Taxi’s Andrew Wareham: “In these challenging times, outside of the box thinking is definitely needed to keep the production wheels turning”

Written by Andrew Wareham, managing director and executive producer, The Taxi Group.

Whilst every industry has been impacted by COVID-19 in one way or another, it’s our priority to develop solutions that allow our clients to continue to work and bring creative ideas to life in a safe and socially responsible way.

Whilst we don’t pretend to have all of the answers, our team at Taxi Film Production & Traffic Film & Video in conjunction with our friends at Tasty Pictures, (all part of The Taxi Group) have been busy collaborating with our clients and industry network to create a way forward for production over the coming weeks and months.

We’re proud to report that we had a successful and safe shoot for all involved last week, utilising various tools at our disposal. With the sheer scale of our state of the art Tasty studio at Sumner in Queensland, we were able to offer a controlled studio shoot environment, with individual and isolated work spaces for cast and crew.

We were able to live-stream the shoot to our clients, agency creatives and even the director (yes, the director!), who were split across New South Wales and Queensland guaranteeing a ‘no contact’ experience.

Our studio’s new motorised ceiling lighting grid proved to be a faster and more efficient lighting set up, meaning less crew were required on the floor throughout the shoot.

In addition, our green screen studio cyc allowed for visual talent and product to be shot and composited into a variety of backgrounds / environments during the post production process.

For the safety of everyone on set, we initiated the set-up of dedicated ‘Hygiene Co-ordinators’ with ‘sanitation breaks’ included in the shoot schedule to ensure that the hygiene of the set and equipment is a priority, with all of our cast and crew advised to wear face masks and gloves, with additional procedures in place for hair and make-up crew.

When workshopping through any new process or approach, a good dose of patience and a smile is certainly required, but we’ve been able to do it and we know it’s certainly a possibility to keep the cameras rolling during this difficult period for all in our industry.

By limiting the number of people on set to a realistic minimum and with social distancing requirements acknowledged at all times, we can continue to produce incredible work in line with current government regulations and guidelines.

We don’t have all of the answers, but we are committed to adapting our processes and procedures to provide safe and innovative solutions for our team and clients so we can continue to bring great creative thinking to life in a responsible manner and we encourage others where possible to try and do the same.

If you have a project that you need to workshop with us, then please drop us a line at shoot@taxifilm.tv

If you would like to learn more about The Taxi Group, please visit – www.thetaxigroup.tv