COVID Safe protocols cost $800,000 per production and nobody knows who is paying

The figure that keeps coming up in producer conversations is $800,000. That is the estimated additional cost of COVID Safe compliance on a mid-budget Australian drama series, six to eight episodes, shooting over ten to twelve weeks. The number covers testing, compliance officers, PPE, additional transport, modified catering, set redesign, and the schedule extensions caused by all of the above. On a production budgeted at $8 million, that is a ten per cent surcharge. On a production budgeted at $4 million, it is twenty per cent, and there are a lot of Australian productions budgeted at $4 million.

Screen Australia and the state agencies published the national COVID Safe guidelines for production in June. The document runs to 24 pages. It is thorough, evidence-based, and written by people who understand how a film set works. What it does not contain is a line item for funding.

The cost breakdown

Per figures compiled by Screen Producers Australia from early-restart productions, the costs break down roughly as follows. Testing accounts for the largest single expense: PCR tests for all cast and crew, administered every 72 hours during principal photography, at roughly $150 per test. A 60-person crew shooting for ten weeks generates approximately $45,000 per week in testing costs alone. Over a full shoot, testing runs between $300,000 and $450,000.

Compliance officers are the second-largest cost. The guidelines require a dedicated COVID Safety Supervisor on every production. In practice, most productions are hiring two: one for the shooting unit, one for the production office. The going rate is $2,500 to $3,500 per week, comparable to a line producer. Over a ten-week shoot, that is $50,000 to $70,000.

PPE and sanitation supplies run $30,000 to $50,000. Modified catering, which now requires individually packaged meals rather than buffet service, adds $40,000 to $60,000. Additional transport, needed because crew can no longer share vehicles at full capacity, adds $20,000 to $40,000. And schedule extensions, caused by the time required for testing, sanitisation between setups, and reduced capacity in enclosed spaces, add between $80,000 and $150,000 depending on the production’s daily burn rate.

Who absorbs it

The short answer is producers. The government’s position, communicated informally through the agencies, is that existing funding mechanisms are sufficient. Screen Australia has not announced a COVID top-up fund. The state agencies have been marginally more responsive: Screen NSW created a $2 million restart fund in July, and VicScreen added a COVID supplement to its production investment programme. But these supplements cover a fraction of the actual cost, and they are competitive, not automatic.

The result is that producers are absorbing COVID compliance costs out of existing budgets. In practice, this means cutting elsewhere. Post-production schedules are being compressed. Development fees are being deferred. Contingency funds, already slim on Australian budgets, are being redirected to testing. One producer described it as “robbing post to pay PPE.” Another said, bluntly, that the choice was between COVID compliance and the grade.

The insurance gap

Compounding the cost problem is the insurance problem. Standard production insurance policies now carry COVID exclusions. If a production shuts down because a crew member tests positive, the resulting costs, idle crew, location holds, schedule restructuring, are not covered. Before the pandemic, a shutdown claim on a $6 million production might run $200,000 to $400,000. That risk now sits entirely with the producer.

The industry has lobbied the federal government for a backstop facility, similar to programmes announced in the United Kingdom and France. The UK’s Film and TV Production Restart Scheme, launched in July, provides government-backed indemnity for COVID-related losses up to $650 million across the sector. Australia has no equivalent. The government’s response has been that it is “monitoring the situation,” which in bureaucratic terms means it is not doing anything.

The restart count

As of mid-August, Screen Australia’s tracker shows 22 productions in active principal photography under COVID Safe protocols. A further 31 are in pre-production with confirmed start dates. Against the 94 productions that paused in March, that represents a restart rate of roughly 23 per cent after five months.

The productions that have restarted tend to be larger: international co-productions with offshore financing that can absorb the compliance costs, or fully funded agency projects where the budget was set before the pandemic. The productions still paused are disproportionately independent features and low-budget series, projects where an $800,000 surcharge is not a line item but a death sentence.

Nobody in the agencies disputes these numbers. Nobody in government has offered a structural solution. The protocols work. The productions that follow them are shooting safely. The question is how many productions will never restart because the cost of safety was added to budgets that had no room left.