COVID relief scheme offers respite for UK film and TV production

Mere days after chan­cel­lor Rishi Sunak sug­gest­ed that musi­cians and oth­er arts sec­tor employ­ees strug­gling finan­cial­ly should just get a new job, the UK gov­ern­ment has made moves to pro­vide relief to the enter­tain­ment indus­try. As the coro­n­avirus con­tin­ues to spread, though abat­ing ever so grad­u­al­ly in some swaths of Britain, a fis­cal shot in the arm should jump-start film and TV pro­duc­tion for the near future.

A site linked to gov­ern­ment insur­ance bro­ker Marsh Com­mer­cial out­lines a new scheme to pro­vide relief for movies and shows affect­ed by pan­dem­ic-relat­ed delays and can­ce­la­tions, here called ​‘COVID Loss­es’. Any oper­a­tion bud­get­ed under £30m (with at least half of that spent with­in the UK) can apply to be insured direct­ly by the gov­ern­ment while oth­er insur­ers balk at COVID-relat­ed dan­gers, and those big­ger projects exceed­ing that lim­it can still request spe­cial considerations.

The scheme cov­ers 20 per cent of the pro­duc­tion bud­get in case of delays to a film or TV series already in the process of shoot­ing, and 70 per cent of the bud­get in case of full aban­don­ment. The max­i­mum pay­out will be £5m, and the cost for this makeshift form of insur­ance will be one per cent of the total budget.

The press release also makes men­tion of a sec­ond scheme to be launched in Feb­ru­ary of next year, because the one in effect now will close reg­is­tra­tions on the 31 Octo­ber. Appli­ca­tions have been made avail­able online, to be filled out by pro­duc­ers or copro­duc­ers on behalf of their team.

This could be a boon to inde­pen­dent pro­duc­tions hurt­ing under the restric­tive con­di­tions of the slow­ly loos­en­ing quar­an­tine, which has already com­pli­cat­ed moviemak­ing in so many oth­er, non-insur­ance capac­i­ties. While keep­ing every­one safe and secure presents its own set of chal­lenges, at least more small-time cre­atives will get the oppor­tu­ni­ty to try.