LA Productions Stand Still Due to Covid-19

Industry News

by Olaf von VossJanuary 6^th, 2021

As was the case in early 2020, all film and television productions are once again coming to a halt in Los Angeles County. Due to the severe Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S., the local government has issued several stay-at-home orders as well as other restrictions.

Most major studios and production companies have already paused their ongoing principal shooting, and now big player Netflix has also halted all of its productions for at least a few weeks. The LA dream factory is at a standstill for now.

LA productions are on hold due to Covid-19

The U.S. Producers Guild of America has issued a letter to its members advising that ongoing productions should be pushed back due to the current Covid-19 surge in Southern California.

I think this is a tough decision, but an important one. The financial impact will be severe, of course, but since we’re talking about an undoubtedly deadly pandemic here, making a movie should be the least of our worries right now, I think.

Current Covid-19 situation

LA County just surpassed 800,000 total Covid-19 cases and the community transmission rate is still very high. Roughly 20% of all persons tested are found to be infected. Furthermore, the current 7-day average of daily Covid-19 cases for LA is about 15,000.

Because on-set activity involves a lot of close contact and interaction between large numbers of cast and crew, safety cannot always be guaranteed, so hitting the pause button may be the best solution. As long as the numbers regarding the spread of Covid-19 in certain areas are so high, safety (in the sense of distance) is the primary goal here.

I’m curious to see how halted LA productions will affect upcoming projects and the resulting output in the form of movies and TV shows. Will there be a significant gap in the stream of content we are normally used to?

source: Deadline.com
featured image credit: Martin Jernberg on Unsplash

How do you think the production shutdown will affect the industry? Share your thoughts in the comments below!