Actors involved in intimate scenes can request tests until July, although Hollywood’s Covid protocols end in May

While Hollywood’s return-to-work Covid protocols expire on May 12, cast and background actors involved in intimate scenes – and those involving extreme physical exertion – are allowed until July to request a Covid test themselves from cast members who work with they are. contact or intimate contact.

That’s the final word from SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, who noted that it’s part of the agreement reached Thursday with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers.

Thursday’s termination agreement with the companies said only, “SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP have agreed to a testing system for performers involved in intimate scenes to ensure their safety and well-being.”

However, Crabtree-Ireland has today made a more detailed version of this provision available to guild members:

“SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP have agreed to continue testing, upon request, performers involved in intimate and extreme physical exertion scenes until July 31, 2023 to ensure their safety and well-being,” he said. “For cast and crew working in scenes involving close or intimate contact or extreme exertion, starting May 12, 2023, you have the right to self-administered Covid antigen testing of yourself and other cast and crew with whom you will now be working. , request or intimate contact.

“These requests must be made at least 24 hours in advance to a designated contact on the production team, unless you are cast less than 24 hours in advance. The identity of the requesting artist or background actor is kept secret. The right to make these requests will expire on 31 July 2023, unless extended further.”

As previously reported, mandatory vaccinations as a condition of employment will end on May 12, except for those productions that already had a mandatory vaccination policy in Zone A — the most restrictive work areas where unmasked actors work — on May 11 for the duration of that production.

“Our members have benefited from industry-leading and robust protections that have ensured a safe and consistent production environment,” Crabtree-Ireland told members, noting that the phasing out of the protocols was unanimously approved by the SAG-AFTRA President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Security was approved and approved by the Guild Council.

The protocols, which were first adopted in September 2020 under an agreement between the unions AMPTP and Hollywood, allowed productions to recover from a global collapse early in the pandemic and may have saved the lives of many workers in the industry saved.

As Crabtree-Ireland noted, the original agreement “was the result of cooperation and solidarity between entertainment industry unions and employers. It has served its purpose of protecting our members and keeping the industry running during an unprecedented global pandemic. “

In his contribution, Crabtree-Ireland also noted that “individual employers remain responsible for ensuring safe workplaces for their employees, but must obtain separate agreements with applicable unions, or renounce from applicable unions, before implementing Covid safety protocols”.

He also thanked the officials of SAG-AFTRA and the National Council “for their support, commitment and collective wisdom over the past three years of the pandemic and its aftermath” as well as “the exceptional staff of SAG-AFTRA and our partners in the other articulated unions.” for their continued hard work and dedication to safety.”

The other unions that participated in drafting the protocols and agreed to adopt them were the DGA, IATSE, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Teamsters Local 399, IBEW Local 40, LiUNA! Room 724, OPCMIA Room 755 and UA Room 78.