Government imposed sanctions and other obstacles stemming from the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the U.K. have stifled location shooting abroad. By some accounts, in fact, lensing in rural parts of England and its neighboring countries has become not only impractical, but also a significant financial risk. Others, however, paint a vastly different picture, maintaining that the situation in terms of production has been brought under control since the outbreak was first reported in February. Productions based in London and other urban areas are said to be unaffected by the disease.
Foot-and-mouth is harmless to humans but destroys the economic value of livestock. A highly contagious disease, it can be carried on the soles of shoes, on clothing and vehicle tires, and through the air. In hopes of preventing the disease’s spread, transporting livestock across borders has been prohibited throughout Europe, British authorities have cordoned off rural areas near infected farms, and major events such as the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin have been canceled.
For similar reasons, location shooting can also pose a risk. Trucks and trailers are considered a threat because they could transport the disease on their tires. Christie Mattull, senior VP of Near North Insurance Brokerage in Los Angeles, said that several of her feature film clients have been affected—including one production based outside of Dublin that was shut down for a period, incurring "huge losses." Filming eventually resumed after truckloads of hay treated with a special disinfectant were brought in and spread around the grounds. Mattull wasn’t at liberty to identify the production.
Moreover, Mattull said, insurance firms in the U.S.—which were hit with claims early on in the epidemic—are no longer offering the contingency coverage known as "civil authorities" relative to foot-and-mouth on new film policies for productions based in the U.K. and Europe. This, she related, is because "shooting abroad is like an accident waiting to happen." Civil authorities coverage protects productions that are shut down by police, fire or other authorities in the case of a public emergency.
In terms of commercials, however, insurance policies are issued on an annual basis, with premiums based on predicted lensing costs. Therefore, a spot production company with foreign liability insurance is still technically covered for a U.K. shoot. But according to Mike Cornwell, an account executive in the entertainment division of insurance firm Speare & Company, Los Angeles, insurance claims arising from a foreseen event, which foot-and-mouth is considered to be at this juncture, are void. So, for example, if a commercial producer were to attempt shooting near a farm in the English countryside, and then get shut down because of the livestock epidemic, any claim he or she made would likely be denied.
Stephen Davies, chief executive of the London-based Advertising Producers Association (APA), the trade association of U.K.-based commercial production houses, said it’s currently impossible to gain an insurance safeguard for commercial lensing due to foot-and-mouth because "it’s a known risk." The disease, he added, "has been a problem. A lot of rural areas have been affected."
However, Scott Taylor, New York-based senior VP of bicoastal brokerage house Taylor & Taylor Ltd., stated, "I don’t think U.S. insurance companies are paying attention to the situation. In the commercial arena it’s a blanket policy for the year, worldwide. We don’t know where they’re going to film."
Mattull, who specializes in feature film policies, suggested that the situation might be less dire for spot shoots because of shorter production schedules. But for features and television productions already facing rushed production deadlines due to potential writers’ and actors’ strikes, she said, foot-and-mouth "has definitely caused a panic."
The risk was serious enough for executive producer Bryan Farhy of bicoastal Basecamp Entertainment to divert a recent Quizno’s Subs spot package from the U.K. to Southern California. The comedic campaign, directed by Wayne Holloway for Cliff Freeman and Partners, New York, features primitive humans making such early discoveries as bathing and running. Initially the pristine English countryside seemed an ideal backdrop, but when the exec producer learned of the liabilities arising from foot-and-mouth, he phoned his friend Andrew Henry, a location scout in Ireland. At the time, Henry was in the process of shuttering another production due to the livestock epidemic, and he advised Farhy to film elsewhere. The five Quiznos ads were later shot on a ranch about an hour outside of Los Angeles.
Director Ringan Ledwidge of London-based Harry Nash, who helmed this week’s Top Spot (see p. 14), has also encountered complications due to foot-and-mouth. Set to direct an ad for the Alive beverage via London agency Mother, the director explained that the production was diverted to Spain because one scene in the ad was set in a cornfield. "I’ve heard of at least two or three other shoots that have been affected because you can’t go on farms or fields," he noted. "It may start affecting scripts because clients won’t want to do certain types of commercials."
International producer James Ricketts of Stillking Films, a production services company headquartered in Prague, had yet to encounter problems on commercial shoots. However, he noted, "We are scouting locations for a U.S. movie right now that looks likely to shift from Ireland to the Czech Republic because of the outbreak."
While foot-and-mouth infects cloven-hoofed animals, productions involving other animals, such as dog and cat commercials, also pose a risk. "The actual movement of animals is tightly restricted, so wranglers of bees to buffalo are having a hard time of it at present," said executive producer Martin Bruce-Clayton of the London-based Lucky Strike Company, a production services outfit.
THE HYPE FACTOR
Foot-and-mouth is expected to cost the U.K. about $13 billion, mostly from lost rural tourism revenue. Aiming to cut those losses, the British government has of late embarked on a public relations campaign to reverse damage wrought by the media’s portrayal of a country in quarantine. During a BBC interview last week (3/28) Prime Minister Tony Blair said, "It cannot be over emphasized that the majority of the U.K has not got foot-and-mouth disease … Britain is open for business." Authorities are also taking pains to reopen so-called "low risk" areas to encourage potential visitors. However, according to the Los Angeles Times, a few days before his BBC interview, the Prime Minister met with farmers in Devon and characterized the situation as "hellish." Meanwhile, University of Edinburgh disease expert Mark Woolhouse described the epidemic as "out of control."
For all that, some members of the production community contend that it’s business as usual when it comes to filming abroad. Or, at least, they say the matter is now under control. Moreover, many point to news reports with their images of burning animal carcasses and distraught farmers, as having exaggerated the devastation.
"Many country locations, such as villages, market towns, cathedrals, churches, stately homes, castles and other historic buildings—which are usually the locations that overseas productions companies wish to use—have not been affected and are open to all," reported Bruce-Clayton. "For the great majority of productions, both choice and access are in many areas at the same level as before the epidemic began." He also implied that a little preliminary research will go along way towards ensuring a smooth, successful production.
Tony Wall, a director at the London-based insurance firm Stonehouse Conseillers, admitted that several production clients encountered problems at the outset of the epidemic. However, he added, "We’re past the problem period because people now know what the situation is, so shoots are being arranged accordingly."
Executive producer Daniel Bergmann of Stink in London also maintained that foot-and-mouth currently "has no effect on shooting in the U.K., unless you want to bring in a huge herd of sheep and move them around the countryside." In fact, he contended that a greater risk to lensing in England at this time of year is the weather. "It’s the beginning of spring," he noted. "It’s rainy."
The APA’s Davies said that commercialmakers are adjusting to the situation. "Production companies and ad agencies are finding ways around the epidemic, whether that means changing a script or shooting inside a studio rather than outside. That’s what producers do—solve problems," he stated. "Foot-and-mouth is just another factor." He also offered to field queries from foreign producers via his e-mail address, steve@a-p-a.net.
Regions that have been hardest hit by foot-and-mouth include Devon in southwest England and Cumbria in the northwest, as well as Dumfries and Galloway in southwest Scotland. At press time, roughly 800 sites across the U.K. had been infected and nearly 500,000 sheep, cows, pigs and goats had been slaughtered, with an additional 800,000 scheduled to be killed.
The British government reportedly said it hopes to contain the epidemic by May, but a Ministry of Agriculture report suggests it’s unlikely that goal will be met. The number of new cases of foot-and-mouth could rise to 70 a day in the coming weeks, the report noted, with more than 4,000 farms hit before June, according to the Los Angeles Times. At press time, officials were contemplating a vaccination campaign against foot-and-mouth.
Ministry of Agriculture officials believe they have traced the source of the outbreak to contaminated meat that was smuggled into the country, and later found its way into pig swill that was fed to sows at a farm in Northumberland, according to the BBC.
Even as drastic measures are taken to contain foot-and-mouth, one or more cases have been reported in Ireland, France, the Netherlands and Argentina—the two latter countries being the hardest hit, with 11 Dutch cases and more than 50 in Argentina. Thus far, several suspected cases in Italy and Germany have turned out to be false alarms.
As concern over U.S. runaway production persists, there’s some irony in the notion that a plague might curtail American shoots heading overseas, if only temporarily. "We’re going to start to see a lot of production here [in the U.S.] because of this," predicted the Los Angeles-based Farhy, who has received a few calls from U.K.-based friends wanting him to produce for them in the States. "It’s a prime example of real life affecting pretend life."
"What is undeniable," according to Bruce-Clayton, "is that the image of England’s green and pleasant land has been badly dented, and this public perception, particularly overseas, will last far longer than the immediate restrictions of the epidemic."
