. As Mary Stuart said, we had a meeting this morning and we had a lot of conversations around how resilient we are as an industry. But what has made us so successful is the fact that we really know how to come together as a community across the entire state for our common interests. So I’m delighted to be here today because there have been a lot of conversations happening and we have been tasked with trying to make sure that we gather all of the information, the most important information. We’re not the experts. I don’t think anyone on this panel is a medical expert who can say what is the best. But what we can do based on our experience and expertise is share with everyone here what we’re talking about so that people understand that even though people, production workers and others, are sitting at home and can’t work right now, that we are working tirelessly to figure out how we’re going to come back and we’re going to do that safely and continue to fight to keep our wonderful tax incentive going. That has to also stay in the forefront of our minds because our state is facing a serious financial crisis and when they look to cut spending, these are the kinds of programs that get cut, but we have to remind everyone that there are hundreds and thousands of production workers that are paying taxes and companies that are members of NYPA. And that’s what is in the forefront of my mind and that’s what’s causing me to lose sleep at night is making sure that we continue to stay present and relevant in the entire country and globally in the film and television scene.
Chris Collins:
Hi, my name is Chris Collins. I’ve been working for 20 years in the New York film community on TVs and movies. I met Mary Steuart on a show called Blind Spot on NBC. I’ve also been part of the New York Producers Coalition that has been working to scour the globe for everyone’s ideas. The ideas of people in Iceland who are shooting, the ideas of people in South Korea who are shooting, about how to make sets as safe as possible so that we can as a united front talk to the governor’s office who will be ultimately responsible for giving us the green light and telling him that we’re as prepared as we can possibly be. And at the same time, what I’m doing with a smaller group of people is reaching out to people in our industry to say not only how have you been impacted, because everybody’s been impacted in one way or the other, but is there anything you are doing because our film and TV community is so, as everybody says, resourceful, and useful in so many ways that we’re asking how they are contributing right now. And there are costumers who are making masks for hospitals. There are caterers, my friend, who I have to mention by name, Andrew Sachs put together this great program where he’s raising money for New York caterers to go to hospitals to feed people on the front line. So he’s putting caterers back to work and feeding people in hospitals for free. And I think that’s a marvelous program. Location Scouts were helping the governor’s office find hospital space when it looked like we wouldn’t have enough hospital space in New York, things like that. And we’re trying to make it a place where everybody could see each other’s efforts to see how they can contribute. And we’re trying to remind everybody what a community we are. And like Mary Stuart says, I hope that some of the changes that we see going forward are permanent changes that will create improvement. In every industry there’s room for improvement and in ours there certainly is. I hope that some of the safety conscious changes we’re making now going forward will affect what we do from now on. And that’s that. I look forward to all of this discussion because I think it’s the healthiest thing we can do.
Beth Davenport:
Thank you. And now just for a little disclaimer, because we are going to start diving into some of these topics around best practice and the current thinking that’s going on. We can share with you what all our great panelists have been steeped in for the past few months. But I just want to reiterate that none of us are healthcare professionals. We’re sharing thinking and opinions that don’t necessarily represent what’s going to happen, one solution, or Stockade Works. We’re speaking as individuals and it’s meant to inform the discussion. So when moving forward and getting back to work, everyone should definitely consider best practices from actual health care workers and also any orders that do come down from local, state and national government. We expect to see more public best practices in the upcoming months. But what we can do now is talk around the ideas, right? So that’s what we’re going to do. So let’s jump in. Unfortunately, as I said before, what we can’t have this conversation be about is when we’re going to get back to work. We don’t know. There are many conversations happening about this, but I know it comes up for a lot of people in the industry as other areas start to get back to work in New Zealand or France or Georgia. And I would just like to hear some input from our panelists and I’ll call on you, but how that makes you feel being in New York state and production in general and how that might shape things. So Debbie, do you have any thoughts?
Deb Goedeke:
Well, the Capitol region just opened up on Wednesday and I have been following what some of the other film commissions overseas have been doing. But I think New York is in a unique position that we’ve been one of the hotspots in the country. New Zealand has had very minimal impact. They shut their country down as soon as possible. So, their guidelines compared to what ours might be here in New York state are gonna be totally different. So I’m really kind of relying on our industry and the governor’s office and, and Flo at the Production Alliance. And I have to say they have been working tirelessly and Chris and Mary Stuart and everybody here. But I think it’s kind of a wait and see. What we do here in the United States is going to be totally different from what they do over in Europe. I’m also one of those people that’s concerned about starting too fast. And then there’s things that could happen on set or with talent. The talent gets sick and now you’re not working for two weeks. So there’s all kinds of variables that I’m thinking about. But I think we have to proceed with caution. And I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re going to definitely move forward.
Mary Stuart Masterson:
Yeah, I feel like one of the strategic advantages of being in New York state is that so much of the talent lives in New York or California. And at the moment people are very concerned about airplanes, airports and travel. Obviously George Clooney can hop on his private plane, right. But, but the majority of us are not George Clooney and you need to be near the talent now and you also need to have the crew nearby. So I think that’s an advantage. Upstate there’s a little more room to spread out and figure it out. I think that we’re finding that all of the different guidelines that are being contemplated include crew working in smaller batches or pods that come in sequentially. But then where does the crew that just left go? You need to put them somewhere that’s also safe. And so just the sequencing of human bodies through space and where they go is always a topic of conversation. So the more space you have, the better. And the fact that New Yorkers’ character is a very can-do resilient character, so these are all things really going for us. To Debbie’s point, we have to be extremely careful, particularly in areas like ours where it’s, it’s not a new market for film, we have a terrific film community up here and it’s growing, but it’s not New York city. We’re still in small towns and we need to make upstate embrace film as much as any other industry. And in fact, possibly more so, because it’s a green industry and it provides huge revenue and a ton of jobs. And so the concern would be, as Debbie said, if we go too fast, if we’re not careful enough, and there’s some kind of contagion or something. And so every precaution needs to be taken on all parts to both message it properly to the community to say, hey, any industry anywhere has to consider these things. And every economy is suffering. And so, with the same mindset that you would restart construction or restart manufacturing. We have to look at ourselves as light manufacturing and be very positive while also being really super cautious. Among the guidelines are things that we can easily learn and teach like how to properly wear a mask and gloves. How quarantine, social distancing and the things we’ve all been practicing in the state of New York work. So I feel like we’re actually in a good position since we’ve been doing it for months now. Now we need to figure out how to get back to do it at work. And the places that you mentioned in countries that were completely shut down or countries that haven’t yet been affected very much, the concern with those is that they will be affected. And then what? And we hope that as an industry, we don’t get the negative ripple effects from that, but use this crisis that New York state is in as a learning opportunity and to say, alright, what have we learned from this? How can we be leaders for the most safe, best standards in the industry? Because we have to and because that will put us in a leadership position and make people feel the most safe going to work here. So I think it’s going to be harder for us in some ways and it’s also a greater opportunity at the end of all of this and the other thing I wanted to say is the things that I really want us to hold onto. As Chris pointed out, we’ve already at Stockade Works been thinking a lot about how production jobs should be quality jobs and yet people are working 80 hour weeks. That’s a little crazy. So, what are the beneficial effects on human beings having shorter work days? Lower stress, better immune system, better immune response, great. Your crew is healthier and happier. These are things that I think are positives. Yes, they’re more expensive potentially, but they’re not more expensive if you have a local crew. So this is also good. We can create more local jobs, build more local crew. So a kind of mindset shift. It could potentially be a positive one and those kinds of things are the easier things to do. Then, plexiglass walls and all the kinds of things that we’re also having to consider. There’s a lot of things to discuss.
Beth Davenport:
Could you shed some insight into some of the considerations for travel and accommodations? What are some of the topics that have come up around those?
Flo Mitchell-Brown:
Yeah. As far as accommodations, many of the line producers and the groups that I’ve been in are having conversations around actually hiring crew and just renting out either a hotel or a space that they will be quarantined to for the duration of the shoot. Temperatures being taken beforehand, testing if possible, and they have to remain in isolation for the duration of the shoot and will not be able to actually leave. That’s one thought. And then as far as transportation, it’s going to be a totally different animal. Likely looking for people where at all possible to, you know, they won’t have their own jet to fly, but to contain the group. Even doing travel in a way if people are coming from the same region, have them all travel together. Have people drive individually or with people who have been tested. There’s just so many processes and extra steps that are going to be going into this. But this is some of what’s being discussed right now. No one has come up with a clear plan. I was on a panel Tuesday where a lot of the non-scripted reality has already come back, never really stopped there. Other regions under the radar where there is not the full blown shelter in place. So some of the feedback that I received and learned on that call is that many are figuring things out as they move along. It’s not until you’re actually working that there’s some items you just don’t consider. They’re giving people meal money to go get their own lunches or they’re doing pre-packaged lunches. Those are some of the other considerations. But as far as the travel and accommodations right now, it’s all about keeping as many people staying sheltered in place to and from the set. And that’s it.
Mary Stuart Masterson:
You also have, with transportation, the possibility of creating safety for the driver up from the crew. But then the crew has to be safe from each other. And how many people are in a van and all of that is being considered. Air scrubbers inside of vehicles, which may or may not be 100% effective, but maybe 90%, would make it safer. All these things are being considered and are costly and in discussion.
Deb Goedeke:
I am currently working with a TV series that is looking at upstate and other locations besides Albany. They want to do a hotel buyout for the entire time. It’s a 200 room hotel, but they want to do a hundred rooms a night and they want to have the whole hotel. The hotel does have some spaces in it that can be closed off to the general public from the film crew. So we’re talking about if the hotel will be able to use those spaces for day meetings or not. The crew asked about Albany international airport. They asked about talent flying in and out of there. And we actually have an empty gate that a carrier used to be in. So we talked about bringing them through that empty gate and right into their transportation. So as a film commissioner, these are all the things that we’re thinking about for all of our clients when they reach out to us from a film commission and a destination end.
Beth Davenport:
Great. Chris, I want to sort of switch gears a little bit. How might this affect production staffing? Are there any conversations you’ve been having around that?
Chris Collins:
I’ve been having two completely opposite conversations at the same time quite frankly because in a lot of ways, a lot of people are saying this will increase staff because we should have medical professionals on the staff to take people’s temperatures, to monitor, to make sure people are wearing gloves and masks correctly. Because you know, this is all self-taught and there is a right and wrong way to use these things. There should be prep crews who receive equipment when it lands to make sure that it’s properly cleaned and sanitized and everything else at the same time. And it seems like this is a contradiction and it might be, we think crews on set have to be smaller. It’s going to affect everything in a way. It’s going to affect lighting and where we can shoot and all of these other things because we shouldn’t have 150 people on set, not anymore. And what other countries are doing right now and what a lot of people have done in Iceland, people are wearing armbands and you have a blue color for people who can be on set at all times. And that’s a very select group of people, the director and the DP, maybe a grip, maybe a gaffer. Besides that, everybody else has coded bands for when they can and can’t be on set. And I think that’s kind of the way we’re going to have to go because as much as you want to tell people that they have to stand six feet apart on set, it’s just not going to happen if there’s 150 people, if there’s just not the room on a stage. So I think it’s inevitable that you’re going to have to scale down crews on set, but at the same time we’re going to have to have different people in different places to do different jobs. We’ve never had a rigging crew there just to receive equipment and wipe it down. We’ve never had a full medical staff on set. Those things will affect a crew size as well. So I’m not sure overall if crew size is going down, even though crew size on set will have to go down.
Mary Stuart Masterson:
Right. And there’ll be a lot more remote work being done too. So while you might need more facility space to spread out, you might have some people working from home a little bit more.
Chris Collins:
Production offices should be working from home. All of those things.
Mary Stuart Masterson:
I’ve had a lot of thoughts around the changes in the way television has been produced in particular a show we both worked on where every day they have five cameras, every day they have five camera crews. And it’s like, did anybody make a shot list? What’s the plan? You know? I’m sure they did, but it’s all being done at such high volume that they think about quality as something you get to in post and now prep is everything. We’re going to have twice as much prep time, which is great from a filmmaker standpoint, but from a producing standpoint, it’s challenging on a budget to have so much more time to prep for any project, any episode of television. You’re going to have to take more time. And because you have to be covid ready for any aspect of the production. And so, from a creative standpoint, how great, you really think through what you’re doing. You have a real shot list and people who storyboard are going to get a lot more work. People who pre-visualize and really plan out each shot to the square inch. It’s almost like the old Hollywood days where your production designer and your director and your DP would work together for months to get it to be exactly what it needs to be before you begin. And so you don’t build all four walls of the set, you build the corner that you’re going to shoot, for example. In theory the creative process will be so much more deliberate and will have to be because you can’t say, Oh move the lamp, move it back, move it back, we’ll get back, because you can’t bring the set decorator in 12 times. You have to make a decision ahead of time and live with it. And that’s going to be really jarring for people creatively, but it’s going to be an interesting problem.
Flo Mitchell-Brown:
Yeah. And I’ve watched over my career, being the person that pays all these crew members, I’ve seen the inflation of the number of people on the sets and I also see the volume because of all these nuances that have come in recent years of multiple units shooting on a day. The tandems.
Mary Stuart Masterson:
Nobody’s prepared when they do that.
Flo Mitchell-Brown:
What’s going to happen now is that everyone’s going to have to come together on this because there are actually union rules that dictate, depending on the size, how many crew members from their department are required to be on set. So everyone is going to have a bit of a come to Jesus moment here and understand that they’re going to have to give something in order for this to work.
Mary Stuart Masterson:
Can I ask you a question Flo about this? Has it been discussed that because people might have to be completely in isolation or sequestered with the crew, that people won’t want to go on a full nine month order for TV for that long away from their family or whatever it is, that people work for sections of a schedule. And if so, how is the union feeling about that? Is there anything that can be discussed in that area?
Flo Mitchell-Brown:
I’ll put it to you this way. I don’t believe that people have got to the unions with those conversations, but those conversations are being had. That is exactly what people are thinking is if they’re going to need to have multiple people in each category and kind of swap them out. And on the call I had on Tuesday, that’s exactly what they’re doing there. So it’s almost like what a lot of companies were doing where they kind of do a job share. So that is definitely an idea and concept that’s being considered. But everyone is going to have to partake and be agreeable to all of this. So the rules are gonna change whether people like it or not. And that’s the part that is going to be tricky. But what I do know and what I will say in my experience as someone who lived through 9-11, had a panoramic view from my office, and the blackout, and Sandy, and coming out of that, what I will say without a doubt is that people definitely rise to the occasion and do the right thing. And I know that I can speak confidently. I know all the leaders that have been at the table, they know that we got to all come together and just do the right thing and we’ll get there. But we all have to be reasonable and we gotta be thoughtful and mindful. And the most important thing we have to do is we’ve got to protect each other.
Mary Stuart Masterson:
Yep. And that’s what unions are for.
Beth Davenport:
And going back to something that came up early in this discussion is that all crises provide opportunities, right? For us to come together, unions, producers, workers, whomever we are, now is the time and whether it’s on a state level, like Mary Stuart said, one New York, or whether it’s on a regional level. Debbie spoke to that. This is one of the opportunities where we’re all gonna survive better the more we work together and the more we share information and the more we create bridges and great working relationships with unions or with production insurance companies. We’re going to have to all come together at some point soon. I want to go over to our questions because they’re starting to come in. But Debbie, I wanted to ask you, from a film commissioner’s perspective, have you given any thought about how to message out to residents and business owners for them to feel comfortable with the influx of production that may be coming?
Deb Goedeke:
Yeah, we’ve never had any challenges with that. Of course this brings a whole different animal to it. Most of our businesses have been shut down in downtown Albany or a lot of them are closed right now where a lot of our filming takes place. Some of our hotels are being operated, but the general manager is now the front desk manager. So I think that they are willing to take this on. We will have that message out there. They will know that. And as always, if anybody has any concerns or questions, they can certainly reach out to me. I’m already working with our community partners, our county executive, our mayor, my special event liaison with the police department. So as these inquiries are coming in, I’m letting them know that our region is being considered for filming and that we need to be proactive and be on board with all of this because we don’t want to go through the whole process and then somebody comes back to say, we don’t want to do that because we don’t feel comfortable with it. So we’re being proactive and I know that my community partners are also putting out there that we are going to be open, we are going to be in business when production resumes, but we’re not rushing to get something up here and put other people at risk. We have to be very methodical about it.
Mary Stuart Masterson:
Definitely true.
Beth Davenport:
Yeah. And there’s another opportunity here to communicate between sectors. So film and television, whether it’s hospitality, or retail, we cross a lot of sectors and I know you’re on the board of the HVEDC and there’s great work going on there. So could you touch upon that?
Mary Stuart Masterson:
Yeah, definitely. The Hudson Valley Economic Development Corporation is a terrific nonprofit that’s pulled everybody in the business in this Hudson Valley region together to try to do the same, bring people together, bring people into conversation that normally wouldn’t be sitting at the same table. So there’s a few efforts underway there that involve film and a film friendly campaign having to do with how to educate your municipalities and towns, that you have a voice in speaking with the film community and commissioners, but also that this can be really beneficial to your economy without having a deleterious footprint on your community, but beneficial. The Ulster County Office of Economic Development has been a terrific friend to Stockade Works and now Upriver and they formed Film Ulster to create a repository of information and really help people that come to town have a sense of what’s immediately and hyper locally available. And so, I think that business plays a real role and local municipalities and government play a huge role. On the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corp board, you hear a lot about how each sector is trying to get back to work. And one terrific example was the Culinary Institute and the hospitality sector came together and created a pitch deck of best practices and what they’re going to do and how they’re going to make it safe. Things like that that are actual collateral that can be shared with productions to say, we’re not a bunch of hicks up here, we’re really organized, we’re going to be really safe and this is how we’re going to interact with you and your staff, crew, movie stars, whatever. I think those kinds of tools are going to be really important to have in our toolbox going forward.
Beth Davenport:
All right, let’s move to some questions. I apologize to our audience because we might not get to everyone’s question, but we’re gonna do our best here. So, this is from Maggie: What about potential liability? Has this been touched on during these conversations when production resumes? Chris, have you been a part of this, Flo perhaps?
Chris Collins:
The answer is yes. And insurance is a big deal. And nobody knows what we’re going to see, though premiums will go up for sure. Insurance companies are still paying out from when they had to close down in March, that’s across the board. And that’s quite honestly the missing part of this conversation right now, because insurance companies have not gotten back to anybody yet about how to move forward. And from a budgeting standpoint and everything else, it’s a giant mystery. We don’t quite know what’s going to happen yet. There are those that were saying, we made our deal before this went down, so we’re locked in. There’s going to be a ton of conversations and quite frankly, arguments. But it’s a mystery. It really is.
Flo Mitchell-Brown:
Well number one, as far as liability, I know people have been talking. I’ve been hearing about waivers and then I’ve also been hearing that waivers are pretty much meaningless. They won’t hold up. Even if you have people sign. I’m also hearing the same as Chris, that no one has figured it out yet, no one’s really providing what the coverage is going to be. I also have heard there’s some legislation being proposed to include Covid in the insurance portfolios. And then I’m hearing that there’s resistance to it because people are saying it’s a virus, it’s like any other illness. So there’s a lot of conversation, but no decisions have been made yet. If you really want to know the truth, the most important thing is not the liability, but it’s people’s safety and wellbeing. And I hope everyone here on the phone is hearing this and receiving this. Those are the conversations that are happening. And of course when we go out to our carriers, they’re going to have standards that we’re going to have to meet in order to resume filming. So we have a lot of thresholds that we’re going to have to get past. So first we have to get back to the point where Debbie’s office can actually issue a film permit. Let’s start there. Then we’re going to have to overcome these hurdles because no different from any other type of insurance, they have standards that you have to meet. And so the onus is really on the employers to make sure that the sets are safe and we’re doing everything and we can demonstrate that we are doing everything we can to keep our production workers safe. And that’s really the conversation and rest assured that is in the forefront of every single conversation that I’ve been on. That’s all people are talking about.
Beth Davenport:
From John: besides arm bands and medical experts, what are some other protocols that you might expect to be implemented on set?
Mary Stuart Masterson:
There’s a bunch that people have been talking about. Chris mentioned in Scandinavia and Iceland or in particular in Scandinavia that they threw out the 20 person crew maximum number for crew on the floor. We don’t know what that number is yet, but that’s one. That at video village when you’re watching the monitors that there’ll be only the necessary workers, the director, the DP and the script supervisor. And they have to be at a social distance that’s safe. There are things that actors can’t do on camera and be socially distant. And so there’s a lot of discussion around how to keep actors safe from each other when they’re doing scenes together. So there’s discussion around testing actors. People have been in quarantine for two weeks on Tyler Perry’s set in Georgia. They quarantined everybody two weeks prior to shooting and then they were in isolation and then they were going to leave. That’s one thing in discussion. As an actor I think it would be really great if actors and people who touch cast and get near cast all have one entire world that they travel in with separate and direct access to wherever it is they’re shooting and not walking through the production office or through where the crew is waiting or in holding. So I think having separate entrances for cast and crew, not because of hierarchy but just for safety, is probably going to be something to think about. How people move through space is crucial. No touch fittings, and back to food again, if you do what’s called French hours and it’s a straight 8 or 10 hour day, you could be handed your meal at the end of the day off of a truck by a gloved and masked caterer and not have to be six feet apart from everybody. You could do that at the end of the day and go on your way. Craft service similarly could be packaged and picked up by department from a truck. They don’t enter the building, they don’t set up tables. There certainly wouldn’t be a craft service table anywhere for a very long time. But I have to say these trucks exist and it’s not a new thing to work this way. They’ve been working in Canada this way a long time in terms of substantial, as they call them, big sorts of packaged heavy snacks that are given to crew that gets to walk away from set. So those kinds of things, putting it all together and making some comprehensive guidelines is the thing that hasn’t been resolved yet. But those are all the kinds of things that are being talked about. Certainly gloves, masks and shorter days.
Beth Davenport:
Definitely. Great. This from Mark: obviously the logistics of production and the processes of location scouting, clearing and cost go hand-in-hand. What is the thinking around how productions will work with locations, get them to agree to host crews, without a comparable pre-covid inventory of locations who will shoot what, where and how?
Chris Collins:
There’s a lot of discussion going on about this. Quite frankly. The old days of finding a house or apartment and a crew going in two days later are gone. We just can’t do that right now. Number one is going to start in the writing room where writers just have to write less location work. That’s just across the board. That’s where it’s going to have to start. And then we’re going to have to build more swing sets. But as Mary Stuart was talking about before, we’re building a corner now as opposed to an entire room. You’d be shocked, people watching this. Whenever you see people sitting on a couch, you’d be shocked what’s actually built for that. You’ll have an entire living room built out and they show an eighth of it. That’s going to have to go away too because we shouldn’t have the construction people working in those quarters doing that for all that time. We just shouldn’t. But we will have to do some location scouting and some shooting on location and what we’re going to have to be doing then is, sanitize it properly and then keep it quarantined, for lack of a better word, not having people there for a number of days before we go to shoot there. And then having a test when we have people there, medical experts there to just make sure that everybody is staying within the designated shooting area. But the days of shooting on the streets for a while are gonna be over.
Mary Stuart Masterson:
There’s also going to be a lot of long lenses. So people can be further apart from each other and still be in the scene together.
Deb Goedeke:
I know the TV production I’m speaking with, they asked me about one location and then all the rest of it, they’re going to build inside the set. And I think in the beginning that’s how it’s going to be. And I think eventually if they come up with a vaccine or as time goes by, they’ll go more to those outside locations. But what I’m seeing as the trend initially is everything is on a closed set.
Mary Stuart Masterson:
And mostly just because they haven’t figured it out and they still need to do it. So they just need the control. It’s not forever. But if we could at least take away from this, building a corner of the set because it’s all you actually need, then that’s actually an efficiency we could all use and take into the future. Not to hamstring everybody and ruin the production, but to think this is how they did it for 80 years before we started to get frankly a little lazy about that. So maybe some of this is just like emergency protocols and then then some of it will settle and stay a little while and maybe that’ll be a good thing.
Beth Davenport:
Great. So we have time for one more question. This is from Alison and I think it’s probably on the top of a lot of people’s minds: Any insight on finding new work or opportunities? I’ve been able to contribute to fully remote productions for projects that were already in progress, but new opportunities seem to be stalled for the moment.
Flo Mitchell-Brown:
I will say this though, from many of my friends that are at the producing and studio exec level. If your script wasn’t considered or greenlit and it has maybe one or two characters and one set, those are being put at the top of the pile.
Chris Collins:
They’re not making Avengers for a while.
Flo Mitchell-Brown:
But also in terms of future work, I have to tell you, there are people who right now as we speak, are scrambling to get at least two more projects in by the end of the year by necessity. Because if they don’t, their companies are going to have to shut down. I also had a conversation with a fairly prominent producer yesterday that said that she knows some very top level crew members that are actually turning down work because they’re afraid. They’re not sure if we’re ready. So, we have to make sure that people are feeling confident enough to come back to work. You know, we’ve got to get past those two thresholds I told you about. We have to get the film permits and then we have to get people over their fears of course. Debbie and the other commissioners are gonna have to be able to give permits out and then we have to be prepared. And the other thing that we didn’t really touch on, and this is also about the getting back to work piece, all of the stages are having conversations too. We’ve gotta have uniformity. We don’t want some shooting at one stage and having one experience and then someone going to another. But the great news is we’re all talking to each other. We’re working together on this. So you know us new Yorkers, we’re coming back and we’re coming back with a vengeance.
Mary Stuart Masterson:
That’s right.
Chris Collins:
Going back to something that Mary Stuart had said at the outset, New York is sort of uniquely ready for this because New York has been hit the hardest. And I think there’s a lot of truth to that and I don’t want to name names, but I will, I see people talking about going out to work in Georgia right now. And my answer to that is, you can be as safe as you want in Georgia, but the crew can leave the set and go to the bar and then all your efforts are for not. And I think the fact that New York state has taken this very seriously and continues to take this very seriously, puts people in a better place, in a better frame of mind where they think that across the board from sun-up to sun-down, everybody has done everything they can to make it safe. I think that’s way more reassuring than other States who have not taken this seriously and are giving the green light for people to go back to work. But as Debbie said, we can’t rush into this and have it backfire. Everybody has to be as prepared as possible and I think New York is as prepared as possible. And that’s a good thing.
Beth Davenport:
Yep. I think it’s great that everyone’s coming together. I know soundstages in the Hudson Valley, including Upriver have all been talking about their best practices. We talked to Debbie quite a bit and other film commissions and other counties and obviously Flo and Chris and all the groups and I everyone is working together and that is the best case scenario in a really hard situation. I want to thank our panelists again. It was so great to hear your insights and your expertise and just sharing with our community in general and to our audience. Thank you. I’m sorry if we didn’t get to everyone’s questions, but you’ll hear from us again. If you want to keep in touch about what things we’ll be doing in the future at Stockade Works, you can visit our website and join our email list. We won’t spam you. And a big shout out to Debbie because she helped us put this panel together. And Debbie is a true highlight of this region and such a great example of a film commissioner. And so thank you for all the work that you do. Thank you everyone.