Coronavirus and the art of the new normal
As a small business owner, I’m taking this weekend to analyze the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on our company, our staff, our partners and our customers (our audience). We are in an unprecedented time and no amount of forecasting could have predicted the situation we collectively find ourselves in.
However, we are not alone in this. Our sector, and many others, face huge challenges over the coming months.
The big question is: how can we find the “new normal” out of this crisis?
At Together Films we are passionate about Impact Distribution; bringing films to audiences to create change. We focus on films about key issues such as the climate crisis, women’s rights, sexual assault, and human rights.
In the middle of this crisis, I see an opportunity for us to rewrite the rules and change structural systems in the long term.
I would welcome additional comments on how we can collectively turn this moment into an opportunity for society to move forward in a more positive way. To suggest additions please reach out to hello@togetherfilms.org
This article includes some recommended viewing of recent or upcoming films that you should watch, which highlight some of the societal issues we have the ability to change. Look out for the 📽️ symbol (I’ve tried to include as many that are available online whilst we are stuck inside!).
A moment of disruption
There is a huge fear in our sector — film — due to the fact that the majority of our work relies on bringing a group of people together in a closed dark room. Something which is not advised during this particular outbreak.
The Hollywood Reporter noted this morning that the industry could lose as much as $20B due to Coronavirus.
You might say “ahh but you have Netflix, surely you could sell films there?”
What you might not realize is a number of those digital/broadcast rights deals are based on performance at film festivals, press generated from theatrical releases and the total box office earned. The live experience is important in our marketplace. We cannot underestimate the market impact that this will have for our industry, especially for the independent sector who rely on film festivals to be ‘discovered’.
The likes of Lena Dunham launched out of SXSW to secure her HBO deal with Judd Apatow. Whilst years before the success of La La Land, Damien Chazelle premiered a short film at Sundance 2013 that would later become the Oscars favorite Whiplash.
Film Festivals are a vital aspect our the industry for economic performance. Whether through pitching forums, premieres, networking events and sales activity. We have all seen the reports of Film Festivals being closed across the world. Just yesterday, our team had to announce that the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in London was canceled. We then got word that Hot Docs — the leading North American documentary market — has also had to share the difficult news that their festival wouldn’t be taking place. There is a long, and growing list…
We have already seen some innovative ways to circumvent the travel bans with the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival moving their pitching forum to an online platform.
Major festivals are ramping up online availability of screeners to ensure that buyers and press are able to watch films. Digital libraries have become more common in recent years due to the scale of projects presenting at each festival; you simply can’t watch everything in person.
Publications such as IndieWire have committed to reviewing titles out of SXSW, and I’m sure we will see other publications following suit for Tribeca and others.
The impact of film festivals closing is not just on the filmmakers present, but also the seasonal workers who provide the logistical infrastructure to run these events. There are thousands of short term contractors now facing up to 6 months without jobs and income due to festival closures.
Many of whom may be the filmmakers of the future. Directors including Nanfu Wang started off volunteering at DOC NYC before she made hits Hooligan Sparrow and One Child Nation with Amazon Studios.
Every now and then we see a glimmer of hope for expanding access to digital/broadcast distribution; just yesterday Sky announced a whole new channel just for documentaries. However, at present, the sector isn’t prepared or capitalized to support a digital-only revenue model. We need the ecosystem of all rights categories (theatrical, non-theatrical, digital, TV) to be sustainable.
As an Impact Distribution specialist, we rely on the strength and conviction of passionate communities who screen our films to create change.
There is a power in a physical screening. The collective viewing experience can not be underrated:
- The chance to laugh & cry next to a stranger who is feeling the same emotion as you.
- The chance to bond with a group of humans during those 90 minutes as you bear witness to an important story.
- The chance to feel collective anger at injustice around the world and channel that anger to action.
- The chance for dialogue with people who may not have the same background as you.
I will never forget the audiences coming out of screenings of 📽️ For Sama still crying at what they had witnessed. Shocked to say that they had “hugged a stranger, and held their hand” to deal with the distress of the experience. Then the realization that the film was only a portion of the lived experience for Waad alKateab and her family during the Syrian conflict.
We know the power of film to changes hearts and minds. It’s a cliched statement in a way, but one that we cling to. There is something about the live experience that forces us to connect with our emotions on a new level. In a crowded world, to be forced to contemplate a single narrative for 90 mins (without distraction) compounds our understanding of that story.
I fear for all the films that missed their festival premieres this month, hundreds — if not thousands — of films from SXSW, CPH:DOX, Tribeca… and the many films that were due to open in cinemas this weekend. Our sector is preparing alternative digital options, online premieres and screening services to try and find alternative solutions for these films to be embraced by audiences.
However, what impact will this have on their careers? What is the viability of them to sell in the future? What impact with this have on the pipeline of our marketplace? The answers to those questions won’t be understood for months, if not years to come.
Throughout this time of uncertainty, I am however seeing a glimpse of hope.
I wonder if this complete shock to the system is what we needed to collective ‘wake up’. I’m not talking about the Millenials we say are ‘woke’, but the businesses who overnight changed their supply chains. The governments who found funding for extra healthcare in a matter of days. The impact of global carbon emissions when we all start to slow down.
Have we entered a moment where we can completely change the status quo? Can we ensure that we don’t revert to the way “things used to be” before the outbreak — on a political, economic and environmental level?
We spend our time championing films about key social issues and some of the biggest battles we have been fighting are starting to show promise. There are key changes happening in the workplace and wider society that shows that things could be dramatically different.
In the midst of this crisis, I’m feeling hopeful that we are witnessing a societal shift that could push us in the right direction to a sustainable future. These are my initial notes and I welcome your additions.
Global Emissions are down:
Reports vary but estimates suggest a 6% reduction in emissions globally due to coronavirus. Following the public student climate strikes last year, and the 30+ years of climate activism calling for government policy and structural changes to curb emissions, in a matter of weeks we have been forced to question all of our actions around travel, production, growth for growth’s sake in order to stem the spread of the virus.
How can we harness this moment to analyze this impact and communicate to audiences that we have the power to make this change?
Many have joked that is only ‘climate change had the same publicist as the coronavirus’ then maybe we would have seen changes earlier. The reason that changes have been so swift is that the threat to life is so immediate. Individuals find it difficult to contemplate what life will be like in 10, 20, 30 years time, and so consider the climate crisis to be not as urgent.
However, if we can capitalize on the changes brought about by COVID perhaps we can rebuild society in a more sustainable manner when we eventually return to work, travel and ‘life’.
We are currently releasing the environmental feature documentary 📽 ️2040 across the UK & US. The film asks, what would the world look like if we used the solutions that already exist? For those working in the sector, we know that we need a collective response to the climate crisis in order to make a change. We are now seeing collective action taking place on an unprecedented scale.
“The virus may lead to a deeper understanding of the ties that bind us all on a global scale. That could help our chances of getting to grips with the climate crisis” — Andrew Norton (International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)).
The solutions featured in 📽️ 2040 include changing transport systems, moving to regenerative agriculture and switching to renewable energy sources. They can all be implemented today, and when we finally recover from this outbreak, perhaps we can realize the strengths of these new solutions.
We need to work collaboratively in order to ensure that the mass action being taken by all sections of civil society, and the government, to ensure the health of our society is retained to tackle the climate crisis. We must ensure that a solutions framework is adopted post virus to ensure that the reductions in emissions don’t jump straight back up to record levels.
The various travel bans have had huge impacts on businesses around the world. Not just in terms of human resources, but also supplies of goods not being able to be shipped. We must conduct an audit of whether this travel is really a requirement and whether our supply chains have been constructed in the most environmentally ethical way.
Let’s question everything. Every process can be reviewed whilst we are on lockdown. Can we change our supply systems, travel schedules, and shipping routes to retain a lower emissions rate? How can we move as much infrastructure to digital systems or local suppliers to meet demand during this crisis and beyond?
A new film slated to premiere at SXSW, 📽️ After We Go Green (Directed by Fisher Stevens & Malcolm Venville, Produced by Leonardo Dicaprio) explores all that goes into making Formula E — the drivers, teams, rivalries, innovators and technology — while exploring the impact that the series could have on the way the world drives.
Can the technology — and audience they are building — be used to kickstart an electric car revolution? How can we get climate solution narratives into more mainstream communications to show that a green future can look exciting, and innovative, and possible?
Doc Society held the Climate Story Lab last week where our Campaign Director, Beccy Ashdown, discussed our work on 2040, including how we are speaking with TV soap writers to include climate solution narratives within their storylines. We need the future visioning of a climate positive solution in every form of communication.
There have been great strides taken to create the Green New Deal for both the US & UK. The UK plan includes items such as;
- Totally decarbonise the economy of the United Kingdom in a way that enhances the lives of ordinary people, workers and communities and works to eliminate social and economic inequality.
- Create millions of new well-paid, secure, unionised jobs across the country guaranteeing healthy and fulfilling livelihoods for all workers, and communities including those in today’s high emissions sectors.
- Transform our economy so the financial system serves the needs of people and planet, with an accountable and democratic government in the driving seat. Our economy must work in the interest of everyone — with greater democratic participation, accountability and common ownership — empowering those communities currently marginalised and respecting natural ecological limits.
- Protect and restore vital habitats and carbon sinks, including forests and wild areas, and ensure the provision of clean water, air, green spaces and a healthy environment for all.
- Promote global justice by supporting all peoples and countries to decarbonise quickly and fairly, in line with timeframes set out by science. The Green New Deal will ensure the UK does its fair share to tackle climate breakdown — and more — to account for historic emissions and the exploitation of resources and communities, particularly those in the Global South.
How can we collectively transform the 6% reduction in global emissions into long term change? How can we document this change and lead audiences — and decision-makers — to commit to long term structural changes? How can we rebuild our economic structures with sustainability at the heart?
Healthcare IS a human right:
Living in the UK where we have the NHS, I have benefitted from the privilege of universal healthcare from birth. The idea that I wouldn’t go to the doctors when I was sick, or take an ambulance to the hospital during an accident is unthinkable.
However, this isn’t a reality for many people. In the US universal healthcare is still not available to everyone. The insurance system is fundamentally broken when those in need question their economic position, over their health, before making an appointment at the doctors.
During times like this, it highlights why we all need to be able to access medical care in order to keep everyone safe.
If you have the luxury of being able to afford private healthcare, but your driver, chef or nanny can’t then you are not immune. The health of all is paramount for a functioning society. Healthcare needs to be seen as a human right, not an economic privilege.
We are currently working with the Open Society Foundation to support the release of Dylan Mohan Gray’s new short documentary 📽️ From Durban To Tomorrow (about the global fight for affordable HIV treatment). The film is a follow up the feature documentary 📽️ Fire In The Blood, which tells the story of how Western pharmaceutical companies and governments aggressively blocked access to low-cost AIDS drugs for the countries of Africa and the global south in the years after 1996 — causing ten million or more unnecessary deaths — and the improbable group of people who decided to fight back.
“You don’t have to earn human rights, you have them by virtue of being human” — From Durban To Tomorrow
Our friends at Sunshine Cinema did a screening tour across South Africa with the film, opening up the discussion around access to healthcare in an area with a high number of cases.
It is warming to see announcements from funders like the Gates Foundation & the Wellcome Trust committing up to $100M for enhanced research for drug development to combat coronavirus.
It raises key questions on how pharmaceutical companies are usually the recipient of large government subsidies who then charge high fees for access upon market release. It raises key questions about incentive structures in the US and access to HIV/AIDS medicine, which has been an ongoing struggle for over 30 years. As the great AOC puts in:
What changes can we see in light of coronavirus in the way that drugs are funded, researched and accessed as part of a new health system? How can we take the requirement for quick drug research and access to market at an affordable rate and make that the new normal?
Jennifer Brea (Director of 📽️ Unrest), a feature documentary about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, has also been highlighting online why the Coronavirus is so concerning due to the potential impact for long term chronic illness.
Check out this thread:
The need for adequate healthcare for all, becomes acute when we see the breaking crisis as a long term healthcare issue, not just for the immediate term. People may recover from the initial virus but have long term implications. How we can transform the health system to support these patients on the long term?
Yesterday, the Senate was able to secure support to pass the ‘Families First Coronavirus Response Act’ (even with 40 republicans voting against the measures….).
With such swift action on this bill, it opens the door for potential wider healthcare reform in the US.
Wealth inequality cannot be ignored:
We have all heard the crushing statistics from Oxfam’s reports about income inequality where “the world’s 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than the 4.6 billion people who make up 60 percent of the planet’s population.”
In a moment of crisis, it becomes acutely apparent that the top 1% don’t need that amass of wealth when their workers aren’t able to take paid sick leave or pay their medical bills on time.
“We may look back on coronavirus as the moment when the threads that hold the global economy together came unstuck” — Omar Hassan (The Independent)
At Together Films, our business is going to be impacted in a big way. We rely on people coming together physically to watch films. That might be banned for 1 month, 3 months, or longer. We just don’t know.
We are entering an unpredictable economic situation, along with the thousands of cinemas, film festivals and distributors around the world.
As the Independent notes, “it is even more worrying that governments continue to see this as a health crisis, not an economic one. It is time the economists took over from the doctors before the real pandemic spreads.”
The idea that banks are offering mortgage holidays in light of the virus and that the Federal Reserve found $1.5 Trillion to calm to stock markets, but previously we would question how funding could be found for healthcare is mindblowing.
The realignment of economic structures during this crisis should be a wake-up call to how we allocate resources in the long term. The key question moving forward is how do we adequately attribute funding to programs designed to support wider society, and not just big business, and provide income equality so that households can build up savings accounts for times of crisis.
Imagine if the raised minimum wage law had passed in the US 2 years ago; potentially working families would have had a buffer to ride out the next few months. Instead many will be on the breadline.
Robert Reich has been speaking about this for years. 📽 ️Inequality for all showed how economic structures were set up to favor a minority, not the majority.
More recently at DOC NYC, we screened 📽Waging Change, featuring Saru Jayaraman, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about how the National Restaurant Association, the “other NRA,” has lobbied the US government to keep the federal minimum wage for tipped workers at $2.13 an hour since 1991. This pushes a high number of female tipped workers to ‘accept’ sexual harassment in the workplace in order to secure a tip at the end of a shift.
There is an inherent misalignment when businesses don’t operate on the basis of people before profit. The fact that tipped workers, are in essence, begging for their patrons to pay them a tip, as their employer does not grant them a living wage, is an irresponsible business ideology.
The biggest issue facing workers in the US is the lack of health insurance and paid sick leave and so tipped workers keep going to work, as it’s the only way to ensure they can feed their families. An immediate call to action is to support the need for paid sick leave for restaurant workers:
We need to radically rethink how our economies function, and what changes we can implement at the end of this crisis. We need to radically change how we think about employee compensation and paid leave in order to ensure that employees are valued on a human level.
If we vote for the passionate representatives, things CAN change:
This year was always going to be a big one. The looming election in the US, with a potential 2nd term for President Trump, has weighed heavily on many people's minds.
In the documentary industry, there are a number of films coming down the line that aims to change the conversation around political representation and policy. What 📽 ️Knock Down The House started at Sundance in 2019, is being followed by 📽️ And She Could Be Next this year.
We witnessed this week the power of a single representative to make a change. Watch Katie Porter break down the costs and requirements for COVID-19 testing, and secure the head of the CDC to agree to free testing for all👇
This is not the first time that Katie Porter has rocked the mic. You should check out her Twitter feed for more. It shows the power that sensible, prepared, and passionate representatives can make a difference on critical issues. The impact that people like AOC have had on US politics will be required reading on history papers in years to come.
Looking forward to the future, we have seen a rise in youth movements calling for change. It’s clear to see that the voting demographic and elected representatives will dramatically change in the next 10 years. I wonder if the key issues being pushed by the youth — climate change, sensible gun laws, immigration reform — might fast forward if we secure a change of leadership in November? Can we capitalize on this moment on instability to build up momentum towards the upcoming election?
I think of 📽 We Are The Radical Monarchs on the west coast, who are training diverse youth leaders on the policy points important to them.
Thanks to revelations in the Guardian and films like 📽 The Great Hack, we are more aware than ever of the tactics that were used to fuel mistrust in voters in the run up to the US election and Brexit vote.
If we are strategic, can we use this shock to the system to engage in real dialogue in our neighborhoods? Can we build a community around the key issues — primarily healthcare — to push for better representation in the upcoming elections?
There is a real sense of community:
As a society, we had become increasingly insular instead of collective. I was one of the heartbroken people who fought hard against Brexit. I couldn’t believe the way in which we were categorizing people as “less valuable” than others. The rising xenophobic rhetoric in the UK, and wider Europe, had shocked me to the core.
This outbreak has opened the idea of community. From Italians playing singing in solidarity together from their houses;
To filmmakers like Jeanie Finlay offering up mentoring sessions as her film shoot in the US was canceled.
I’ve personally checked in with more friends and family in the last few days than I probably did in the last few months. Why does it take a crisis to remind us that we are all connected?
Rather than ransacking your local supermarket for endless toilet roll, consider donating what you can to local food banks. Really consider that the majority of you reading this are in positions of power and economic stability. Many thousands will be in real need due to the shortage of work for hourly workers, and the loss of support for families when children can’t be fed at school.
I wonder how we can keep this sense of community going long term? How we can be kinder in general to those around us. How we can be understanding of others and supportive in times of need in a much greater way than before.
Working from home can be (even more) productive:
At Together Films, we already had a flexible working arrangement where people could work from home (or another location) for 2 days a week if they wanted to. I originally implemented this flexible arrangement in order to support my own mental health requirements and recognizing the benefits for additional team members. There are some days when I just couldn’t “go into work”, but if I was able to stay in my PJs and work from the sofa I could do something. I know plenty of other CEOs who crave these sofa days too.
We set up all of our infrastructures to allow for remote working from the start, our core tech stack includes:
- Google Drive for all files and documents so there is nothing we ‘can’t access’ outside of the office. We also reduced all printing so the majority of our paperwork needs are digital (including digital signatures).
- Slack for team conversations. We live on slack. It’s like a WhatsApp for work where you can ask quick questions, share articles and converse with your team. We implemented this across all of our campaigns when we were working across timezones with NYC & LA to ensure easier communication. They have written a guide on remote working here:
- Zoom for meetings and conference calls(oh how I wish I had invested in this company!). Meeting face to face is best for building relationships, however, with the majority of our clients and customers outside of the UK, we implemented video calling for most meetings a few years ago. You can automatically record calls and it syncs with your Google Calendar.
- Zoom for labs / pitches / webinars. With the ban on travel we are adapting moving the majority of our training labs and workshops to online forums, again powered by Zoom.
- Digital Distribution (& 3rd party suppliers). We made a decision to be a ‘physical free’ office when we moved to our co-working space Huckletree a few years ago, which meant working with Eclair for all of our shipping needs.
- DCPs can mostly be sent digitally these days, and for a majority of our non-theatrical screenings hosts, they prefer a digital download rather than a physical DVD. This reduces shipping costs and the environmental impact of shipping drives internationally. We ran the campaign for Patagonia’s 📽️ Artifishal through digital distribution.
- Asana for task management. Synced to Everhour for time tracking in order to see what everyone is working on, and where the backlog is. We also run down the ‘top 3 tasks for today’ to see where a team member needs to switch to help others during peak campaign moments.
- Data Dashboards to track results. The main barrier to remote working is communication across teams. That is why we build a data dashboard to track KPIs and performance across campaigns, which sends auto reports to key stakeholders. Get in touch in you want to learn more about our data-driven methodology.
We created the systems to allow everything to work, even if we weren’t physically there.
“The idea that we need to travel each day to a central location to do our work may often be the result of inertia, more than anything else. Faced with a real need to commute by mouse, instead of by car, perhaps we’ll see that the benefits of workplace flexibility extend to everything from gasoline consumption to the need for sprawling office parks.” — Bill McKibben (Co-Founder 350.org)
We have seen a wide range of benefits to our business due to our flexible working patterns;
- Staff members are able to get to gym & yoga classes on time to ensure that are keeping physically healthy.
- Concentration levels at home can be much higher due to the removal of distractions and ‘chit chat’ in the office, leading to higher performance on key tasks.
- Staff can attend doctor or therapy appointments at more suitable times during ‘off-peak’ hours.
- Personal relationships have improved as they aren’t ‘chained to their desks’ allowing team members to work from wherever suits them that day.
We aren’t perfect (no-one is) in our flexible work set up, but I know that as part of our “happy and healthy” mandate, this flexibility has had a huge benefit to the team.
We know that levels of anxiety & depression have increased in line with “levels of productivity and growth”, but to what end do we need to apply this kind of pressure to ourselves and our employees?
A new feature documentary 📽️ Chasing The Present asks us all to question the way in which our economic and personal lives are structured in order to reduce growing anxiety.
Can we use this move to remote working to completely recalculate the way in which our organizations are structured? Can we review the requirements for a “40 hr workweek”? What automation can be put in place to remove unnecessary tasks? What other workplace benefits can come out of this transition?
With companies from Google to Apple instructing workers to work from home, can we dramatically rethink the way in which we ‘work’ for the better?
Future visioning is no longer abstract. We can create the future we want today:
If we can totally transform the way in which society behaves in a matter of days, we have the ability to realign our priorities for the future years.
We are all in this together ❤️
There are many unknowns ahead of us, but what we do know if that with the right planning, we can shape the future to be something we are proud of. We can take collective action to create the new normal. We can show that dramatic structural change is possible if we work together.
Stay happy and healthy x