Corona Virus and Shoots

[Southeast Sound Guy]

Me too.  I have a single member LLC set up, so I didn't apply for the PPP loan.  I don't have much in the way of wages or commissions on my Schedule C.  Some of the other business structures might though.  I thought in an S-corp, the owner is also an employee so you might qualify if you have taken a salary in the past. Might be a question for the lenders.

 

 

 

[Wandering Ear]

On 4/6/2020 at 12:01 PM, Derek H said:

I applied for the 10k grant online which I’ve read does not need to be repaid. I have an S-Corp but no employees or payroll so that didn’t seem like a good fit. 

If you elect to file as an S-Corp then usually you put yourself on your companies payroll as an employee, and earnings about your base salary are passed through as personal income for taxes.  That's my understanding.

It sounds like you may file as a sole proprietorship?  Of course defer to how your accountants have set you up

 

The PPP loans have been tough.  Every bank has different procedures to apply.  Existing relationships are usually required.  And then you get the Wells Fargo situation where do to past fraud they couldn't loan more than 10 Billion and they hit that in requests pretty quick.  Fortunately it sounds like the FTC will exempt them from that cap for the PPP.  Still, with a massive backlog at the SBA and funds being first come first serve, there is a lot of uncertainty around the PPP.  Add to that the vague guidelines released by the SBA and even my accountants aren't sure of how all the details are going to play out in the end.  If you are an S Corp or have employees it's probably worth pursuing.

 

[The Immoral Mr Teas]

So, we are in a new tax year ...

 

Anyone in the UK received an "invitation" from the government or HMRC to help their self employed status yet?

 

Curious, and waiting ... I've heard nothing on radio 4 or the daily 5pm updates ... perhaps they are waiting six weeks to put us in line with the universal credit rules (which I also never understood).

[Philip Perkins]

I found out that my car insurance co (at least as of today) is willing to not take a payment for April and then divide that month among the payments remaining in the policy.  This isn't super helpful right now since my policy is up in August, but the guy on the phone said the car ins co.s are considering dropping rates since people aren't driving very much, so fewer losses for the co.s.  For those with mortgages it seems very possible to get the mortgage holder to suspend payments for a few months and add those months to the end of the loan term--worth a call (and a wait on hold).  I have my doubts about whether any of the SBA stuff I've applied for will pan out, but I'm still hoping EDD will get their 1099 gig-worker shit together soon.

[budster]

On 4/9/2020 at 1:30 AM, The Immoral Mr Teas said:

So, we are in a new tax year ...

 

Anyone in the UK received an "invitation" from the government or HMRC to help their self employed status yet?

 

Curious, and waiting ... I've heard nothing on radio 4 or the daily 5pm updates ... perhaps they are waiting six weeks to put us in line with the universal credit rules (which I also never understood).

HMRC in the UK will contact the self employed in June if they are eligible 

[The Immoral Mr Teas]

June ... thanks for the heads up! It is now ... April? Assuming we are contacted by June 30, can we expect to get help perhaps after the first week in August, so once they stop paying the 80pc to the PAYE for the 3 month window it could be our turn?

 

Parliament Channel (thankfully still considered a democratic right here) has the parliamentary discussion from a couple of weeks ago on repeat demand where (the relative few who could be there) were pretty unanimous from all sides that help should be given immediately on a par to the 80pc up to a 2500pm cap to all self employed, who are frankly nearly everyone in our profession. But the consensus then seemed to be ... - we must first make sure that the minority who don't need the help (like premier league footballers and perhaps Oscar winning editors) don't take the piss and apply for their capped 2500 per month before the 98pc who are desperate to pay rent get any help whatsoever.

 

Hey, I won the lottery last week. Looking forward to June to see if I'm due another windrush - sorry, I mean windfall!

 

Anyone else out of us disgusted? I've heard our home secretary is an emphatic soul, maybe I'll ask if they can call me by May?

 

Jez 

... my 666th post ... and just after a full moon

[budster]

9 hours ago, The Immoral Mr Teas said:

June ... thanks for the heads up! It is now ... April? Assuming we are contacted by June 30, can we expect to get help perhaps after the first week in August, so once they stop paying the 80pc to the PAYE for the 3 month window it could be our turn?

 

Parliament Channel (thankfully still considered a democratic right here) has the parliamentary discussion from a couple of weeks ago on repeat demand where (the relative few who could be there) were pretty unanimous from all sides that help should be given immediately on a par to the 80pc up to a 2500pm cap to all self employed, who are frankly nearly everyone in our profession. But the consensus then seemed to be ... - we must first make sure that the minority who don't need the help (like premier league footballers and perhaps Oscar winning editors) don't take the piss and apply for their capped 2500 per month before the 98pc who are desperate to pay rent get any help whatsoever.

 

Hey, I won the lottery last week. Looking forward to June to see if I'm due another windrush - sorry, I mean windfall!

 

Anyone else out of us disgusted? I've heard our home secretary is an emphatic soul, maybe I'll ask if they can call me by May?

 

Jez 

... my 666th post ... and just after a full moon

If you take HMRC up on their offer in June you will then be subject to a higher rate tax code than if you didn't take the money so it is entirely possible you could end up paying way more back than the amount they gave you. That high rate is to be decided.

[Fred Salles]

Hi everyone. You might want to check if you could apply for some emergency funding in your country. Many diverse initiatives are being implemented all over the world. The Netflix one is quite clever as they extend to many countries (not much (500€ here in France) but that would help so I applied for it hey!).

https://www.kftv.com/news/2020/04/14/worldwide-funding-and-support-initiatives-for-the-industry

 

[chris_bollard]

It's going to be a long break for most of us, I think. 

 

Good luck to everyone navigating the way in getting assistance in your home country. Here in Australia there is no special assistance for film and television, or any of the arts. Unfortunately our current governments still haven't forgotten the industry taking party politics sides a while back. We do have reasonable business assistance available to most businesses, but to qualify you have to be able to survive, paying wages, for another 6 weeks. 

[cmgoodin]

When the Governor and local Mayors do authorize some type of lessening of the lock-down, the Entertainment and Film and TV production will

have to drastically change.  Imagine if just 1 of the actors in a sitcom or movie test positive the whole crew and cast has to go back into quarantine for at least 2 to 3 weeks.    And insurance is not likely to cover work interruption from COVID-19.   

 

There is a good article here from Deadline about what may be necessary to re-start production

 https://deadline.com/2020/04/how-hollywood-reopens-coronavirus-shutdown-production-insurance-actors-crews-1202908471/

 

Time to look at early retirement.   I did it 2 years ago.  Most of you on this forum are not that lucky.

[Philip Perkins]

Thanks for the article.  I can see that many of the things proposed there may be possible for shows with large budgets, but they will be pretty impossible for any sort of lower-budget, indie, doco, corporate, commercial or educational sorts of shoot.  Too complex, too expensive, too much liability.  Many people on this forum do not work on large episodics (where the real money is) or feature films, and we are looking at a near future in which our clients will likely give up on location shooting almost entirely in favor of various "remote" recording methods.  These have so far included "mail-out" kits in which they send a handy recorder or camera to the talent and talk them through setting it up, remote interviews via Zoom etc and one-way streaming-style methods.  In the corpo world companies are already using this kind of technology every day, and the very large gatherings they were doing for which high-quality media were made by professional crews have been put off indefinitely.  (Mark Zuckerberg has said that Facebook will plan no large gatherings until June 2021, for instance).   I hope the major studios DO figure out a good and fair modus operandi for big entertainment projects, but even if they do, that will not help the rest of us much.   I did notice the line about the studios "reassessing" what each crew member does...that's kind of ominous, right?   For the rest of us doing smaller gigs, I'm hoping that by the time we get a vaccine or whatever the magic bullet will be for the virus everyone will be so sick of online music, video and communications that we'll have a new live-shooting renaissance.  That's my whistle-in-the-dark for today.

[drpro]

Philip even after a vaccine, the world will need to go through several cycles (read years) of further testing.  Just like current flu vaccines, it is hit or miss some years.  Hopefully over time people will build some resistance the Covid-19 and its offsprings.

[Philip Perkins]

5 minutes ago, drpro said:

Philip even after a vaccine, the world will need to go through several cycles (read years) of further testing.  Just like current flu vaccines, it is hit or miss some years.  Hopefully over time people will build some resistance the Covid-19 and its offsprings.

That is undoubtedly true.  But the people, especially American people, will not shelter that long.  Sooner or later most of us will get sick.  If we're lucky it will be later, maybe at a point where the virus is less powerful and there are treatments to mitigate the danger of the illness.  But the clock is running on people's patience with the whole affair, logical, self-interested or no.  So some of us will be forced to work under some form of those wacko new rules in the meantime.

[Sound Intuition]

Here is what Fremantle is planning in Australia to come out of the covid pandemic. I was on a Fremantle show when we were ordered to shut down. I'm not sure what they mean by dividing the studio space into quadrants. Does that mean different stages? No way you can shoot with three crews on one stage and get it locked up. We used 4 large stages on our show. So does that mean one crew per stage? I don't think many shows could triple the crew size. Also no mention of how to handle the use of puting wires on actors.

 

https://deadline.com/2020/04/neighbours-resumes-production-australia-coronavirus-guidelines-safety-plan-1202913780/maz/

Edited April 22 by Sound Intuition

[Daniel McIntosh]

This snippet was forwarded to me this morning from a colleague. I do not know the source.

 

It was titled "Australian guidelines for post corona shooting:"

 

[codyman]

2 hours ago, Daniel McIntosh said:

This snippet was forwarded to me this morning from a colleague. I do not know the source.

 

It was titled "Australian guidelines for post corona shooting:"

 

 

I get why they would want you to wear a mask while putting a lav on someone however doing so while wearing gloves is quite cumbersome.  Why not bring the lav + transmitter into the room with talent, disinfect the lav in front of the talent for their own piece of mind, use hand sanitizer and then mic them up per usual (with mask), and then use hand sanitizer / wash hands once done?

[Mark LeBlanc]

can you show the part of the guide for camera?  

Also, is there anything about not using Fog Machines.. That crap makes me cough even on a non-pollen day..

[cmgoodin]

22 hours ago, Mark LeBlanc said:

can you show the part of the guide for camera?  

Also, is there anything about not using Fog Machines.. That crap makes me cough even on a non-pollen day..

If you are wearing your respirator mask like you are supposed to  it will now not be a problem right?😁

[Stillweii]

Love how all the $$ makers are scheming/dreaming on how to get us back to work .  The articles coming out this week are stating they want to quarantine crew in hotels 2 weeks before shooting with all amenities being offered in a hotel as if it was work.......maybe if it was 3x for every hour I'm not home.  

 

Most people do not know they have health conditions at the time that lowers their immune system to become susceptible to COVID-19.  I do not want to see any colleagues even be at risk.

 

https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/production-plan-coronavirus-1234589286/

 

Re-runs until a vaccine / cure is out there.   I'll watch Welcome Back Kotter until my eyes bleed.   Lest us not forget Cosmo Kramer's strike against the bagel store.

[Constantin]

8 hours ago, Stillweii said:

Re-runs until a vaccine / cure is out there.

it could well be 1 to 2 years before a vaccine is available for everyone. Most if us will be broke by then. 
A colleague here proposed quarantining the entire crew in abandoned military compounds, including for the duration of the production I think that’s a horrible idea. 

On 4/23/2020 at 9:57 PM, Daniel McIntosh said:

This snippet was forwarded to me this morning from a colleague. I do not know the source.

 

It was titled "Australian guidelines for post corona shooting:"

 

So they think it’s a better idea to have a second boom-op, i.e. a further potential spreader, on set to carefully laving people? 

[Philip Perkins]

Once it is legal to do so, there will be producers, actors, and crew who will be willing to take the risk of doing shoots with distancing modifications, and so they will.  I feel like that just reflects human nature and everyone's desire to do gainful work.  As in a war, the early attempts at meeting the challenge will be clumsy, ill-conceived and dangerous, but what actually works in practice will be quickly learned.  The risk will never completely go away until the vaccine comes, but as was said, we can't wait that long, so we won't.

[Jim Feeley]

Even when there is a vaccine, we might still be facing some risk. Too early to tell, but...

 

From US National Public Radio:

'No Evidence' That Recovered COVID-19 Patients Are Immune, WHO Says

 

And the scientific brief from the World Health Organization:

"Immunity passports" in the context of COVID-19

 

I don't want to sow FUD, but I wonder how long until there is evidence one way or another... Man, this is going to be a long haul. 

[edward chick]

I’ve been working for CBS and NBC news divisions recently. Protocol for both are crew has to wear masks, all shoots outdoors unless cleared by Operations Mgt. Booms preferred but if lav necessary must sanitize it and transmitter. I’ve been wiping them down with Lysol wipes and spraying the bag etc, with alcohol. It might not be the manufacturer preferred way, but that’s what I’m doing. 

[daniel]

9 hours ago, Constantin said:

it could well be 1 to 2 years before a vaccine is available for everyone. Most if us will be broke by then. 
A colleague here proposed quarantining the entire crew in abandoned military compounds, including for the duration of the production I think that’s a horrible idea. 

So they think it’s a better idea to have a second boom-op, i.e. a further potential spreader, on set to carefully laving people? 

uh, on this basis do you even have 1 boom op or a sound department? Guide tracks and ADR? Genuinely interested to know if ADR is cheaper than painting out mics. Of course 1 of these options will sound a lot better than the other 1 (and may even look better ,')

 

[chrismedr]

16 hours ago, Jim Feeley said:

Even when there is a vaccine, we might still be facing some risk. Too early to tell, but...

I don't want to sow FUD, but I wonder how long until there is evidence one way or another... Man, this is going to be a long haul. 

nobody knows for shure, but christian drosten, one of germanys top experts (he‘s been researching SARS type corona viruses for like 15 years) says it‘s very unlikely that we dont get any immunity after an infection and that reports of reinfection are most likely a result of testing methology.

 

unfortunately it seems also possible or even likely that the immunity will fade after a few years, but it might still result in less severe illness.

chris