Actress and producer Emmeline Hartley recently won Best Actress for Keep Breathing at the English Riviera Film Festival. Despite these fantastic honours Emmeline is acutely aware of the strains facing filmmakers in their personal and professional lives owing to the outbreak rules.

“I think the biggest problem at the moment is lack of funds to cover testing and quarantining for production. We have a shoot coming up in January for a brilliant short sharing a story and message I passionately believe in and desperately want to do justice. There are a couple of essential moments in the narrative where four actors need to touch each other briefly. Due to guidelines and compliance, this is extremely complicated to work out. The easiest way round it is to get actors tested before the shoot and ask them to quarantine, but our budget doesn’t stretch to this and they’re not in a position to do that due to other commitments”.

These practical barriers can further complicate things says Emmeline. “The other major issue at the moment is booking a location because many of the places that would be ideal have been forced to close, as the Midlands are in a Tier 3. I truly worry about the future of independent film if this doesn’t clear up soon as it is so costly, and projects on a lower budget are barely surviving”.

“Another issue with the prolonged lockdown on the whole is this sense of ‘what did you achieved when the world stood still?’ thing. Everyone was reminding each other at the beginning of the pandemic about Shakespeare writing some of his greatest works during the plague when theatres were closed... but is that supposed to inspire us? It just adds on unnecessary pressure and will inevitably make a difficult year more difficult if you don’t meet your targets. I think we still underestimate how important our mental health is and how essential a work-life balance is for our creativity and productivity”.

Emmeline continues, “Sadly like thousands of freelancers, I have been excluded from government support due to being newly self-employed, and I’m ineligible for universal credit as I’m a full-time student. And I know there are SO many people in this industry who are in exactly the same boat, as well as up to 3 million across the whole of the UK, and they are just being ignored. I am very anxious about it".

“Finally, I guess Zoom fatigue has truly kicked in now and everyone is sick of seeing each other in 2D in little boxes that freeze and glitch with dodgy internet. I’m extremely lucky to be at drama school right now where I get to be with creatives every day in 3D, albeit socially distanced, and I truly cherish that fortunate opportunity”, adds Emmeline. ““However, I do miss my local filmmaking community hugely and I really hope Covid hasn’t taken the fun out of filmmaking for them.”. In short, I really really really can’t wait until things are back to normal”

Gatling Gun are a non-profit independent film production company based in North Leicestershire who produce shorts & features, music videos and promotional films. Production Manager Ian Hodges acknowledges the struggles they faced on set and how they overcame as a team.

"These have been strange times for everyone”, states Ian. “At the beginning of the lock down I felt everyone had to find their feet. What can or can't you do? Is it safe do go near people? I personally took the approach to re-adjust and reset my priorities with a lot of personal things and prioritise what I wanted to do film-wise in these uncertain times”.

“During the main lockdown we had many Zoom meetings discussing projects that can be finished and the new ones to be started. I finally had time for the scripts I have always wanted to do including a comedy feature film that is Midlands based, plus location scouting when restrictions were lifted”.

Ian explains what steps he took in order for filming to continue. “Finishing a documentary with Alex Reid became possible once filming was back on with Covid rules in place. In these conditions it made you think more about the location and space. Keeping crew to the bare minimum and lots of multitasking were required. Things to always have in your mind were the 2-metre rule, face masks, hand sanitizing and using anti-bacterial wipes on all equipment at intervals or when packing down”.

“The boom mic definitely comes into its own with the current situation. We tried to move things so we could do more outside shoots, if you can, and indoors we made sure we had good ventilation. We used the track and trace system and everyone was to feed back to me if they had to self-isolate or they had been tested positive within 14 days before or after are shoot. Luckily we had nobody to this present day!”

Ian goes on to summarise, “I think the main point is to always make sure everyone feels safe, secure and then they can concentrate on their jobs. Creatively, I feel people need films of any length and genre in these strange times to give everyone that moment of escapism. And I’ll end by wishing all filmmakers a safe and happy Christmas and a positive and happy 2021!”

For further info and guidance please check out these important Covid guidance links from the BFI and the British Film Commission

https://www.bfi.org.uk/coronavirus-covid-19/working-screen-industry-during-covid-19

http://britishfilmcommission.org.uk/guidance/regarding-covid-19-coronavirus