COVID-19: A well-framed shooting protocol.

• How is the activity of the video pole during this period?

The activity of the pole is doing rather well because we managed to find our projects as we only did post-production during the confinement and the preparation of the shoots (5 in all) for the deconfinement.

All projects were maintained, there were no cancellations, only postponements on projects related to filming.

• What are the challenges of organizing a filming during the Covid crisis?

Especially health challenges, it involves putting everything in place to ensure the safety of all people, intermittent or freelance, clients and people of the agency.

The project managers will be responsible for sanitation and will have to make sure that everyone respects the barrier measures with the wearing of masks, hand washing, by limiting the number of people on the set, the clients are outside the set with an instructor, and we also have a contact thermometer.

We also need to call each person to find out if they are sick or if they have been in contact with people with COVID.

At the level of the actors, they must now manage themselves, there is always a stylist and makeup artist but without physical contact.

All pre-shoot meetings are done remotely and a priori there will be no physical meeting with clients for post-production.

The big challenge is above all to find it difficult to combine compliance with barrier measures while retaining the creativity of the film.

• What unexpected arrangements did we have to make to keep the filming going?

Record a voice with the actor on his own at home, and the rest of the video had to be done in motion and archive footage when there was a shoot originally planned.

All other filming has otherwise been postponed.

• What has been turned upside down in terms of logistics?

The fact of not being able to work together on the production posts is quite complicated when we are used to working in pairs, of not being able to sit down together to make adjustments … etc. It’s also complicated to send movies by we transfer, it takes a lot of time.

You also have to demonstrate pedagogy with clients, get back in there and demonstrate pedagogy with teams as well.

It’s complicated to have to brief someone remotely on a film. In fact, everything is longer now.

• What are the major changes before (PPM, casting, purchasing, etc.) and during filming?

The PPMs are remote now, there is no fitting session, that is to say that the stylists buy clothes in several sizes to be sure that it goes to the actor, there is no retouching on the person.

The makeup artist will have to clean his brushes all the time too.

All the preparation of the actors will be much longer, the shooting times will have to be re-adapted to be able to make everything come in without increasing the shooting times.

• What does a typical film crew look like during this period?

A reduced team, there are only the people who are really essential, that is to say that we will avoid several camera assistants, and we will have only the station managers.

Since the shootings are not very big we can afford to be in a small team, and it’s the same on the client side, they only come in pairs. We try not to be more than 10 on the set.

• Quel est le détail auquel on ne pense pas quand on organise un tournage en respectant les règles d’hygiène strictes liées au Covid ?

It’s creativity, it stays a bit in the background when it should be the main basic element, but since we have to think about everyone’s safety and barrier gestures, it becomes difficult and more secondary unfortunately.