I'm having trouble storyboarding a movie because of covid restrictions.

[Ryan Elder]

First if all I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, X-man, Hanukkah, or if you celebrate anything else!

Because of covid restrictions, I was advised to re-storyboard my script so only actor is acting in the room at a time. Right now the current restrictions are no more than five people in a room and if I am directing, that leaves me, the camera operator/DP, and boom op at least, besides one actor being allowed.

And I don't want to wait until the restrictions become even more harsh of course.
But I am worried that the actors may not be able to play off each other naturally, if they are not seeing each others performances.

Also, I am worried about trying to establish geography or that the movie will look really cheesy.
For example, there is a scene where two characters kiss, but if I have to shoot the actors seperate, then I have to shoot the actors moving towards the camera lens to kiss, and I am worried about it looking really corny.

There is also a fight scene between multiple characters, that cannot be rewritten without causing plot holes. So I have to show the actors fighting towards the camera trying to make it look like they are fighting each other.

But I am worried this is going to be very difficult to establish geography and where everyone is in relation to each other.
Has anyone storyboarded any projects during covid, where only one actor could be in the room at a time? Or maybe as long as the acting is good then it will not be obvious that the choices of shots and blocking are very strange to work around covid restrictions?

Thank you very much for any advice! I really appreciate it!

[Brian Drysdale]

I hope you had a good Christmas Ryan.

The film and TV industries are managing to shoot complex productions using the Covid 19 guidelines. However, given that your cast and crew may not be able to follow them because they're not full time professionals and your lack of resources, it may be worth waiting until they are vaccinated.

[Ryan Elder]

Thanks for the Christmas wishes.

I don't know if a vaccine is even going to come out soon. Plus so many people in conversation don't even want to get vaccinated. So will casting and crew be too limited, if I can only choose from a vaccinated crew and cast? But even so I don't think we will be seeing a vaccine available for everyone anytime soon and the restrictions could be even worse by then.

Right now it's five people allowed in a building where I live. If I wait longer, it could be less than that. But it also doesn't say in the restrictions where I live that vaccinated people are immune to the restrictions and don't have to follow them though. So are vaccinations legally useless then, if vaccinated people still have to follow the guidelines?

[Paul R Johnson]

Hope everyone had a a good time.

I’d leave it ryan, and wait. Two reasons, your timescales have no deadline, so the second reason comes into play. I have not seen ANY Covid productions, live, tv or movie that have been better than old ones.

If you have a contractual deadline or it’s a soap then wait. Bigger audiences, no restrictions and critically no artificiality. You either build in the Covid as a plot feature, which dates it, or you make it look very un-natural.

Me personally, I hate these restriction compliant productions. They always appear so amateurish even when pro actors are in them.

[Brian Drysdale]

Given the nature of pandemics, there's no logical reason not to get vaccinated (unless advised by your doctor), plus I suspect that if anyone has any serious aspirations to work in the film and TV industry, they will need to be vaccinated.

As the number of vaccinated people gets to herd immunity levels, the risks of catching it will be greatly reduced.

Given that vaccination has only just started, you shouldn't expect regulations to suddenly change, since they're starting with the most as risk people.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, it's just I didn't think things would be different for a vaccinated person. I want to get vaccinated but I didn't think that would be me and the cast and crew to have a free pass over restrictions if we are all vaccinated. I will still get vaccinated of course, I just didn't think it would help get me legally past the restrictions though, after I do.

If movies are being made though in spite of the restrictions, and the reason they are is because the cast and crew are recognized as a professional production, is there a way I can get recogized as a professional production, in the government's eyes then?

[Brian Drysdale]

Given your budget, it's unlikely you could follow the regulations, I've heard the figure of 10% being added to the budget of productions to cover the cost of Covid19 shooting. .

[Ryan Elder]

What would that 10% go towards specifically?

[Brian Drysdale]

Mostly time... the schedules are longer with Covid restrictions, Also, various protection measures. Examples being transparent screens between actors. real life partners being stand ins for kissing scenes, the cast living in their own separate bubble during the production. In post production, remote editing.

[Paul R Johnson]

I was supposed to have been involved with a live theatre event - my own in Belfast got cancelled of course, but I was due to do some work on one that was going on for the same production company, but they managed one show that then got scrapped. The changes made were severe, but would have been similar in a movie production.

Firstly, savage cast and crew cuts to reduce numbers, so that distancing is possible. This doesn't mean just on set. For every person you need toilets, washing and catering facilities. You cannot stagger lunch and tea breaks - so how do you feed everyone at the same time and maintain separation? It means in practice a ten minute break, often a union rule becomes 30 mins - this extends the day making extra calls a possibility if you want the same production rate. Where do people go between their on set time? They cannot congregate. I'm now in Tier 4, which is the strictest lockdown - but TV and movie production is allowed to continue subject to separation and professional actors and rehearsals can continue - but at a huge cost.

My cancelled show would have been in trouble anyway, because a friend of mine - a key person in the production died yesterday. Not expected at all. The one that cancelled on me closed because they were down to minimums - people wise. Just enough to get by. One sound, not three. A production manager covering 3 separate job roles, no live musicians, no ensemble at all, and every component stand alone, so every scene had minimum people and maximum space. Everyone doing their own dressing and makeup. Minimal props and no washing of costumes daily. Two people tested positive, no fallback to understudies, so it died instantly.

Ryan - your quest for perfection and all your attention to minute detail would be scrapped. You resist changes, you've made that very clear on the forum, and you want to plan the plan in such silly ways how would you cope with working totally winging it, where you as director would have to dream up plans instantly and put them into action, with no time to come on here and get advice? For you, based on what we know - this would be agony for you.

The question about vaccinations is pointless. Idiots are talking about not having them, but the idiots have a right to be stupid, and frankly dangerous to others. Do you have a pool of sensible people who when offered, will accept? And then have the time delay before second dose? It seems to me that getting people to turn up normally is a big problem for your people - if people are terrified of dying, will they risk your project? They might say they will, but they normally let you down anyway, with the real risk of dying, I cannot see them doing it. Here, amateur actors and small non-essential productions would not be allowed to do it anyway. In my areas two days ago they could have, today, they cannot. Who knows next week?


Knock it on the head and delay it. What kind of production would it be with everyone thinking they'll perhaps die! On the great scheme of things, the risk of going forward is foolish. Its a leisure project isn't it? Not something to pay the mortgage of your cast and crew.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Ryan do you ever get tired spending your entire adult life trying to produce this movie? I get you enjoy being in charge but to us it sounds an endless series of intractable problems. Do you remember in the other thread someone cautioned you not to record the sound track before you film because the scenes could change? The easiest solution to all your problems would be not to make this movie.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

Mostly time... the schedules are longer with Covid restrictions, Also, various protection measures. Examples being transparent screens between actors. real life partners being stand ins for kissing scenes, the cast living in their own separate bubble during the production. In post production, remote editing.

Oh okay. The law didn't say anything about more people being allowed in a location if they are partners to the other people though. Perhaps I should consult an entertainment lawyer, but it didn't say anything about that being an exception to the law.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

Mostly time... the schedules are longer with Covid restrictions, Also, various protection measures. Examples being transparent screens between actors. real life partners being stand ins for kissing scenes, the cast living in their own separate bubble during the production. In post production, remote editing.

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

I was supposed to have been involved with a live theatre event - my own in Belfast got cancelled of course, but I was due to do some work on one that was going on for the same production company, but they managed one show that then got scrapped. The changes made were severe, but would have been similar in a movie production.

Firstly, savage cast and crew cuts to reduce numbers, so that distancing is possible. This doesn't mean just on set. For every person you need toilets, washing and catering facilities. You cannot stagger lunch and tea breaks - so how do you feed everyone at the same time and maintain separation? It means in practice a ten minute break, often a union rule becomes 30 mins - this extends the day making extra calls a possibility if you want the same production rate. Where do people go between their on set time? They cannot congregate. I'm now in Tier 4, which is the strictest lockdown - but TV and movie production is allowed to continue subject to separation and professional actors and rehearsals can continue - but at a huge cost.

My cancelled show would have been in trouble anyway, because a friend of mine - a key person in the production died yesterday. Not expected at all. The one that cancelled on me closed because they were down to minimums - people wise. Just enough to get by. One sound, not three. A production manager covering 3 separate job roles, no live musicians, no ensemble at all, and every component stand alone, so every scene had minimum people and maximum space. Everyone doing their own dressing and makeup. Minimal props and no washing of costumes daily. Two people tested positive, no fallback to understudies, so it died instantly.

Ryan - your quest for perfection and all your attention to minute detail would be scrapped. You resist changes, you've made that very clear on the forum, and you want to plan the plan in such silly ways how would you cope with working totally winging it, where you as director would have to dream up plans instantly and put them into action, with no time to come on here and get advice? For you, based on what we know - this would be agony for you.

The question about vaccinations is pointless. Idiots are talking about not having them, but the idiots have a right to be stupid, and frankly dangerous to others. Do you have a pool of sensible people who when offered, will accept? And then have the time delay before second dose? It seems to me that getting people to turn up normally is a big problem for your people - if people are terrified of dying, will they risk your project? They might say they will, but they normally let you down anyway, with the real risk of dying, I cannot see them doing it. Here, amateur actors and small non-essential productions would not be allowed to do it anyway. In my areas two days ago they could have, today, they cannot. Who knows next week?


Knock it on the head and delay it. What kind of production would it be with everyone thinking they'll perhaps die! On the great scheme of things, the risk of going forward is foolish. Its a leisure project isn't it? Not something to pay the mortgage of your cast and crew.

When you say will they delay before second dose, can't they just get all their vaccinations before production starts? But I don't think the laws care about if people have had vaccinations or not, when it comes to how many people can be in a building at a time.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

There are two hurdles. The first is a moral obligation to insure the safety of your cast and crew by either following an approved procedure or waiting until everyone is vaccinated. If you can't satisfy this then you won't be able to find anyone to produce your movie. The second is less important, it's satisfying the legal rules. These rules are constantly evolving, and are targeted for larger scale professional productions (which yours isn't). The worst case scenario you would be asked to stop production. I doubt the police would knock on your door to arrest you. The more likely problem you're going to face is that your lead actors could drop out at any time, causing the production to come to stop. You've said you have had this type of problem under normal conditions, just imagine what would happen at the height of a pandemic. It's odd you've spend decades on this movie with very little progress and all of sudden you need to film it during the worst conditions imaginable.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh I wouldn't say I have spent decades on the movie, just the last four years more so.

I think I can satisfy the safety part, if get everyone tested but do I need to do more?

It's the legal rules I was worried about a lot more. Is there anything I can do to be recognized as a professional production to get more latitude? As for people possibly leaving, I guess I will have to deal with that on a case by case basis rather than trying to plan an over solution to it?