Temperature-testing stations, hospital-sterile rooms, daily antiviral fogging.
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You take over a hotel.
You work six-day weeks.
Get in and out as quickly as possible.
To shoot in Canada, Belgrads cast and crew will endure two weeks of government-mandated quarantine.
And the entire operation will be unusually rushed.
Which means no going home for the weekend, and no off-campus wheeling and dealing.
In movie-makings spiritual homeland, things are looking similarly prohibitive.
People are going to say, How am I supposed to do my job?
We have to reconfigure what our jobs are on set.
And so it will be very different and it will be very scary for some people.
Making productions more digital has been the trend for a long time.
COVID-19 will only accelerate that.
Especially as studio overseers show a growing openness to effects technicians doing their work from home.
As for the sex scenes, CGI simulations are also reportedly being explored as stand-ins.
What Special Effects Cant Fix
However, VFX wont solve everything.
A move toward airplane mealstyle catering has also been widely discussed.
We could just keep giving them bags and bags every time theyre a little bit hungry.
But what if they dont want the peanut butter sandwich?
Theyve already thrown away the apple and the juice box but they want another beef jerky.
Thatll be a total waste.
So we liked the idea of giving them an option.
Arguably, the division most immediately ripe for a re-do will be hair and makeup.
So many people working at the same time in a really tiny space, Tsuji says.
We have to think about getting individual makeup artists on each actor.
It costs so much more once something bad happens.
So much more than getting an extra trailer.
Anything that doesnt have to be done in person will be done digitally, Greenstein says.
The script supervisor thats supposed to be sitting next to the director?
That person will be sitting remotely.
If there are presentations of costumes, it wont require everyone to be in the same room.
We can be minimizing interactions across the board.
Wherever possible, Im sure theyll be outside rather than inside a soundstage.
That will depend on putting up tents.
Can I tell you its going to be a seamless integration of these protocols?
No, Greenstein continues.
Its going to take time.
Will it possibly take longer to shoot a day than it normally would have?
At the beginning, yes.
I dont know if I personally will go back to work anytime soon, Charlize Theron recently toldVanity Fair.
I have two small kids.
I dont want to mess with this stuff.
Such stars absence from scheduled shoots has the potential to cause major disruptions in the studio pipeline.
Theres a handful of actors in film and television that drive production, says an industry insider.
They dont necessarily need to work, or at least work with the same urgency.
So, say, Nicole Kidman decides to take off a year until theres a vaccine.
All of a sudden, all those seven movies that star Nicole Kidman are stuck in limbo.
You either recast that role or you wait for her.
(The rank and file want to go back to work, says a studio executive who requested anonymity.
The big, big stars, its a case-by-case basis.)
There might be a lean towards action at a distance, says Hargrave.
Car chases where theres a single person in the car.
Theres a barrier between you physically and metaphorically.
There are ways around it.
People might get a little tired of bow-and-arrow fights, shootouts, and spear-throwing.
It Could Work!
I mean, thats what people do.
We work 15, 16 hours a day and you need a little release.
Even if it means going to the 7-Eleven to get a Slurpee.
You cant get a bank loan if you dont have a bonded production.
And you cant get a bond if you dont have that bank loan, notes one insider.
And they have a lot of money.
Hollywood people are nothing if not creative and inventive.
Were in the business of solving problems, says Belgrad.
This is one giant problem that will have to be unpacked in many different ways.
