HOLLYWOOD: WHEN THE FILM SHOOTINGS STOPPED
To work or not to work? A tough choice. Going back to filming has taken a toll on actors and crew
AP
A film crew at work in Paris in June 2020.
Movie and television sets are inherently intimate spaces. They’re bustling with crew and cast members living and working in close quarters to one another, sometimes for more than 16 hours a day. It isn’t conscionable to keep this going during a pandemic, during which keeping your distance from other people can be the difference between life and death.
So, in March, most Hollywood productions shut down.But studios were bleeding money. Forced filming interruptions and cinema closures were not sustainable, financially.
In June, a list of health and safety protocols was announced for Hollywood. Fighting and intimacy scenes had to be avoided, to limit physical contact between actors. Also, sets had to be closed, with strictly no outside visitors.
But productions have only now, nearly half a year later, gone back to filming. This includes TV shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and The Bold and the Beautiful, as well as films such as Mission: Impossible 7, Jurassic World: Dominion and Batman.
AFP
A woman walks past a poster for the new James Bond movie "No Time to Die" in Bangkok on February 28, 2020.
Virus-hit stars
This decision to restart work took a major blow when recently, Robert Pattinson, the star of DC’s highly anticipated Batman film, contracted COVID-19 and the sets had to be shut down all over again.
Hollywood’s highest paid actor, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, also recently contracted the virus alongside his wife and two young daughters, despite refraining from working to keep his family safe.Tom Cruise went on a tirade on the set of Mission: Impossible 7 after crew failed to maintain social distancing guidelines.
The bottom line is, it’s hard to predict when and where this virus will hit, but there are also surefire ways to avoid getting and spreading it. So, the question remains, how soon is too soon to claim that ‘the show must go on’?
As far as the cinema-going experience goes, however, there won’t be a dearth of new releases just yet.
With the implementation of social distancing and stricter hygiene measures in the UAE, cinemas have been able to reopen at a limited capacity.
In an earlier interview with Gulf News, Cameron Mitchell, the CEO of Cinemas at Majid Al Futtaim, said that gaps in programming are not expected to be significant. “Let’s say we’ve had 20 weeks of interruption, that means 140 films sitting on the shelf, waiting to release across our cinemas. Now, some of those have gone direct to streaming, a small amount. But there’s still that significant amount of content that is backed up waiting to come to cinemas,” said Mitchell.