Producing : Production in LA is back! How is the rest of the world doing? by David Zannoni

Just attended a major domestic film production....masks were non-existent, (not) keeping distance practically limitless... wore an mask though, had to as my character was an CSI technician...

Thanks Kiril, for sharing your experiences. Where did the production take place?

hometown, Skopje, Macedonia.

Here in Slovenia the bigger productions kept working all the time, but for smaller productions it's still tough because businesse are still holding on to their money in fear of new lockdowns and stuff.

We did some commercial work but far from what would be necessary to keep afloat, but at the same time we did a lot of narrative fork that we wanted to create like a TV series pilot and a couple of shorts.

Let's hope things get better in the future because there's not much financial leeway left.

Thank you Kiril and Vital. These are great insights as to where things stand in your each of your countries.

NC is busy busy through 2022.

In Nashville area, it's busy!

Greek production only closed down for about 3 months in the spring of 2020. By the second lockdown in the fall, protocols had been established to allow films to continue shooting, which they did. In summer 2020, Greece drew a couple of productions that had been unable to shoot, due to COVID, in their original locations. This year, we have close to 20 foreign productions shooting here, both films and series.

This is all great feedback, thank you. So a careful conclusion may be, is that production is getting back on track all across the globe. Good stuff!

While everything skidded to a halt during the lockdown, we're honestly busier than ever in the UK now and the biggest problem I've encountered recently is crewing up - many people are booked right up through 2022. It's very positive. There are still major challenges for indie producers and if anything they are in danger of increasing over the next few years, but overall things are steaming ahead now.

That is great news, Suzanne. So the issue is not anymore the pandemic, but rather availability of people because there is so much production activity. Wow!

To Suzanne's point, I know more than a few people that got out of production in the first 6 months of the lockdown due to productions trying to forge ahead, back on set, without the proper assurances. This was particularly felt by the make-up, SFX make-up, and costumers who are forced to be around the talent and thus would need more time to do their jobs AND greater assurances that their safety is being seen to. This is a good time to be good to your crew, for sure! Keep the ones that are still in the game happy!

We are still in lockdown here in the Philippines. But the Gov't does allow Locked In shoots. The whole cast and crew are locked in for 2 weeks, we cannot go home until we wrap up the shoot.

That sounds tough, Ravien. Is production nevertheless coming back?

Just a trickle, there is a lot of requirements and permits before shooting. And it's not allowed to go beyond 10 people if it's a small production, and 20 people if it's a big production. We also need to hire a Certified COVID Safety Officer in every shoot, they are the one if the protocols are followed. It's very tough and much expensive compared in the past...

Only the actors/talents are allowed to remove their Facemask and face shield if we are shooting.