Thanks to the coronavirus, Hollywood has been shut down for months, film and TV sets not being workplaces where you can easily social distance. But after a long stretch of lockdown, everyone is antsy to get back to work, and the longer this standstill goes on, the longer we’re going to have to wait for new content once the current pipeline runs dry.
With that in mind, the California Department of Public Health recently released guidelines under which studios could resume filming, with the aim of starting as early as June 12, this Friday. Basically, they state that production can start back up if studios follow regulations and restrictions worked out between labor and management, with individual counties and regions able to modify the timeline for reopening provided they have plans in place if COVID-19 cases or hospitalizations begin to increase.
Los Angeles Country, where a great bulk of filming is done, does have such a plan, but hospitalizations have been on the rise there, so it’s anyone’s guess if filming will actually start back up this week. Plus, studios and production guilds are still working out exactly what the new restrictions will be, although we can make some educated guesses. For example, when talking about how the Stranger Things set might be different, stunt coordinator Hiro Koda talked about working in waves so there are fewer people on set at once and people wearing gloves and masks when possible. Although how they’re going to do stunts and fight scenes where people are in close contact, I don’t know; a lot of testing, hopefully.
The upshot of all this is that June 12 is more of an aspirational date; the entire town isn’t just going to spring back to life at 9:00 a.m. And plenty of shows film outside of LA, anyway. Sticking with Stranger Things, star Gaten Matarazzo doesn’t expect them to be back up and running for a while. “Work is on pause,” Matarazzo said at GalaxyCon Live. “We were in the middle of filming 4 and then they said, ‘Nope!’ They said two-week break, and we’ve been gone for three months.”
"When it comes to being a part of the show in general, it has me being away from home for a very long time. Due to the pandemic I’ve been home for quite a bit and getting to relax here. I’ve been kind of getting antsy trying to get back into work, just because we’ve been [away] for a very long time. We’re usually in Atlanta filming for seven, eight months, and so it takes a while, it’s more than half the year where I’m away."
That said, when the Stranger Things crew finally does return to work, Matarazzo is rearing to go, partly because he’s about to turn 18, which means he’ll be able to stay on set longer. “I am so excited to finally get to experience filming the show without dealing with school. I always love filming the show anyway and I always made sure that school was the number one priority … but now, especially because I’m about to be 18, there are no more rules ,” he said. “By the time I go back to filming, I turn 18 in the beginning of September … and at that point, because of the pandemic, we might not be back into filming. So I’ll be 18 and they can keep me as long as they need me without any time caps.”
As for movies, the National Association of Theatre Owners is predicting that “90 percent of the global theatrical marketplace” will be open by July, in time for the release of Christopher Nolan’s new spy film Tenet, although something tells me that could be another one of those aspirational dates.
Obviously, I want to watch more great TV and movies, but safety comes first, and I’m glad shows like Stranger Things aren’t jumping back into the thick of filming without weighing all the factors. Here’s hoping it all goes smoothly.
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