Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos offered a road map to the rest of Hollywood for how to safely go back to work while the coronavirus is still raging around the globe.
“While we will need to change this process — in some cases dramatically — to ensure the safety of cast and crew during this pandemic, the closed nature of sets also offers some advantages,” Sarandos wrote Monday in an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times. “Not least that they provide a relatively controlled environment, where we can track who comes and goes.”
While all other Hollywood studios have been shuttered for almost two months, Netflix has slowly begun to resume some of its international productions in South Korea, Iceland and Japan. The streaming company plans to pick up filming again in Sweden this month and Norway in July.
Sarandos argued that there is no one-size-fits-all approach since the nature of the outbreak and the availability of testing varies by territory. For example, South Korea only offers tests for those who show symptoms of COVID-19, while Iceland will test anyone regardless if they’re showing symptoms or not. In both countries, all workers have their temperature checked each day and in South Korea, if anyone shows any symptoms they will get tested immediately and production will be halted.
In Sweden, which does not have widely available testing, Sarandos said the cast and crew of “Love and Anarchy,” which is scheduled to resume filming this month, have volunteered to self-quarantine for 14 days before and throughout the 11-day shoot.
Other new protocols include having only one makeup artist, security monitoring the amount of people on the set at all times, boxed lunches in favor of the crafts services table, and prohibiting ride shares.