HOW THE TV INDUSTRY IS COPING...

Hello, Top Tier gang! I thought I'd give you all a bit of insight into how the TV industry is coping with Covid, given I've finally gotten some good-ish news in terms of my CBBC show, Almost Never. 

Well, it's not good good... it's more a relief than anything, albeit a bittersweet one. All year we've been writing not knowing whether we'll ever go into production - despite having been commissioned. We were due to film back in June, but for obvious reasons that never happened. 

One of the biggest issues it faced was getting insurance in the current climate. It's something every show is challenged by, because if one member of the cast and crew goes down, then the entire production grinds to a halt. Nobody is in a hurry to insure anything in the current climate.

Anyhow, it is, at last, due to enter into pre-production in the middle of December, and starts filming in January. That'll go through until at least April. We're only making 10 episodes, which is three fewer than previous series. This is because there are all manner of Covid health and safety guidelines that productions must now adhere to, which adds extra time to filming, and which adds something like 30% to the budget. Consequently, what this translate to - roughly - is losing 30% of the budget that we had before. And thus, with no extra money in the pot... that means losing episodes. 

There are other production headaches; cast and crew will need to isolate... there are issues such as, for example, needing to have two identical props if there's a scene of one person handing a prop to another person. Crowd scenes and location scenes require navigating a logistical maze. There'll be daily testing... all that sort of stuff. Hair, make-up, costume... TV and film is incredibly, and quite literally, hands-on. 

This isn't just us, though; these are rules that every show - including the next series of Doctor Who, which has similarly had to drop from 11 to 8 episodes - must abide by. 

Unfortunately, we only knew about the three fewer episodes after we'd completed the first six scripts. This meant that had to wrap up storylines and arcs far sooner than anticipated - which has been a bit of a pain in the cracksie, given that some of the scripts for the second block were already underway. 

In all honesty, I'm pleased that we're filming at all. I'm still gutted that we'll never get to shoot our 4 O'Clock Club finale - we were 10 days away from filming when the first Lockdown happened, and due to the fact that a huge amount of money had already been spent to reach that point, CBBC weren't willing to spend it all over again.  Hence, it got cancelled. As sorry as I am about the enormous chunk of money I lost, it's a shame for the show's audience, as the scripts were great, we brought back lots of fan favourite characters, and it was the closest we'll ever get to do doing a 4 O'Clock Club movie. 

Obviously, and as I've said before, there has been a knock-on effect for me in terms of income. Having my work spread out over 18 months, coupled to writing far fewer episodes than I have done in recent years, has meant a degree of belt-tightening. But, as I say, it could've been worse, and other writers are in a far worse situation. Thankfully, HM Revenue & Customs has been very understanding this year...! We've scraped through.

So, that's where TVland has been at. There have been silver linings; I've loved not needing to travel for meetings. The ones I've had on Zoom have been every bit as effective, but also more concise. Add to that the extra time I've had to work on things like Digi, Lost Footage, my album, the podcast... and I've had the most creatively fulfilling year I've possibly ever had. And now I'm looking forward to keeping that going, and maintaining the balance, even when the TV industry is back to normal.

Paul