Canada is Poised to Become Popular Filming Location for Hollywood as the U.S. Struggles to make COVID Testing Available
After the shutdown in March of this year, Hollywood film and TV projects that were postponed due to the coronavirus are getting ready to pick up where they left off. However, they are returning to a work environment that has never been seen before. New protocols are enforcing COVID testing, in some cases up to three times a week to ensure the safety of cast and crew. The United States is currently unable to handle the demand for testing, with individuals waiting over a week for results.
This delay in receiving results means production companies are not able to provide safe workplaces and film sets as per the safety guidelines set forth in “The Safe Way Forward”. This joint report was put out by the American entertainment Unions and Guilds (including the Directors Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA), that represent film and television cast and crew in response to the spread of COVID-19. The guidelines, which are meant to provide safe workplaces in a pre-vaccine COVID world, state that cast and crew must be tested prior to the start of filming and at regular intervals during filming. Actors must be tested three times a week, where production office staff must be tested a minimum of once a week. The current US wait times to receive test results puts cast and crew members at unnecessary risk when other countries are currently able to provide more efficient testing.
Movie productions like Hypnotic, the new thriller starring Ben Affleck by Solstice Studios is one example of a studio not being able to move forward due to the lack of reliable COVID testing in the United States. Filming was supposed to happen in L.A., but the studio was not confident in the testing that is currently available. Instead of staying in the U.S. or filming abroad, Solstice Studios has moved filming to Vancouver, British Columbia, where testing is more readily available and more reliable, allowing for the production company to better adhere to the new guidelines stated in “The Safe Way Forward” report.
As the world continues to deal with the realities that have become the new normal, it will be interesting to observe whether Hollywood production companies will continue to turn to Canada as a safe space to revitalize their film and TV industry.
A link to The Safe Way Forward Report can be found here.
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