This film was created remotely during global Covid-19
lockdowns with contributors self-filming.
Lockdown was introduced and every shoot I had in the diary was cancelled
The camera was put in my safe and wasn't seen again for a little while.
Just before the Covid-19 lockdown
I was about to travel to Australia, for the shooting of a TV adventure show.
The immediate impact on all my work was the successive cancellation
of all the productions scheduled in the next months and weeks.
I know that there are many filmmakers that didn't work during this time
and of course there are people that work with news, people that don't.
I started working covering Covid-19 for news platforms.
I've been working with the Red Cross
and with them, I was embedded and going to private houses within their missions
while they were rescuing the patients.
I went into the ICUs, I’ve been working with doctors, nurses
and then I was following the news as well.
After every shooting, you need to sanitise
every piece of your camera, lens, cables, audio with disinfectant.
Before we could work, produce, share face-to-face.
Now, we have to all communicate screen-to-screen.
This, it's the new way to work.
There's caution, but there's also a massive
eagerness to start producing films again.
I think with the last three, four months of production being completely halted
there's a huge gap to fill, so we’ll need to get out there and start filling it
as quickly as possible.
In terms of what we have to do now to shoot
things have changed dramatically.
There's all the obvious elements, whereby you're wearing PPE
you've got gloves on, you've got a mask on; you're staying away from people.
Social distancing has huge implications for how you shoot drama
and how you shoot people interacting.
We are a people industry, like no other in the creative industries.
The people are the lifeblood of absolutely everything that we do.
I think the ways in which people have been helping one another out
is just the most heartening thing that I've seen.
I think if we can come out of this a kinder, stronger, more positive place to work
that will be a really positive legacy from everything that we've experienced through this period.
Coming out of lockdown, having lightweight efficient equipment is really, really important.
I'm having to work much more on my own now
or in much smaller teams.
So having equipment that I can work with alone is really important.
We've managed to get back to shooting now which is fantastic.
I think it's a slow start, but it's started.
And it's fantastic to get back to looking through a lens
and working out how to light things and framing and composing shots.
The really interesting thing for filmmakers now is that
the rule book has been ripped up.
I think all those previous ways of funding, commissioning
will have changed.
You know, perhaps this is a time to be bold
and perhaps there will be some wonderful things
that can come out of this devastating period.