Photographer: Ray Messner/Fremantle Australia Pty
Screentime
No Kissing, No Extras: How to Make TV in the Age of the Virus
- Australian soap opera Neighbours offers lessons to TV industry
- Writers adapt plot to strict social distancing rules
How do you film a soap opera in the age of the coronavirus, when kissing is banned, make-up is scaled back and extras are seen as a danger to everyone’s health?
TV producers around the world will be closely watching as “Neighbours” — Australia’s longest-running, globally popular serial drama — plows ahead with its demanding, five-day-a-week filming schedule, even as the pandemic has brought much of the world’s television industry to a grinding halt.