Los Angeles Times: The pandemic has spawned a new job on Hollywood sets — the COVID-19 compliance supervisor.
The role was created under an agreement last month between entertainment unions and an alliance of producers as part of the terms for Hollywood’s return to production. Already, an industry is emerging around this important position. Some companies are offering training and certification, others are providing consulting services to productions.
6 comments:
I have been so mystified as to this role as it seems like something that needs medical training but I know of stage managers who don't even know CPR getting this training so it was so good to read this article. Learning about the amount of power in these COVID compliance supervisors is wild. I can't believe they have the power to shut down production and what pressure they have from other people not to report things. I see construction sites all the time that say this is a masked zone and people aren't wearing masks so this must be super tricky especially if you are supervising friends and colleagues that you have worked within the past. It is even more wild to hear that there is no standard route to getting this job. I get it isn't needing medical training as you are just making sure people follow rules but it seems very haphazard for the amount of power that these people have. I think it was interesting reading about the name change to instill more power but also that should have come with more qualifications. This article definitely demystified what a COVID compliance supervisor is and it seems a little less technical of a job than I think I thought it was. One question that this brought up is what kind of deals film companies have with medical companies. My brother's school in Maine gives COVID PCR tests three times a week to its students and has created a medical group in Boston to make sure there is a steady supply of tests and test results without lag from publicly sourced tests. I also wonder what this means for insurance and what kinds of new insurances will start existing post covid.
I think it’s interesting that the article mentions compliance officers, who may or may not be taken seriously on site, may be the ones who are being put in charge of enforcing or documenting compliance. It can be some thing of a person wearing to hats at the same time because they both fit one another fairly well. Like any other job once you give a person authority to fire, punish, or possibly shut down the entire operation, that becomes a combination of safety compliance as well as budgeting and HR. We all know that in this industry the vast majority of us have the mentality of getting the job done at nearly any cost. By putting people in a situation where they have to complete their job while following new guidelines it’s very easy to see how people could get very lax or just ignore the rules thinking “none of us are worried so we can get this done quickly and no one will know.” Beyond all those thoughts there is the problem of consistency. By having no standardized training, by allowing different groups or even groups with in large organizations to decide what’s acceptable, and having a lack of defined role in duties buy a large organization, giving anyone the title of “Covid safety officer” can be just words. While I don’t think everyone necessarily has to have a medical or science background for the majority of the job, anytime they deal with things like contact tracing, swabs, or anything to do with medical records, those are things that we do require very specific training. I think there is a lot of room for us to define and enforce this very important duty. At the very least people should be getting guidance from their insurers since they are the ones who have to pay out due to any poor practices.
The last paragraph addresses my biggest concern about the producers hiring the compliance officers: that they will hire people whose objectives align with them rather than someone who is truly thinking of everyone’s safety. I’m also curious who Compliance Officers will translate to in the theater world. Since smaller theaters will most likely come back before large scale productions, I find it unlikely that they will hire a person whose job is solely to monitor safety. Especially as money will be tight because of the nine plus months of lost revenue. It will most likely fall in the hands of the stage manager as they are used to making judgements on people’s health and safety. Like the article said, there is no standard and there is no telling how much knowledge a stage manager will have about immunology. Also, having someone who directly profits off the show or film shoot continuing is a direct conflict of interest as they will not get paid if the show or movie is forced to shut down. Hopefully AEA will have some good rules in place that don’t put too much of the burden on the stage manager or anyone else.
While I like the idea of compliance officers enforcing pandemic safety protocols, my biggest concern is that there are no real qualifications and training for the role. Theoretically, anyone could walk up off the street and claim to be a professional. While it appears that studios and producers are looking for "is somebody who has extensive on-set experience and preferably has a medical background", there isn't a solid definition of what this means or who can realistically take this role. As is, it basically makes pandemic safety compliance a sort of wild west. If someone were looking to simply make a quick buck or, worse, actively undermine pandemic safety because they don't believe in it, peoples' live will be at risk as a result of the officer's negligence. It seems that this has already become a problem, as the author linked to another article specifically about this issue and union members' complaints. Hopefully IATSE and other unions can come to an agreement on what a pandemic safety compliance officer is and who can be in that role.
This was an interesting read because, for some reason, I have recently have been getting videos about people going back to work in film and seeing what changes they have and how their day goes across my various feeds. The mention of "crowded and messy sets" is interesting because everything that I have been seeing is more empty space than not, even in the dining areas, which would make sense with six feet spacing needed. Something that I took interest in when reading this is the line about the compliance supervisor being the person to shut down a set if there are violations of standards. I do worry about how ironed out that has been with the compliance officer and the heads of the production. If a compliance supervisor says that a show needs to be halted, are the listened to and how are they treated? I can very easily see this not going well, especially on bigger budget productions when shutdown isn't really an option. I think that not having a set training standard is something that should not be a thing if productions are underway and to me, that shows what companies care about more.
I believe that having a compliance supervisor is an extremely important step to ensuring that productions can begin again in all areas of entertainment, not just in film and TV. However, the role needs to be properly vetted and thought out with a concrete set of responsibilities and tools to achieve them. As the article mentions, the job requirements are near nonexistent and the effectiveness of such roles is across the board. The situation the article is talking about, while well-intentioned and necessary for the situation the world finds itself in right now, was rushed and not well thought out. You can't have producers who only want to be able to tick off a box and protect themselves from the workers' unions. You also have to ensure that, due to the responsibilities these supervisors are intended to have, the people filling these roles are trained and knowledgeable both in health and safety and in the industry in which they are entering. Also, having a production assistant or other smaller role doubling as the COVID-19 compliance supervisor is just negligent and a gross abuse of that person's work and safety.
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