{"id":10336,"date":"2020-06-18T08:00:59","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T12:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2020-06-19T09:11:02","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T13:11:02","slug":"getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Back to Production in the U.K."},"content":{"rendered":"

Pact\u2019s John McVay, Remarkable\u2019s Susan King, <\/em>Top Gear executive producer Clare Pizey and ITV\u2019s John Whiston weighed in on the logistics of resuming production in the U.K. following the COVID-19 shutdown in a webinar organized by the Royal Television Society (RTS).<\/em><\/p>\n

Pact, which represents the interests of U.K. producers, has been working closely with the broadcast sector in the U.K. to devise a set of production guidelines that had to be approved by various government agencies. \u201cThe government was broadly sympathetic, given they see that bringing in new content that maybe reflects the experience of the pandemic and changes in our society going forward would be a good thing,\u201d said McVay, the chief executive of Pact. “But clearly you still have to satisfy Health and Safety Executive, Public Health England” requirements as they relate to social distancing, PPE and creating a safe working environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe broadcaster guidance is high level, and it\u2019s up to each production to work out how they comply with that,\u201d McVay added. \u201cThe broadcaster will look to you to develop your health and safety requirements, your risk assessments, your mitigations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The guidance will continue to be updated, McVay noted.<\/p>\n

Whiston, managing director of continuing drama at ITV, spoke about getting shows like Emmerdale<\/em> and Coronation Street<\/em> back into production. “We’re observing the two-meter rule at all times\u2014we have people wielding sticks that are two-meters long! We’re having to use different camera angles to make that seem not quite as it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teams are also being kept together, he said. “In the past, a filming unit would move [around]\u2014some shots in that studio, then move out onto a lot, then move back into that studio. We’ve changed all that. For the time being, one filming unit stays in a couple of studios; they don’t go anywhere but those studios. The only people who move around are the actors. We have crime tape up and no one can go into the actors’ sets.”<\/p>\n

Simplicity is crucial when it comes to scripts, Whiston noted. \u201cWe\u2019ve gone from 21 scenes down to perhaps 16 or 17, we\u2019ve made the scenes slightly longer but not as complex, we\u2019ve taken out more actors, especially on domestic sets, which are quite small, where it\u2019s hard to get more than two or three people in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are no children on set, Whiston added. \u201cChildren come with tutors and chaperones\u2026. We\u2019re having to say to everyone who isn\u2019t filming, just stay away!\u201d<\/p>\n

Storylines have required adapting, Whiston noted; for example, the team had to rule out going out on location to shoot a court case. “We will do a court case, but we will build our own court.”<\/p>\n

Props need to be sanitized continually and there are no paper scripts on set. “The biggest issue,” Whiston said, “is sex. When we’re implying that people are getting up to no good, a lot has to be done with smoldering eyes!”<\/p>\n

Alex Farber, the deputy editor of Broadcast<\/em>, who was moderating the panel, then shifted the conversation to Top Gear<\/em>, which is moving to BBC One this year. \u201cSometimes when you\u2019re forced into a constraint, it makes you think in a different way,\u201d said Pizey, one of the show\u2019s exec producers. \u201cOne of the films we\u2019re doing is a direct result of having to be more creative. We have to work in a new way. We\u2019re looking at doing something with a certain type of car, where in order to get around a social-distancing problem we\u2019re looking at, can we put somebody on top of the car rather than inside the car? We would have never done it if it hadn\u2019t been for this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actual filming of the episodes hasn\u2019t changed too much, Pizey said, noting that the logistics of getting crews to locations and hotel accommodations have been more challenging. The inability to travel to iconic international locations hasn\u2019t hurt the show, Pizey said. \u201cTop Gear<\/em> is working because of the relationship between the three of them,\u201d she explained, referencing hosts Paddy McGuinness, Freddie Flintoff and Chris Harris. \u201cWe\u2019ve done a film in Bolton that I would argue is the funniest one we\u2019ve ever made\u2026. What I have done is taken the flight money and added one particular film which has a massive sense of scale. You don\u2019t need to go abroad to get people talking about the show. But I still want to go!\u201d<\/p>\n

King is the head of production at Endemol Shine UK\u2019s Remarkable Television, overseeing such shows as Channel 4\u2019s Sunday Brunch<\/em>, which remained on air during lockdown. \u201cIt\u2019s three hours of live television every Sunday morning, 52 weeks a year. It was imperative that we worked quickly to make sure we could keep it on air.\u201d The show filmed remotely from the host\u2019s homes for about eight weeks before returning to the studio. \u201cWhat we learned from being on-air remotely was what the key elements of the show were that we knew we needed to keep going. The show is very dependent on the chats throughout the morning. We\u2019ve always had guests stay on in the studio across the whole morning. There were always groups of people in the studio. We\u2019ve had to reduce the crew, reduce the guests, but still have some people in the studio,\u201d beginning with hosts Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer. \u201cWe\u2019ve structured it so we have guests coming in individually at the moment, so we haven\u2019t got too many people at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

COVID-19-related requirements are seeing production costs rise by 10 percent to 30 percent, Pact\u2019s McVay said.<\/p>\n

“For the soaps, we’re probably at the lower end of the 10 to 30 percent,” ITV’s Whiston said. \u201cOne thing I would say to everybody starting up, the biggest issue was fear.\u201d The guidelines have provided some reassurance, he said. \u201cThe other bit of reassurance we did is we had ITV\u2019s unofficial doctor do Zoom calls with all our crews and casts, for them to ask any questions they wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for cost efficiencies, “We’ve gained some from the simplicity of what we’re doing, and we’ve lost some from the nature of what we’re having to do.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pact\u2019s John McVay, Remarkable\u2019s Susan King, Top Gear executive producer Clare Pizey and ITV\u2019s John Whiston weighed in on the logistics of resuming production in the U.K. following the COVID-19 shutdown in a webinar organized by the Royal Television Society (RTS).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":10337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,69],"tags":[2461,2388,2462,2463,651,1768,2464,180],"class_list":["post-10336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-profiles","category-top-stories","tag-clare-pizey","tag-covid-19","tag-john-mcvay","tag-john-whiston","tag-pact","tag-rts","tag-susan-king","tag-top-gear"],"yoast_head":"\nGetting Back to Production in the U.K. - TVEUROPE<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Getting Back to Production in the U.K. - TVEUROPE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pact\u2019s John McVay, Remarkable\u2019s Susan King, Top Gear executive producer Clare Pizey and ITV\u2019s John Whiston weighed in on the logistics of resuming production in the U.K. following the COVID-19 shutdown in a webinar organized by the Royal Television Society (RTS).\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVEUROPE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-06-18T12:00:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-06-19T13:11:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2017\/07\/RTS-Production-620.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"319\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/\",\"name\":\"Getting Back to Production in the U.K. - TVEUROPE\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-06-18T12:00:59+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-06-19T13:11:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Getting Back to Production in the U.K.\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/\",\"name\":\"TVEUROPE\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. She can be reached on mdaswani@worldscreen.com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/author\/mdaswaniworldscreen-com\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Getting Back to Production in the U.K. - TVEUROPE","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Getting Back to Production in the U.K. - TVEUROPE","og_description":"Pact\u2019s John McVay, Remarkable\u2019s Susan King, Top Gear executive producer Clare Pizey and ITV\u2019s John Whiston weighed in on the logistics of resuming production in the U.K. following the COVID-19 shutdown in a webinar organized by the Royal Television Society (RTS).","og_url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/","og_site_name":"TVEUROPE","article_published_time":"2020-06-18T12:00:59+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-06-19T13:11:02+00:00","og_image":[{"width":600,"height":319,"url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2017\/07\/RTS-Production-620.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Mansha Daswani","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mansha Daswani","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/","name":"Getting Back to Production in the U.K. - TVEUROPE","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/#website"},"datePublished":"2020-06-18T12:00:59+00:00","dateModified":"2020-06-19T13:11:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/2020\/06\/18\/getting-back-to-production-in-the-u-k\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Getting Back to Production in the U.K."}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/#website","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/","name":"TVEUROPE","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad","name":"Mansha Daswani","description":"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. She can be reached on mdaswani@worldscreen.com.","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/author\/mdaswaniworldscreen-com\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tveurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}