How to Shoot a Cult Horror Remake in the Middle of a Pandemic

(Bloomberg) -- After the adults were gone and the blood had dried, the children still had to keep a safe distance from one another. Move too close, and a shout rang out: “Airplane arms!” Then the young stars of Stephen King's “Children of the Corn” reboot would raise their arms in a “T” and spread apart from their neighbors.

“It worked so well,” said Jon Heaney, the dedicated Covid-19 safety supervisor for the shoot. A remake of the 1984 cult horror flick, “Children of the Corn” features child actors as young zealots who rid their rural town of its adults. “We'd just yell it out if we thought people were getting too close, and the kids would do it straight away. The crew started doing it too.”

The film was still shooting in and around Sydney during the pandemic, a prime example of Australia's efforts to get its growing movie industry up and running again. In mid-July the government added A$400 million ($285 million) in ‘location incentive' grants to the two-year-old program of tax breaks and incentives that first targeted Hollywood's movie makers. Australia remains closed to international travelers, but the country's carved out an exemption for movie cast and crew members.

Film and television production generated A$9.1 billion to Australia's economy in the 2017-18 fiscal year, up 15% from five years previous. Now, as the country confronts its first recession in 29 years, the pandemic presents an opportunity. Along with New Zealand and a handful of European countries, Australia's one of the few places to make a movie these days, according to research firm Olsberg SPI. And while Australia's southeastern state of Victoria is fighting a new resurgence of Covid-19 cases, the country has largely avoided the massive outbreaks that have characterized global hotspots.

“What that really does say is how much of an opportunity there is for us,” said Kate Marks, chief executive officer of AusFilm, the government's liaison to the film industry. “The spotlight's been put on us because we are being looked at by other parts of the world as a safe place to do business.”

Australia released specific guidelines for filming during the pandemic in May. Actors who are sharing living quarters during the shoot are allowed to have physical contact on screen, like a hug between friends at the pub. Scripts have also been rewritten to minimize the risk of contagion, and face masks are used whenever possible when social distancing isn't feasible. Bollywood films have also adopted similar measures.

Shooting for Walt Disney Co.'s Marvel film “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” is about to resume after a four-month hiatus. Nicole Kidman's new series, “Nine Perfect Strangers,” is due to start filming in Byron Bay, about 760 kilometers (472 miles) north of Sydney, this week. Cast and crew have been in quarantine, as New South Wales requires of all interstate travelers. The latest in the “Thor” franchise -- “Thor: Love and Thunder” -- is expected to go into preproduction before the end of the year.

Before the pandemic hit, 2020 was on track to be the biggest year in Australia for productions, according to Screen Australia, the government liaison to the film and TV industry. That seems unlikely now, but the sector is still a bright spot for the economy. Ausfilm estimates they've received A$1.2 billion worth of production inquiries over the past few months on a range of U.S.-backed projects.

Filming in Queensland has also started up again. The Warner Bros. biopic “Elvis” was in production there until it was halted by the pandemic.

“We're all getting inundated with calls, people saying how can we come down and film,” CEO of Screen Australia, Graeme Mason said in an interview. MGM is looking at filming George Miller's “Three Thousand Years of Longing” in Sydney, long planned prior to Covid-19, but the start date is still to be determined. The sequel to James Cameron's “Avatar” is currently filming in New Zealand.

Even with the government's encouragement, filming “Children of the Corn” mid-pandemic wasn't exactly easy, said Heaney. “You're dealing with an entire crew who were on edge constantly, the pressures were never ending and dealing with government bodies that were asking what are you doing to stay safe,” he said.

On top of that, Heaney also had to keep the mood light. “We had to make it a safe and friendly environment for the kids,” he said. “It was good for the crew's morale as well.”

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