This document represents what we believe to be a path for employers to provide a safer workplace for their cast and crew members in a pre-vaccine COVID-19 world. Taking action based upon these guidelines is an essential and necessary element of any such return to work.

This document was conceived and initially drafted by a DGA committee of working members, based upon close consultation with infectious disease epidemiologists and other experts including W. Ian Lipkin, Larry Brilliant and Baruch Fischoff. SAG-AFTRA was simultaneously but independently working on its own protocols through its President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Safety, its staff, and expert consultants including Jonathan Fielding, Mark Katchen, and Monona Rossol. IATSE was also engaged in a similar process with experts including Letitia Davis, Gregory R. Wagner and David H Wegman.

SAG-AFTRA, IATSE and the Teamsters all subsequently joined with the DGA in the effort to create this document.

These guidelines follow the Industry White Paper, developed by the Industry-Wide Labor- Management Safety Committee Task Force,1 that was recently delivered to the Governors of New York and California. While that White Paper offered a foundation for the appropriate state agencies to examine the resumption of production and provides guidance employers must follow to provide a safe working environment, it expressly provided that the specific protocols regarding mandatory testing, personal protective equipment, and department-specific procedures would be the subject of further discussions and agreement between the producers and the unions. These guidelines are our recommendations with respect to testing and department-specific protocols related to employees represented by DGA, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, Teamsters and the Basic Crafts (the “Unions”).

Not surprisingly, there’s been a wealth of smart and detailed work done by members of the industry all over the world on possible pre-vaccine safety guidelines. Some of that work is summarized and/or incorporated in Parts Three and Four of this document (by the way, if someone out there recognizes their work in these documents, THANK YOU VERY MUCH). What we are trying to describe and contribute is an organizing principle, an overlay; the granular detail that lies beneath can be tailored to each production.