While there is no certainty about when shooting will resume in the film and television industries, the FWICE (Federation of Western India Cine Employees) on Tuesday afternoon took a call to begin serious meetings on the issue, chalking out guidelines and the dos and don’ts defining the new normal once the shooting begins.
A letter from FWICE (included below) released on Tuesday afternoon proposes a series of meetings on the Zoom app to discuss health, security and safety of all the stakeholders. Elaborating on the content of the letter Ashoke Pandit chief adviser of the FWICE says, “We understand that there can be no movement ahead in the resumption of shooting until the Government comes up with clear guidelines. We also understand that until such a time, we cannot formulate our own guidelines. However there are some very basic dos and don’ts regarding social distancing and the extent of work that can be done from outside the set for a shooting, that we need to be clear about.”
Pandit says the new normal is quite clear. “We can’t shoot the way we did before the virus. Physical closeness would have to be avoided. Just how an action scene or a romantic scene will be shot without physical contact, is something we need to figure out.”
Pandit says it’s not impossible to shoot romantic scenes without physical contact. “How many times did Dilip Kumar embrace Madhubala in Mughal-e-Azam?”
