PRODUCTION IN A PANDEMIC

 

As much as I’ve loved seeing agencies find new ways to be useful, at our heart, we are a creative industry, and we need to make things.

As states start opening up, production is opening up, too. But it’s obviously not back to work as usual. The coronavirus is going to be with us for a while; we’re just having to learn how to deal with it. That means we have two goals: doing the work we love, and staying safe while we do it.

This week, we brought together three different viewpoints to talk about how we are producing work now, and how we think the habits, new technologies and work-arounds we’re developing to manage the coronavirus are going to shape our industry from here on out. 

Thanks to Angus Kneale, Chief Creative at Preymaker, Wimberly Meyer, SVP at Summerjax, and Lora Schulson, Director of Production at 72andSunny NYC, for joining us! 

Here’s a little bit of what we learned:

  • Focus on collaboration and communication first

  • Look for remote directing and virtual options

  • Shoot faster and smaller

  • Find locations closer to home

  • Work with local crews

  • Add COVID monitors and health staff

  • Bring producers in early to set guardrails

  • Look for opportunities to bring diversity into production

  • Smaller crews will likely endure beyond this crisis

Join us next week on Tuesday, June 16, at 9:30 a.m. Pacific/12:30 p.m. Eastern, to talk “New World, New Media,” with Bill Durrant, President, Exverus Media; Parks Blackwell, Vice President of Marketing and Client Development, PMG; and JiYoung Kim, Chief Digital Officer, Carat. RSVP and bring a friend! https://www.sweatandco.com/quarantine

 
Agencies Under QuarantineJeff Sweat