Hollywood gets green light to resume film and TV shoots. What’s it like on set now?

Some Hollywood film and TV productions were able to resume shooting on Monday after a hiatus due to the COVID-19 surge in LA County. After Governor Gavin Newsom lifted the statewide stay-at-home orders, the unions representing commercial advertisers and advertising agencies, SAG-AFTRA, the Producers Guild, and the Joint Policy Committee gave the go-ahead.

Last summer, the industry's leading guilds, production companies, and studios got together and developed strict COVID-19 protocols for productions to be able to safely resume production. This involves dividing sets into zones.

The Hollywood Reporter Senior Writer Bryn Sandberg explains, “On some sets, they're known as zone A, B, and C. Other sets, depending on the studio or the streamer, they’re green zone, yellow zone, or red zone. But the idea is the same no matter what they're called, and it's that you have certain zones that are stricter.”

For example, outside zone A, which is the strictest, there are fewer regulations, like being able to pull down your mask to eat and drink (while maintaining social distancing), she says. “That is sort of one of the ways that the industry has tried to really protect people when they go back to work.”