Australia’s long-running soap “Neighbours,” the show that launched the careers of the likes of Margot Robbie, Guy Pearce, Liam Hemsworth and Kylie Minogue among others, will resume filming next week after a month-long production shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.
This will make it the first suspended TV drama in the English-speaking world to restart production since the crisis began. As a result, it is being seen as something of a test case for new protocols allowing cast and crew to safely return to production.
Fremantle Australia’s safety guidelines, which are being put into place with the restart, are as follows:
– The studio has been divided into quadrants, with three production teams isolated from each other and only three actors allowed to cross between the groups.
– There will be no more than 100 people a day in any area, and the four-square-metre rule and the one-and-a-half-metre social distancing rules will be applied.
– Because of that setup, if someone gets sick, only the group whose member is affected will be suspended and the shoot can continue with the other two groups.
– There will be a nurse on set, and everyone entering the site will have their temperatures checked;
– Males actors will have no make-up, female actors will not be touched up;
– There will be no physical contact among actors including kissing, holding hands or intimate scenes;
– Actors will also practice social distancing, with camera trickery used to make them look closer together;
– There will be be no outside extras, with crew members already on the set serving as such.
The show follows the domestic and professional lives of the people who reside on the Ramsay Street cul-de-sac in a fictional suburb of Melbourne. “Neighbours” celebrated its 35th year on the air this year and is a cultural institution in many countries, especially the United Kingdom.
Source: Deadline
