Winter Work and Vigilance

Winter is well and truly here now, and with the days so short we would normally be a little blue about getting up to go to work in the dark, working into the dark and coming home in the dark. However, this year, I think we’re all just glad to be back and working, even though we’ve recently found that Coronavirus is not ‘eliminated’ completely from the land of the long white cloud.

We must continue to be diligent and keep washing our hands and keep all our equipment spotless. Don’t get complacent. We are not out of the woods yet, and on a world stage level, we will soon feel a shockwave from the United States regardless of how well we have contained the virus at our end.

As an industry, we cannot afford for a single member to come to work unwell, no matter what your symptoms. This is bigger than you. We will be dissected in minutes if it is seen that we relax too soon, so please be aware of your surroundings, your peers, and your hygiene practices and refer to the ‘Health and Safety Toolkit’ that so many people worked so hard on for your benefit during the lockdown period.

The industry, as you know, is in a stage of recovery, with local television commercials starting to book crew frantically all around the country, and now the larger productions are recrewing all the stalled work once more in preparation to start filming again as soon as possible. All going well, most crew will be back up and working to full capacity in the third quarter of this year, and I think if we stay virus-free, we will enjoy this buzz until well into Autumn 2021.

In true number 8 style, we have even had the technology to have line producers and directors work remotely from offshore with our crew here. This is a wonderful feat, and I’m sure we will see more of this type of remote work become the norm in years to come.