How prepared are broadcasters for another COVID disruption in shootings?

State governments have started taking strict measures to put a brake on the alarming increase in the number of fresh COVID-19 cases across the country. These include lockdowns, curfews and curbs on people movements and a whole lot of activities. One of the activities that won’t be allowed as per the latest guidelines in Maharashtra is shootings of films, TV serials, web series and advertisements.

With this, broadcasters are faced with the same situation that they had faced last year amid the nationwide lockdown when shootings were not allowed. More specifically, GECs had run out of fresh content and had to re-run old serials to fill in the gap. This had resulted in a steep drop in viewership numbers of GECs. Amid all this, the unlikely gainer was Doordarshan, which saw a tremendous spike in viewership thanks to classic mythological favourites – ‘Ramayan’ and ‘Mahabharat’.

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Going by a tweet by actress Dipika Chikhlia, who played the role of Sita in ‘Ramayan’, the mythological series is set to make a return to television as GECs gear up to make up for lack of fresh content on their channels. According to Chikhlia’s tweet, ‘Ramayan’ will have a re-run on Star Bharat.

Last year, the TV industry was caught unawares when the lockdown and curbs were announced. Hence, they didn’t have a huge bank of episodes to populate the content. But this year, they are armed with the lessons of 2020. One would assume that broadcasters and content producers are better prepared to face such a situation again.

While shootings won’t be allowed in Maharashtra, producers can look at other states where such strict curbs are not in place. However, this involves getting a lot of clearances from the respective state governments, working with a bare minimum crew, besides keeping in mind the social distancing guidelines which will prohibit outdoor shootings or shoots involving crowds. It will indeed be a logistical nightmare.

Goa has been a popular destination for vacationing and for film shoots for the film and TV folks. But this has also run into some problems as is evident from a release issued by the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG), which reveals that many illegal film shootings are being undertaken in the State of Goa, that is, without obtaining the necessary film shooting permissions from the ESG. Entertainment Society of Goa is the nodal agency for providing a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for film shooting in the State of Goa through the Line Producers registered with the ESG and the Goan Producers & Production Houses.

The release further stated, “All the shooting permissions in the State of Goa are routed through the Goan Line Producers registered with the ESG. Only Goan Production Houses or Goan Producers can apply for shooting permissions directly.”