by Michelle Pizanis
Since COVID-19, my experience on set is that – whilst it’s our natural instinct to hug, kiss, or shake hands as we greet work colleagues – we have to adapt to a new normal of social distancing. There is also a lot more plastic as more things are individually wrapped, no more buffet-style set up at craft services, and lunch is ordered and prepacked to avoid contamination and single-use paper cups have now resurfaced.
When it comes to shooting, lens changes and reloads are done at reduced distances, however, we are still touching and passing gear to one another and whilst you start the day with a mask and rubber gloves, as the day goes on, you realise you can’t function effectively with it all. So, whilst we do our best with the PPE gear, after a few hours, they start to get discarded as you can’t do lens changes safely wearing rubber gloves. Working with PPE equipment is great in theory, but you find that you end up touching your face more than usual due to continually having to adjust the mask while moving around, so we have opted for wipes and hand sanitizer and whenever possible washing our hands more frequently.
Due to COVID-19 precautions, the simplest request for a pen is now met with a second thought and an isowipe clean and it is not long before our camera carts are full of used wipes. The usual practice of someone wanting to borrow some dust off or coming over to touch the monitor to discuss or point out an issue or playback of an image is again met with more antibacterial wipes, gloves, and sanitiser.
From an operational perspective, we have a reduced crew on shoot days as we try and eliminate any unnecessary exposure and try and consolidate all of our errands. For example, we now delegate certain tasks like a camera battery change to one individual who handles this from the beginning to the end.
The upside to all of this is that pre-COVID-19, you would probably catch everyone’s cold but now that we are practicing social distancing and careful distribution and presentations of our meals and snacks, this is less likely to happen. It has been a wakeup call to previous practices and our camera gear and carts have never looked so clean. Also, who knew our camera carts were the same length as the shopping trollies, so that helps with keeping up social distancing measures.
But sadly we can’t hug or tap each other on the back at the end of the day for a job well done…I guess we have to go with virtual hugs for now.
About Michelle Pizanis
After 11 years as a successful stills photographer, Michelle made the transition into Cinematography in 2002. Whilst based in Australia and Los Angeles, she is also a holder of an EU passport due to her French / Greek heritage and a member of all the relevant unions.
Michelle has worked on some of Hollywood’s biggest films such as Mad Max Fury Road, Thor: Ragnarok, Star Wars Episode VII, Fast and Furious 7 and many more.
Michelle is currently working on a music video for Tim Minchin using Blackmagic Design gear including Ursa Mini G2 with Zeiss CP2 Primes.
