LUCA BERNABEI: “WE’LL HAVE TO REVIEW OUR PRODUCTION MODELS”

March 19 started as a normal day for LUX Vide - there were over 600 people working for them spread in full productions. However, in the afternoon of that same day, the Italian production company was forced to shut down all its sets. “Anyone who works in production is used to solve problems and know very well that interrupting the production is the worst event that could ever happen to us,”  said Luca Bernabei, CEO at LUX Vide to Señal News.

For Bernabei, living with the Covid-19 will require to review the production models. "There will be scaling down to what should be safe for the crew and the actors,”  the executive explained. “On the other hand, the increasing cost due to the applications of the new set standards, as well as the expected longer duration of production times, will lead us to an increase of cost,”   he added. For this reason, Bernabei thinks that international alliances in co-production will become more necessary to finance the most ambitious projects, which he is sure both the public and broadcasters will continue to demand.

In this quarantine period, the LUX Vide team has been working mainly throughout video conferences and using apps such as Skype, Zoom but even through phone calls and WhatApps. “Right now all these technologies have been fundamental to us,”   the CEO of the company indicated.

Nowadays, Italy is living through phase two of the quarantine. “We need to loosen lockdown and start thinking on going back to work, it’s fundamental,”  Bernabei opined. 

When LUX Vide can go back to shooting, the production company will organice paths that force people to keep distance from each other, in order to access to the set. “We will start to measure the temperature in rooms and theaters, we will sanitize frequently and there won't be any concentrated rooms,”  the executive detailed. 

“Our hope for the future of the sector is to re-open our set as soon as possible, get back to work so as to cancel out the terrible day when we have been told we needed to shut down our productions because of this pandemic,”  Bernabei expressed. “We have to do it in a safe way but we have to do it soon,” he concluded. 

By Romina Rodríguez