PremiumNew Delhi: Bollywood film producers are increasingly looking to vaccinate all employees, crew members of different projects and other workers of the entertainment industry, along with their families, in an attempt to restart production safely and minimise the risk of infection.
Ajay Devgn, Anand Pandit, Karan Johar, Rajkumar Hirani, Bhushan Kumar of T-Series, Balaji Telefilms, Reliance Entertainment, among others have inoculated employees across feature films and web shows. The industry hopes to get back on its feet and shoot with safety protocols to ready content before theatres are allowed to operate fully, expecting audiences to return to theatres.
Meanwhile, the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce has mandated that at least one dose of the vaccine is necessary for an individual to be part of film shootings.
“As an organization, we have always believed that our people are our biggest assets, and we’ll continue to look out for them. The team at Balaji will ensure that the vaccination drive is a convenient process for one and all abiding by all the required government protocols," Zulfiqar Khan, group chief operating officer, Balaji Telefilms said in a statement. The company organized the drive earlier this week at two centres in Mumbai including the Balaji house and Killick Nixon Studios, for all its on-roll and off-roll staff, as part of a tie-up with Jaslok Hospital.
Siddharth Anand Kumar, vice-president, films and television, Saregama India, that owns boutique studio Yoodlee Films, said the company is looking to vaccinate all team members tied to any of its projects. He said restrictions currently being followed on all film, television and web show projects cannot be relaxed until at least 70% of the population is double vaccinated.
“Till then, we have to bear expenses of safety and hygiene protocols that require frequent breaks and add to budgets. Plus, the fact that everything takes a little longer to complete because people adhering to social distancing norms are being kept in different areas of the set instead of being allowed to move freely between zones," Kumar pointed out.
To be sure, studios and creators realize that production is an interaction-heavy process, requiring not just props, hair, make-up and other specifics to be supervised but actors to stay in close proximity with each other and with the directors, technicians, and several crew members. Several producers, especially for television projects, are shooting in bio-bubbles with crews stationed in resorts and hotels, with accommodation, food and sanitization paid for.
Even though the Maharashtra government has allowed shoots in Mumbai, producers said their cast and crew have requested deferring shoots to July or later, so that there are more chances of people having taken the vaccine. Some of the bigger actors want to be doubly sure and want to get an RT-PCR done if there is an intimate scene, besides asking for people to be vaccinated or tested if they are shooting with a crowd of 40-50 people.
“The vaccine is both inexpensive and easily available. So, it is always better to be safe than sorry because even if you contract the virus, at least the intensity of it will be reduced (if vaccinated), and effects will not be extreme or fatal. So yes, there are people who are getting vaccinated to get that stress out of the way and so they are not scared to come to work on sets everyday," said Nivedita Basu, content and acquisition head, Biiggbang Amusement, a video-streaming platform dedicated to short movies.
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