LONDON, March 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In just over ten weeks COVID-19 has devastated the global economy. Tourism has collapsed. Italy has been locked down. Financial markets have fallen to their lowest levels since the 2008 financial crisis. Sporting and cultural events have been cancelled, and travel has been curtailed.
Filming of Mission: Impossible 7 has been halted; CBS has suspended The Amazing Race; release of latest Bond spectacular No Time to Die has been postponed until November; and travel restrictions are forcing production houses worldwide to abandon location shoots.
But with grounded creatives seeking to outsource scheduled shoots, more than a 30% rise in business requests has been reported by local film production companies and film fixers living all over the world, as they have been increasingly tasked to produce content for broadcasters and companies abroad.
The global production house NEEDaFIXER is one of the companies which has reported a spike in demand for its film production services abroad. With film teams, directors, DPs and editors in 100+ nations across six continents, NEEDaFIXER is being called on to assist in time-critical productions ranging from ad shoots and promos to corporate video, TV series and raw news gathering.
"The impact of the virus on the film industry is huge. On average, we produce 150 projects a month via our network of film fixers around the world. With the coronavirus outbreak, almost half of our agreed projects were either cancelled or postponed," said NEEDaFIXER CEO, Sofia Panayiotaki. "But the need for international film content has made production teams reconsider their plans. Recently, we have been increasingly contacted by new and past clients, asking us to appoint local directors, fixers and production teams willing to film all that was needed and share the content with the end clients abroad, via online platforms."
Sofia added, "We have experienced a surge of requests, which we accommodated efficiently and affordably for our clients thanks to the remote working model we have used for years now, communicating daily in different time zones with our local directors and fixers in 100+ countries around the world. What appears as an 'outside the box' way of working is business as usual for us; and while we hope that the virus will soon disappear, we are happy to allow productions to run as planned without suffering repercussions brought about by COVID-19."
