The world watches as Children of the Corn, Neighbours film through COVID

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Two of the most-watched shows in the English-speaking world right now haven’t even been released yet.

Neighbours, which resumed production in suburban Melbourne two weeks ago after a four-week hiatus (the episodes now being filmed won’t screen for four more months), and Children of the Corn, a US-financed feature nearing the end of its shoot in Richmond, on the edge of Sydney, have captured the attention of the filmmaking world by showing it is possible to keep working through COVID-19 – albeit with some major modifications.

And according to some heavy hitters in the industry, that means Australia could be poised to attract a lot more foreign production and co-production as it emerges from the shutdown than might otherwise have been the case.

“We’ve always been seen as an overachiever,” says Chris Oliver-Taylor, CEO of FremantleMedia Australia, which produces Neighbours. “Our crews and cast are world-class, we’re English-language, we have a good climate, it’s safe, there are great facilities, and the dollar is in a great position for internationals looking in.

“The only issue we’ll have is can we get people into the country – and that’s a global issue, so there's no advantage or disadvantage, we’re all the same. But I think we are best placed and we’ve got to take advantage of that, to show the rest of the world just how good we are.”

If Australia does emerge from the pandemic sooner than the rest of the world, the sector wants to be ready with protocols in place to make cast and crew feel it is safe to work.

To that end, the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) has spent the past couple of weeks consulting with various screen agencies, production companies, broadcasters and the unions to develop a 50-page Working with COVID document, which went to state and federal health advisers this week for feedback. The hope is that it will be ready for adoption in workplaces within two weeks.

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“Obviously there’s a desire to return to production,” says AFTRS chief Nell Greenwood. “We’re trying to balance that with having in place a really robust set of protocols.”

There is some difference in opinion about whether an industry-wide set of guidelines is the right approach, with The Block producer Julian Cress saying this week that “each show has to look at its own set of circumstances and develop its own guidelines”. And it’s easy to see that the circumstances of a MasterChef – which has continued production throughout – are vastly different to a Married at First Sight, which is almost impossible to conceive with physical contact restricted.

“Each production is going to have to navigate its own set of conditions and pressures,” says Greenwood. “But not all productions have the resources or the time to research and establish their own practices. We can do that, we can help develop these for the industry as a whole.”

In the early days of the pandemic in Australia, with information about what was safe practice and what wasn’t changing almost daily, the scriptwriting department on Neighbours attempted to tweak on the run. But a week shy of a planned Easter break, Oliver-Taylor says, “it was all getting too much, the writers were on their knees, rewriting every day”.

“Neighbours is really big, and that’s our advantage,” says Oliver-Taylor, referring to the former Channel 10 studio complex in Nunawading that is now solely used for production of the show.

It has been split into four colour-coded precincts, with production teams assigned to each of those (and given a matching-colour lanyard). Cast are only allowed to move from one zone to another on a Friday “so we have a bit of time if someone develops symptoms”.

Oliver-Taylor isn’t permitted to visit. “Even the executive producer, Jason Herbison, can’t go on set,” he adds. “It’s all designed to minimise crossover and risk wherever we can, and to work out where people have been if someone does come down with illness. We’ve tried to build resilience in the system so that if we do close down one unit, the others can still keep shooting. It works on paper.”

On the US feature Children of the Corn, based on the Stephen King short story, producer Lucas Foster has had his own unique set of circumstances to deal with, and to help him.

He decided to shoot in New South Wales after scouting locations last November. By January, he’d had a field of corn sown, and by February 6 he was ensconced on location.

Filming started in late March, but even before it became apparent the situation was deteriorating rapidly, he had made the key decision that would allow production to continue.

“Everybody on our movie has been self-isolated for the better part of two months, nobody has gone home,” he says. “We’ve basically created a cluster of our own, if you will – a safe cluster – that has been isolated for several months. And by the time we shot any scenes that involved any touching, we were way past the 30-day mark. It’s just a non-issue.”

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This is the full-production quarantine model that is gaining some currency as a way forward. But it doesn’t come cheap.

“It was a low-budget film that is now kissing the mid-budget range due to COVID-19,” he says. Though declining to name a figure, he says the mid-budget movies he generally produces “are typically in the $50-$60 million range”.

Whatever the final cost, Foster – who also produced the Oscar-winning Ford v Ferrari – has at least bought himself a unique marketing angle when the film is ready for release, which he hopes will be by the end of the year: as far as anyone can tell, it is the only significant feature film in production anywhere in the English-speaking world.

Production on MasterChef has continued throughout the crisis.

Of course, plenty of other productions – both scripted and unscripted – have not been able to continue, including big-budget features such as Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which was filming at Fox Studios in Sydney, and Baz Luhrmann’s untitled Elvis Presley biopic, which was a week away from production at Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast when the pin was pulled. In Victoria, the Netflix series Clickbait was just 2½ weeks from wrapping when cast and crew – including American star Adrian Grenier – were sent home.

The priority will be on getting those shows finished as soon as possible, but the challenge will be the restrictions on international travel.

“We are going to need everybody to play nice,” says Screen Australia chief Graeme Mason. “Where something was mid-production, we need to have everybody agree that they can go first.”

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That said, he adds, “the more complex the show, the slower it will be to come back. If you’ve got a crew of 20 and one on-screen talent it’s much easier than 900 crew and 200 extras.”

Coming back won’t necessarily mean a return to the Pre-Times, though. Many of the practices being developed now under emergency conditions may well linger into the post-COVID world.

“I've always looked at filmmaking as creative problem solving – the bigger the problem, the more creatively exciting the solution,” says Kriv Stenders, the prolific director of feature film Red Dog, documentary The Go-Betweens: Right Here and the miniseries The Principal and Wake In Fright.

“For me it's always been a case of embracing your limits and reverse-engineering. It's a creative industry and I think that if we all work together we can work out clever solutions and ways forward. The will and need is simply too great for something not to happen.”

One of the big problems facing the sector will be getting international talent, such as Clickbait star Adrian Grenier, back into the country. CREDIT:AP/JEFF CHRISTENSEN

For an industry currently on its knees, there is perhaps a great opportunity in all this.

“Over the last few months we have maintained our strong relationships with international partners, studios and streaming platforms and forged new contacts who are actively looking to bring productions here,” says Screen Queensland CEO Kylie Munnich.

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Screen NSW head Grainne Brunsdon believes the shutdown could prove beneficial for local shows too, with agencies having redirected funding earmarked for production towards further development.

“I do think there will be a lift in quality,” she says. “There’s always the cry that there’s not enough time for development, and now there is – and people are taking advantage of this time to refine their scripts more.

“Hopefully it will be a bit of a watershed where production companies and commissioners will say, ‘OK, if we do put that bit more time and money into development we get a markedly better product, so that should be the way we go forward’.”

For Film Victoria boss Caroline Pitcher, this is a moment both to make a play for international work and to consolidate our local content.

“The focus has to be on high-quality productions for cultural reasons and economic benefits,” she says. “But we also have to have a view to growing our industry in a completely global economy. We want the world to be seeing our shows, to be demanding to see them, and that is about quality.

“It will absolutely be challenging, but we’re in a better position than most of the rest of the world,” she adds. “We should be really focused on how do we make this work, and how do we lead this globally. It has to be an opportunity, doesn’t it?”