Hollywood is making moves towards getting back to work, with the entertainment industry’s guilds and unions signing off on a 22-page guideline document designed to establish safety protocols for producing movies and TV.
The agreement (which can be viewed here) comes after negotiations among actors, directors and crews, and will include extensive testing, temperature checks, cleaning measures and physical distancing when possible. The parties also acknowledge that revisions might be necessary going forward. Actors and other performers, the report notes, are “most vulnerable because they cannot wear PPE [personal protective equipment] when cameras are rolling, and frequently will not be able to engage in physical distancing.” That will require greater testing frequency for them and those with whom they are in close contact.
Certain activities, such as writing and casting, are still encouraged to be conducted virtually whenever possible. Other parts of production, such as live studio audiences, are also being discouraged.
The plan was produced by the Industry-Wide Labor Management Safety Committee Task Force, which was formed specifically for that purpose, with input from epidemiologists and sanitation experts. The guidelines have been submitted to public-health officials in New York and California.
