Lights, Corona, Action: How the Pandemic Affected Film and TV Production

By Ananya Ranjit

There’s no doubt that the past year has been a challenging one for the entertainment industry.

With film and TV production coming to a complete standstill after the coronavirus outbreak, several scheduled productions and releases such as the 7th instalment of the ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchise, were postponed as Hollywood, like the rest of the world, was trying to navigate through the obstacles of a global pandemic.

Statistics from the British Film Institute (BFI) reveal that film and television spend in the UK was £2.84 billion in the year of the pandemic, a 21% decline from the year before. The amount spent on film production alone witnessed a fall of 31% year-on-year to nearly £1.4 billion. In comparison, the decline in TV investment has been modest 11% to £1.5 billion. These figures indicate a change in viewing habits and the consequent rise in High-End TV (HETV) shows. 

The year 2020 was off to a strong start, with the UK entertainment industry heading towards a record spend of £1.08 billion in the first quarter, with an estimated 68 titles - both films and television - starting production in the first three months of 2020.

However, the end of March 2020 brought with it the first Covid-19 lockdown, due to which several scheduled productions were postponed, causing the BFI to miss the mark and peak at a production spend of £385 million for the 29 films and £266 million for the 22 HETV projects that were in the principal photography phase during this period. 

But the BFI responded quickly to the new crisis. In collaboration with the Screen Sector Taskforce and a host of other industry stakeholders, guidelines were drawn up by late spring for Covid-safe productions, allowing the sector to stay afloat during such unprecedented circumstances. 

After the guidelines were published, ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ became the first major studio film to head back into production in the UK, with cameras rolling around July 6th, 2020. Universal Pictures pulled out all the stops in implementing safety protocols, spending $5 million on safety measures, that included the commission of a private medical facility for the medical needs of the cast and crew.

Several other productions followed suit, such as ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ and ‘The Batman’, which stars Robert Pattinson in the titular role. Fox Network Group and Canal+’s ‘War of the Worlds’ was the first UK television drama series to get cameras rolling in the pandemic era followed by others such as Netflix original, ‘The Witcher’.

However, these were unusual circumstances for the industry and the path was rife with several obstacles, mainly in the form of positive Covid tests on set that led to multiple filming delays. And with Covid-19 being excluded in the proposed guidelines as an insurable risk, such production delays and the additional costs they came with often ran into the millions and were to be borne by the production financiers. 

This posed more of a problem for independent films —mostly financed by British broadcasters or multiple financiers— than projects backed by large companies like Netflix, Amazon or other major US studios.

In fact, independent productions almost always seem neglected in comparison to their major studio-based counterparts. This is manifest by stats that reveal a spend of about £120 million on independent film productions from April 2019 to March 2020, a meagre amount compared to the £1.4 billion spent on inward-investment and co-productions. With no insurance for Covid related delays, domestic production and broadcasting were faced with heavy damages while inward investment projects thrive.

The £500 million Film and TV Production Restart Scheme was launched in response to the insurance obstacles faced by the entertainment sector. The scheme has supported around 200 productions to get back up and running in addition to generating more than 24,000 jobs, claims BFI CEO Ben Roberts. First introduced in July 2020, the initiative has since been extended twice from December, 2020 to April, 2021 and recently from April until the end of December, 2021.

Now, while the rest of the UK weathers its third lockdown, film and television productions continue in full swing, in strict Covid-safe bubbles. Cast and crew flying in from outside the country will need to quarantine in a Government approved hotel for 10 days, according to guidelines from the British Film Commission. In addition, guidance from the UK Screen Alliance has stated that post-production and VFX activities must be performed remotely as far as possible along with providing a list of cases wherein a post-production technician may be required to travel to the workplace.

Such strategic decisions by the BFI and British Government led the entertainment sector to a strong recovery in the last quarter of 2020, with spend for film and High-End TV production peaking at £1.19 billion, the second highest three month spend on record.