Resuming physical production in a COVID-19 world

Rebooting in-person, physical production is a multidimensional problem

The COVID-19 crisis has shut down production for many studios, impacting their workforces, content pipelines, and revenues. To reboot production, studios will likely need to negotiate a complex set of choices, balancing the need for safety across the production value chain with rising operational costs and liability overhead. This may include:

• Strategic imperatives like reprioritizing the slate based on feasibility, accelerating the progression to virtual production, and aligning with unions and guilds to operate post-COVID-19.
• Operational requirements like implementing workplace safety protocols, financing self-insurance due to lack of COVID-19 coverage, and reserving production facilities in the face of pent-up demand.
  
• Technology initiatives that enable COVID-19 safety procedures while assuring the privacy and security of health data.
  

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Accelerating the return to safe and resilient physical production

To more effectively address and manage the many facets of restarting production, studios can take a holistic and forward-looking approach. Deloitte’s solution utilizes demonstrated assets, accelerators, and technology to help enable recovery and minimize risk in a post-COVID-19 landscape.

Develop a recovery plan: Studios may need to reprioritize their content slate for the next two years based on feasibility and risk while identifying productions where virtual techniques can be leveraged to drive the reboot plan. In parallel, studios should define safety policies and protocols, review union agreements and third-party production contracts, and arrange financial reserves for insurance and contingencies.

Certify physical production restart readiness: With a recovery plan in place, studios can set things in motion by refreshing agreements with guilds and unions and by testing the readiness of production partners. Safety measures should be established by sourcing personal protective equipment (PPE) and configuring and testing technology solutions for tracking and tracing.

Establish a command center: Coordination of activities on the production location or studio lot can require setting up “mission control” capabilities that govern processes, proactively manage risks, and execute crisis management procedures.

Stabilize and monitor: Once production restarts, studios will likely need to enforce social distancing, manage PPE, and reinforce safe practices like single-use catering and ongoing sanitization of production equipment.

Restarting production may require greater capabilities from studios while managing and enforcing new requirements. Deloitte has worked with heads of production and federal and state government agencies to identify the leading practices that studios should consider:

• Undertake rigorous risk management and scenario planning to minimize liabilities and exposure.
• Confirm detailed reopening plans and roadmaps that are aligned with unions and local government agencies.
  
• Conduct training and evaluate the readiness of production partners and other vendors.
  
• Extensively test safety procedures and technology through mock reopening and phased restarting across geographies.
  

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Leveraging MyPath™ to Work to reboot physical production

MyPath™ to Work is a customizable and security-certified solution built on AWS that can help studios accelerate their return to production. With more than two years of investments in product development, MyPath™ to Work is certified to securely handle private health information and personally identifiable information and is HIPAA-and GDPR-compliant.

There are two key capabilities delivered by MyPath™ to Work:

• For talent and crew: Manage COVID-19 safety protocols for film production crews across screening, tracking, and tracing.
• For the COVID compliance officer and studio command center: Provide data and predictive analytics to monitor exposure and manage outbreak hotspots. The solution integrates with existing systems like studio scheduling, security, and HR systems to enable end-to-end management.

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We can help you restart physical production faster

Combining industry experience and strong relationships with studios, government agencies, and health providers, Deloitte can deliver capabilities that accelerate a return to safe and healthy in-person, physical productions.

	Cross-functional experience around operations, risk management (legal and reputational), crisis management, compliance, and production audit
	Experience working closely with other studios to evaluate scenarios and address core issues like managing third-party production companies and insurance
	Demonstrated capabilities through our work with government agencies and health providers to frame and execute COVID-19 response activities, including rapidly assembling command centers and supporting CDC Emergency Operations Center (EOC)
	MyPath™ offers a demonstrated artificial intelligence–powered data analytics platform to yield real-time and accurate analysis to help safely operate in a post-COVID-19 environment and reduce your risks

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