The state of the film industry #2: Production

What kind of content will we see in the future?

When we say that movies are social products, usually we mean that, like any other art form, they are intended for audiences. From money-making blockbusters on superheroes to the most low-budget, independent film about a coming-of-age girl in a suburban town, all movies want to reach their own audience, be it small or big. But not only movies are social in their aim to be watched, they also are social because in order to be made they require the collaboration of a certain amount of people, who have creative and technical skills. The people we see on screen only represent the tip of the iceberg of all the people involved in a production: there is, in fact, a really long list of professionals who work on a contract-by-contract basis and therefore, as freelancers, have little if no guarantees.

In the past weeks, we’ve seen a lot of people belonging to these job categories who have been requesting more support from governments as they are unable to work. It is hard to have a thorough idea of how many people are involved in this huge business and how this crisis is affecting them. Nevertheless, if we think that roughly, on average, in Hollywood productions about 500 people are hired in the crew (source: Stephenfollows) and that only in the top 10 markets about 3,000 movies are produced every year (source: Statista), it’s easily understood that the numbers are massive. And this without taking into account all the tv shows and tv programs, the web series, the commercials, the music videos and all different types of video content.

Some companies like Netflix made the headlines a few weeks ago for the launch of an emergency fund to support film and television professionals. Yet, not every film worker has the luxury to be granted this financial aid.

Productions around the world began shutting down in March and only recently governments are starting to approve the reopening of productions under, of course, restrictive measures and social distancing. What does it mean, though? How is it possible to make movies under these conditions?

Let’s take a look at the different possibilities:

1. Content

Certainly, some types of content, and subsequently a certain group of people, will experience less consequences than others, in this process: think about animated films where no actors are required if not for voice over and where animators, even though they work in teams, are more used to work independently. Voice over itself can be carried out with all the restrictions, that might affect the timeline but not so much the work itself.

Moreover, as productions might start sooner in countries less hit by the virus this could mean that we’ll be able to watch more foreign content than Hollywood productions.

2. Specific categories

What about actors and actresses? Some may work in animated movies as voice overs, of course, but mainly all characters in fiction films interact. So how do they do that? We won’t see any more rom-coms because actors and actresses must keep their social distance? Or we won’t see James Bond fist-fighting in the next chapter because what if the villain has the virus?

So, not only characters need to interact, without their interactions we won’t have that variety of exciting, touching and wonderful stories that make us love movies.

While crew members can wear protective masks, for those who need to be in front of the camera wearing a mask is practically impossible. We could say that the health risk involved is therefore higher for them.

Another category that will be hugely affected in the forthcoming months are extras. All those scenes that include a large amount of people in the background may need to find other solutions to convey the idea of people gathering, for example. These factors will all have an impact in the types of films we will see in the next years and will probably be smaller in scale. On the other hand, the visual effects industry might experiment more and find innovative ways of re-creating that magic of cinema that we are so used to experience.

3. Best practices from other countries

In those countries where the virus hasn’t had too much devastating effects, Film Commissions have started to update their production guidelines with health and safety rules.

For example, the Nordic Film Guide has made available the new detailed guidelines for film producers. These include that departments have to work in sequences, that there will be a limitation in the number of crew members allowed on set, and for what concerns casting they suggest employing people from the same family when interaction is needed.

Also the Czech Republic is hoping to restart soon and in their guidelines they refer to hygiene protocols as well as cast and crew testing every two weeks.

Production companies might need to increase their health and security budgets, both because of testing and because longer days may be required if productions have to rely on a smaller workforce. Furthermore, production hubs that offer tax incentive schemes (like Canada, but also many Eastern European countries) that have always benefited from foreign projects going to shoot there will possibly be strongly hit in financial terms.

With travel restrictions, we may see more local movies being made locally but hopefully these local stories will continue to have global audiences.