Were you in the midst of a particular project when the coronavirus outbreak hit and how did you manage to deal with that situation?
We had a dozen or so productions active from the end of February well into March. I’ll just talk about the three that were still in production during the third week in March. We listened to all the experts, followed their advice and guidelines, and felt that we were protecting everyone as best we could. The crews were social distancing, Purell was everywhere on set, a lot of people on set chose to wear masks, and of course, we released any crew member who wanted to go home and replaced them with another crew member who was willing and wanted to work. We felt we were making all the right ethical choices. But that third week in March was really tough. We worked until the virus got too close. On one shoot, on day 4 of a 5 day shoot, the prop stylist developed fever and a cough. We canceled the rest of the shoot. On another shoot, the DP found out, after he had prepped and scouted for two days, that he had been exposed to someone who tested positive to coronavirus on his previous shoot. We canceled that shoot too. And on the final shoot, a two-day studio shoot, we rented an additional stage and spread out with great care. We did everything the same way we had on the other shoots, social distancing, Purell, face masks, swapping out any crew members who were uncomfortable, only this time we got lucky and the coronavirus stayed away. We did not have to cancel. Everybody caught the red eye back home, hard drives in hand.
Have you deployed your company’s creative and communication skills to address the pandemic (PSAs, educational videos, other initiatives)? Please tell us about these efforts.
We started working from home on Friday, March 13. In week one of WFH/social distancing, we were part of something that was both positive, and helpful.
On one of the first leadership video conferencing calls that weekend, our head of accounts panned her camera over to show her kids talking over the internet with their grandparents. She proposed that we should do an #Istayathomefor social campaign. That same day, our CCO shared a meme of Kevin Bacon with his wife. She laughed and said to him that we should use Kevin to kick off the social campaign. It was a quick lesson in working remotely. Our talent team reached out to Kevin Bacon’s people and got a thumbs up. By the following Tuesday, Kevin recorded his message for us and tagged six other celebrities. The “viral” campaign was an early and important message to share with the public–stay home for the people you care about.
