Entertainment Industry Trends: Will Work Ever be Fun Again?

Many entertainment industry trends have evolved over the years, from talking pictures to television to streaming movies.  However, we’ve never seen anything like what this pandemic is doing to our industry.  Although it can sometimes feel as though we’re floating through a parallel universe, at some point production will actually resume and many of us will be faced with going back to work on set.  What exactly that will look like remains to be seen.  However, there will surely be new health and safety protocols in place that will change our work lives forever.  April 28, 2020 is World Day for Safety and Health at Work, so it's an ideal time to reflect upon what a safe and healthy work day might be when we return to work.

Recent Developments

A recent email sent out to IATSE members and signed jointly by the leaders of IATSE, the DGA, SAG-AFTRA, the Teamsters, the WGA and the American Federation of Musicians stated that these unions remain ‘focused on the protective measures that will need to be enacted to keep professionals safe on production sets and other work environments once people can return to work.’

Various articles in the trade papers have suggested some ideas for what protective safety measures might need be in place to enable productions to resume.  Some of these ideas seem entirely feasible, others do not.

Here are my thoughts on what a safe set might look like, at least until a vaccine for Covid-19 is widely available:

• Daily temperature checks for everyone coming onto set. Perhaps even a nurse present on set at all times to monitor if anyone becomes ill during the day.
• Masks being worn all day on set and social distancing practiced. Since the actors can’t wear masks, no one will go near them.  The Australian show Neighbors is actually back in production, and they have 3 production teams isolated from each other, so if one team has an illness among them, the other teams can keep working.
• Absolutely no crowd scenes, unless they can be created digitally.
• All sets become closed sets. No family or friends coming to set, not even actor or director guests.
• No shared serving utensils at the caterer and no food sitting out on a table where people can breathe on it. Extreme social distancing strictly enforced during meals, since no one will be wearing masks at lunch.
• Only individually packaged food at craft service.
• All call sheets sent out digitally to cast and crew. No physical call sheets change hands.

These are just a few of the things that come to mind for creating a safe set when production starts up again.  There are many other safety protocols that will need to be in place, but these are a few to think about.  The technology exists to make this work.  Safe set health protocols are an entertainment industry trend that will be around for the foreseeable future.

However, will we lose what so many of us enjoy about working on set in this new reality?  While the work will get done, will we still be able to share the camaraderie and creativity that made the work enjoyable?  Maybe these are inappropriate questions to ask while unemployment is skyrocketing and many would be happy to have any paying job, but I can’t help but mourn the loss of what makes working in our industry a unique experience, even on the worst days.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to get those things back again soon.

Industry Resources

If you need help during this difficult time, here are links to some industry resources:

American Federation of Musicians: https://www.afm.org/covid-19/

Directors Guild of America: https://www.dga.org/The-Guild/Coronavirus-Resources-and-Updates.aspx

International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees: https://www.iatse.net/coronavirus-update-portal

International Brotherhood of Teamsters: https://teamster.org/covid-19

SAG-AFTRA: http://www.sagaftra.org/covid19

Writers Guild of America East: https://www.wgaeast.org/covid19/