Corona Daily 412: Lockdown Shoots

Franck Riester, France’s cultural minister, last week confirmed actors kissed for the first time on French film shoots. L’amour is not dead. Both actors had tested negative before kissing, he added.

Around the world, less than a handful films/TV series were shot in the last three months. Katla, a sci-fi series, directed by an Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur was shot in Reykjavik.

On arrival, all the 80+ crew members were tested. Every morning, temperatures were measured. A colour-coded armband system was used. Yellow for those near the camera. Black for actors, makeup and costume professionals. Red for producers, script supervisors and visual effects. Blue, very rare, for people like the director with access everywhere. Each colour pod had not more than twenty people. Colour pod mixing was discouraged on sets and off-sets. All costs were financed by Netflix.

All meals were in individual boxes. Every hour, a special team sanitized all doorknobs, toilets and other surfaces. Except for actors facing the camera, everyone wore masks. Makeup artists and production designers wore gloves. In the four weeks of shooting, no intimate scenes were included. Only two crew members who felt feverish were sent into isolation for two weeks. Nobody else was infected.

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Harvest of the heart, a romance was perhaps the only film shot in America. It was shot for 16 days starting 27 May. “Covid coordinator” is a new title in the credits. This person was responsible for set sanitization, and ensuring no visitors, no restaurants, no gyms, no gatherings. People lived in Airbnb apartments to avoid hotels. The 14 cast and 22 crew worked outdoors all the time. The script was altered to exclude love scenes, even handshakes. (Spoiler alert: A single kiss at the end of the film). Actors were given the option of doing hair and makeup themselves.

Insurance was a big problem. No insurance company wants anything to do with coronavirus. The film producer found a single company that excluded coronavirus, and charged an exorbitant premium.

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Australia’s long-running soap Neighbours is reported to be the first TV series that has resumed production. The shoot started on 21 April.

They follow a four square meter rule. This is the personal space nobody else should invade. A trained nurse is present on the sets. Male actors shoot without any makeup. Again no kissing, no handshakes, no intimacy. The cameraman and editor are expected to use trick technology to bring actors together. Cell phone sharing is prohibited.

On the entire set, offices and bathrooms have swinging doors. You can gently kick the door to enter.

Keeping abreast of the news is discouraged for both cast and crew.

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Hollywood has come up with two white papers offering guidelines for safe shoots.

Cast and crew should be quarantined for two weeks before the start of the shoot. Locations and sets should be covered for three days or more for the viruses on all surfaces to die. Scripts must be modified to get rid of extras – crew members to replace them as needed. Reduce action and increase special effects. Sweden recommends not taking actors above 70.

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Many Netflix/ TV watchers have expressed a strange feeling of discomfort when watching large families dining together, people shaking hands or an old rugby game. It may be a 1980s movie, but hugging and kissing on screen is making viewers cringe. Real life and cinema always follow each other. If social distancing becomes an on-screen norm, and requires a corona test before every shoot, the French kiss may soon disappear from the screen.

Ravi