Navigating Lockdown and Recovery
Autumn is upon us, and along with the dark mornings comes the boring old sniffles and sore throats. As much as I wish not to write about it, we cannot ignore the fact that all production as we know it has stalled, however only temporarily in New Zealand in the meantime with the Level 4 lockdown in place. The best advice is not to panic, and to keep your personal hygiene practices at an optimum level by washing your hands, and staying in your family or unit bubbles. Ultimately we will feel the financial strain in New Zealand, given that markets around the world are temporarily shutting down, and travel being limited within our borders. It is important that you keep fit and healthy, so that we can all get back on track asap.
Auckland has enjoyed a bumper summer, with most crew that work on long form benefiting from all the concurrent productions shooting in and around the city. Film Auckland, and NZAPG, along with Screen Auckland, the 2030 Strategy Group and other organisations have all been beavering away in an effort to make filming in Auckland and New Zealand more streamlined and accessible to local and international productions. I have been lucky enough to be involved in the Screen Strategy 2030 Working Group, that has created a splinter crisis group about the Covid-19 outbreak. This is made up of all Guilds and Unions, along with broadcasters and funding bodies (NZ Film Commission, NZ On Air etc) as well as MBIE and MCH. We are trying to stimulate the local industry ahead of coming out of Level 4 lockdown, so that as many of you as possible will walk straight back into a film working environment. I ask that you all continue to support your local small businesses, and keep the economy ticking as well as you can, so that as many businesses as possible are still able to trade at the end of this, and will want your services to help them create advertising content.
Common Blue Book questions lately have been about working on Anzac Day (which falls on a Saturday this year, but is Monday-ised). In the event of working across both days for the one company, you can only charge penalty rates for one day or the other, but not penalty rates for both.
The first reading of the Screen Industry Workers Bill has been presented to parliament, and the 2030 Strategy Group is soon to present its work to the Prime Minister.
When we are finally out of this rut and back to business, remember, there has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes to help make Auckland a more accessible place to shoot. I urge you to make sure that when you are filming in public areas you leave the locations better than you find them, and are polite and courteous to any public that see you working there. We are only as good as our reputation.
And, keep yourselves as safe as possible from any spreading bugs.
