NEW ORLEANS — The City of New Orleans is welcoming film production crews again for the first time since March, when the industry was forced to shut down to prevent the further spread COVID-19.
Coming off the biggest year ever for filming in New Orleans, the industry started off hot in January and February of 2020 but then COVID-19 forced at least 10 productions to close, like the first season of the Bryan Cranston new show "Your Honor," to run on Showtime and the fifth season of the hit series "Queen Sugar," which is produced by the Oprah Winfrey Network.
“2019 was the biggest year ever for filming in New Orleans,” said Film New Orleans Director Carroll Morton. “Productions spend $782 million dollars.”
When production crews return to work in the coming weeks, days and months -- they will look very different than before. During a tour of the Ranch Studios Wednesday, the CEO Jason Waggenspack showed WWLTV’s Paul Dudley the new features in the multiple stage studio, where they filmed major blockbusters including "Terminator Genisys" and "Deep Water Horizon."
More recently two productions were working at the studio before coming to a halt in March.
“We’ve got hand sanitizer stations anywhere there is a common cross point or a common entrance and exit,” Waggenspack said.
The studio also has added new signage, mask and social distance guidelines. Waggenspack is also working with the productions on testing, needed in order to film during the age of COVID.
“We are asking ourselves, how is it that we can be safe and we make production happen as quickly as possible but also as safe as possible,” said Waggenspack. “I am sure there is going to be a major expense that’s going to go with it. There is going to be a lot of coordinating challenges but at the end of the day the show must go on and we are really going to get this figured out and I think production is going to come back full steam.”
Morton says the guidelines from the film industry call for serious testing, 3-5 times a week on some productions.
“A big part of the guidelines is testing, making sure there are enough COVID-19 tests available to them so they can test their cast and crew,” Morton said.
The City of New Orleans is only allowing a maximum of 50 people cast and crew on any given set. Morton says some productions are rewriting scenes in order to follow the guidelines.
“A lot of the productions are rewriting their scripts to allow for that, to allow for a different way to shoot, to spread people out," he said.
There were at least 10 productions that had to shut down, but Morton is hopeful most of them will come back, welcome news for Lawrence Barattini of Moviesets and Sideshow Props visible off the I-10 Freeway in Slidell.
“We are praying everyday that the film industry comes back because if it doesn’t---- it’s a passion for me and my family -- if it goes away it will be a sad day,” Barattini said.