After months of dark studies, there are Christmas lighting fixtures at the end of the Canadian industry’s closing tunnel.
US director Marita Grabiak had to be quarantined for 14 days after crossing a closed U.S.-Canada border to return to paintings from the Ottawa-based television film Christmas on Wheels. “It was a pretty sad day on March 16 when I was here for the last time, and after (Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau gave his speech that led to the close of our production,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
In March, Grabiak and its manufacturers stopped releasing Ice Hotel Holiday, the sequel to Hallmark’s 2019 television film Winter Castle, to allow American actors and creatives to temporarily return to the United States in search of refuge. “The film meant a lot to me as well as the original,” adds the director of the Christmas film.
Then, when the Christmas on Wheels situation arrived, Grabiak insisted that the assignment be shot in Ottawa. To do this, accessories such as candy canes, red ribbons and Santa hats were now finished on set with mandatory masks, gloves and quarantine capsules.
The production of the pandemic era under strict protection and hygiene protocols has proved delicate. Grabiak’s first assistant is guilty of ensuring that modules committed to actors, the director, and craftsmen’s groups enter and exit the set separately.
“I realized that in a few days we entered such a comfortable, if not transparent, regime,” Grabiak says. “Given a strong and adaptable team, like the one I have here in Ottawa, in combination with actors who know what their intentions are when they enter the set, thanks to our previous rehearsals, we just did a smart task in those conditions. The main Christmas photograph on wheels continues until July 24.
Meanwhile, it’s starting to look like Christmas in the Canadian production industry, as Vancouver-based Studio BRB, Service Street Pictures and Principle Productions, as a component of a collaboration with BRB Pictures, has just finished filming Christmas Forgiveness in British Columbia, with guest director Lucie and Stephanie Bennett, Lina Renna, Oliver Emma and Marco Grazzini with.
“I can’t tell you how relieved we are to have gone through a three-week session without anyone getting sick. Security has been in our minds 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” executive manufacturer Jenni Baynham told THR. He adds that to keep a minimum number of actors and groups on set, a no-visit policy is essential. It also states that open communication on protective measures, by adding the use of mask and other medical protective equipment, is imperative.
“Even when unions do their random checks, they are displayed in our COVID safety tent, they take the temperature and, if they communicate with one of their members, we take them out for a socially remote verbal exchange,” Baynham says. Training
Further north, in the interior of British Columbia, near Kamloops, the cameras also ignite the Discovery Mud Mountain series of fact-based discoveries. The series focuses on two brothers, Craig and Brent Lebeau, who fight against sibling-to-mountain rivalry steep and muddy to become loggers. Mark Miller, president of Vancouver-based Thunderbird Entertainment, said the series, which is expected to create about three hundred jobs, is a derivative of other Discovery screens such as Highway Thru Hell and Heavy Rescue: 401.
Your company is used to protecting actors and equipment from workplace hazards. “Without delay, we brought mask and gloves. And we’re looking to give everyone a vehicle so teams can put their own cars,” Miller says. Previously, a team member who was part of a three-person team in some other series based on Thunderbird’s fact had become inflamed with the new coronavirus.
Miller says his company provided full food and housing to the group team for two weeks to allow team members to be quarantined safely. The goal is for everyone in the company to know that they would not be penalised if they got sick with COVID-19 and would be compensated for all lost working days.
“We had an open discussion about the risks. If other people don’t need to work, we understand. If you need to work, we inform you about the precautions we take,” Miller said.
Meanwhile, American manufacturers, in wider times, moved between Los Angeles, Vancouver, or Toronto face a slower return to film and television production in Canada by crossing a closed border between Canada and the United States and strict quarantine orders amid the pandemic.
Shawn Williamson, president of Brightlight Pictures and manufacturer of The Good Doctor on ABC, has a full team in Vancouver preparing the American medical drama to restart production in a few weeks, with a 60-page safety plan in hand and a nurse. hired as a full-time COVID consultant. Until then, Brightlight worked on some Canadian television films, adding Lifetime’s Practice to Deceive.
“Protocols (for Canadian programming) are less confusing than classifying the protocols of U.S. primary schools, which will have to be widely painted internationally. And Hallmark films and Canadian content systems will meet the office’s protection needs regardless of the jurisdiction they are in. Williamson explains.
He adds that so far, Americans have no way of evading the 14-day self-isolation they require when crossing the Canadian border, some actors and team members of The Good Doctor decide to travel to Vancouver rather than threaten a flight.
Of course, Hollywood’s tired ability to fly to Canada is good news for Canadian skill, which is in increased demand for cross-border filming. Adversity comes with the opportunity, says Randy Thomas, Toronto-based lead actor with Toronto-based Christmas on Wheels, along with American actress Tiya Sircar.
“I am very grateful to Marita (Grabiak) and Lifetime Network for inviting me to a self-cassette audition and for opting for this role for me. I’m going to make the most of this opportunity,” he told THR.
American manufacturers preparing for the new popular in the middle of the pandemic are sticking their heads in a contactless office on Canadian film stages. Alex Bailey, co-founder of Crew sync, founded in Montreal, has digitized many production steps such as time sheets, contracts, production reports and protocol tracking for temperature controls and PPE needs that in the afterlife would have been completed by hand or required physical interactions. .
“Team synchronization allows groups to focus on the knowledge they gain in contactless sets, in organizing paper stacks in a COVID world. It is peace of mind for producers, talents, actors and background, while ensuring the collection of the required documents.” Bailey explains.
But despite all the costly measures taken to mitigate coVID-19 hazards in Canadian film sets, getting insurance for losses suffered from the closure or cancellation of filming due to coronavirus infection remains an insurmountable obstacle, at least for now.
“It’s to download insurance in the classic way right now. All insurers exclude COVID and use broader language to exclude communicable diseases,” Jonathan Bronfman, president of Toronto-based finance Jobro Productions, told THR. Bronfman has an untitled indefinite feature film that will begin taking important photographs in late August, and the personal equity fund that funds the photo also suffers the threat of COVID-19.
He adds that more Canadian feature films are being prepared for fall 2020 filming, while Bronfman expects the COVID-19 insurance policy to be available. Mud Mountain executive producer Miller said his series began pre-production before insurance companies filed COVID-19 exclusions, so their factual series is covered. The same goes for Brightlight Pictures TV movies being filmed.
Insurance premiums for The Christmas Forgiveness were higher, says executive manufacturer Baynham, but this needed to do more to protect itself against delays in receiving production investment in the run down to a coronavirus outbreak. “If someone gets sick, we wouldn’t make an opposite claim to insurance unless it’s a personal negligence lawsuit if they found out the company didn’t adhere to office policies,” he says.
A COVID-19 infection, like any other disease in the workplace, would be covered by B.C. public fitness system. But in Ottawa, Christmas on wheels is a safety net. “There is no insurance. There is no such thing. It’s a risk,” Grabiak said.
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