Case Study - 40 crew and a two day shoot for a fashion commercial

June 11, 2020

40 crew and a two day shoot for a fashion commercial.

The creative helped enormously as they were looking for manmade landscapes and so was all outside (in fact was about to shoot in Spain as lockdown hit) and although we considered golf courses initially these opened up as we were scouting and so although some were still prepared to have us we ended up using the grounds of a private school that was mostly closed apart from a handful of key worker’s children.

This meant that we were on a private site with plenty of room and were outside and in the sunshine at all times which are about the most perfect conditions you can work in currently. One notable strategy was putting up a marquee to create enough space/ventilation for hair / make up / wardrobe as this is always a big area in fashion as despite the school having areas we could have used this was thought preferable to vehicles or interiors and worked extremely well.

We had a H&S officer with us on the tech recce who drew up a highly comprehensive RAMS doc as did the construction department as we threw up some big sets all of which were outside as if in a big open air studio.

I have another shoot this week for a project that I was on pre-lockdown and again we will be shooting with a pretty full size crew, this time at a stately home and again all exterior and looks like we will be using a marquee again for crew dining as well.

In a nutshell these were the measures/elements which worked well:

·       Being on private land with ample parking for all crew and unit base

·       Use of open sided marquee for make up/hair/wardrobe area with distancing between work stations (instead of vehicles/trailers)

·       Paramedic on set taking temperatures on arrival

·       Ample supply of PPE/sanitiser and subsequent clinical disposal 

·       Dedicated production member to supervise PPE

·       Dedicated production member to supervise craft

·       Set construction and shooting all exterior

·       Ample hand washing stations and toilets which were cleaned regularly

·       Make up, hair & wardrobe in enhanced PPE

·       Catering was delivered in individual hot boxes