How Production Has Changed in Response to Covid-19

It was encouraging to see how quickly many roles in the advertising industry adjusted to work within lockdown measures put in place in response to coronavirus. It turns out that a surprising amount of work can be done from home. But video production was one vital piece of the advertising puzzle that didn’t fit this new normal quite as neatly as others.

When people aren’t allowed to gather in public places or go within two metres of someone from another household, the standard live-action commercial shoot is suddenly far from straightforward.

Thankfully, producers are some of the world’s best problem solvers, so it was a matter of days  before production was up and running in new and inventive ways. Agencies and production companies began innovating with archive and stock footage, user-generated content and eventually remote shoots, where people found themselves collaborating over distances of thousands of miles.

Intrigued to hear what the biggest breakthroughs in this period of rapid change have been - and what is likely to stay with production after the pandemic is over - LBB’s Alex Reeves gathered a panel of some of the industry’s most capable producers. He chatted over Zoom to Prettybird’s Ali Brown, Droga5’s Mike Hasinoff, McCann Worldgroup’s Sergio Lopez, FCB’s Kerry Hill and Stink’s Daniel Bergmann.

Check out the panel, and hear about production’s shifts through Covid-19.