IBC 365 reports that Bectu is expressing concern for freelancers during the early stages of this global pandemic, with a lockdown on business and social activities and travel restrictions looming.
In a statement in which she announced plans to contact the government to lobby for insurance companies to cover freelancers for self-isolation and establish a system to cover any lost earnings, Bectu head Philippa Childs said:
“Freelancers should not be missing out on pay because of the coronavirus. This could hit Bectu’s freelance members particularly hard. Unlike employees who receive contractual, or statutory sick pay, many of these workers will lose thousands of pounds. (Bectu urges) engagers to accept responsibility for the commissioned works and continue payment to keep potential infectors at home for 14 days.”
Support for businesses that cannot afford to cover the cost of furloughing staff is also needed:
“The freelance nature of working in the entertainment industries means that there is a huge amount of flexibility for employers. However, that flexibility can mean precarious work for many people and that should not be exacerbated because of a situation that is completely out of their control. Bectu has advised members to follow guidance from the NHS on hygiene, minimising transmission and avoiding crowded public spaces.”
Meanwhile, we are already seeing the beginnings of a shift to remote production for some forms of TV programming. Presenters and journalists are setting up home studios and turning to mobile devices and video conferencing platforms to make both live and recorded contributions. Zoom is one of the beneficiaries. Its share value has jumped on the news that it has signed up more new users since the start of 2020 that it did in the whole of 2018. Tools aimed at the professional market such as Blackbird and Base Media Cloud as well as specialist network and cloud services provider Sohonet have also reported a flood of new enquiries recently.
As IBC 365 also reports, post production companies are already taking steps to work remotely, though, as The Farm’s CFO Séamus MacCormaic wryly commented,
“Given the nature of their work, creatives already self-isolate in suites, to an extent. That said, we’ve had management meetings to discuss what we can do if things scale, in particular, to counter the risks of a commute. Since we’re multi-site we have the ability to share work and if a particular region becomes more hazardous we could potentially relocate staff in the short term to different cities.”
Superfast and ultrafast broadband and collaborative tools like Microsoft Teams are also helping to make it much easier to work remotely, though it does compromise one important aspect of the creative process, as Séamus MacCormaic reminds us,
“…you can’t get away from the interpersonal nature of the sector. The community will want to maintain face to face interaction until that clashes with risk to life. I think we need to have the flexibility going forward to offer clients the choice of on site or remote working.”
How long that will continue to be possible remains to be seen, and even more innovative solutions might be required to keep putting new high quality content onto our screens.
Image ℅ USAF