How Will Georgia’s Filming Guidelines Affect Production?
By George Robbins
Countless issues continue to arise due to this outbreak of the novel coronavirus and will continue to do so for awhile moving forward. One of the most affected industries to be inconvenienced by the pandemic we are currently wading through is the entertainment industry. In the entertainment industry one of the most monetarily lucrative parts of it, namely the movie industry, has been affected horribly by this. What I mean to say is that the industry is at a standstill for the most part with very little being done productively. There is no way for movies to be presented to people right now with theaters shut down other than releasing them straight to VOD.
Some movies have already been released straight to VOD and they are selling quite well on that platform. However, for good faith between production companies and theater companies, as well as the prospect of making more money, some companies have decided to delay their film. This covers what is happening to movies that have already been made and are just getting ready to be shown to the public. There is still the issue that all movies and television shows have had to halt their production and won’t be able to start up again until around the times most theaters reopen their doors. This creates an entirely new set of problems for people to deal with in the industry.
With filming productions currently halted, there are many who simply want to get back to work on sets all over the world. However, much of the world does not have plans for relaxing the rules of the lockdown in order to allow filming again. There are some places that do plan on allowing productions to start up again soon with one of them being the state of Georgia. Georgia state has started reopening businesses a few weeks ago with restrictions in order to try and get the economy back on track. So now that businesses have been opened for a little while, they are making plans to allow filming to start up again. This is, however, not without new guidelines in place to keep people safe during the pandemic.
The guidelines which will be in place during the filming of any shows or movies is similar to ones that must be followed by any businesses. These guidelines include things like temperature checks, masks, and the most poignant rule to date, social-distancing. On sets, crew members will be forced to adhere to these rules, less crew members will be allowed to be present, and an Occupational Risk Prevention employee must remain present at all times to see if they adhere to the policies. While not filming, actors must keep masks on, they must bring as much of their own wardrobe as possible, and they must adhere to the distancing policy. These guidelines have been discussed many time until now, and it seems they will actually be going along with this set of rules after all. Productions will be allowed to begin again in Georgia on July 8th.