Exemptions Guidance Simplified

Below is a breakdown of the quarantine exemption we announced on the 28th September 2020. 

We encourage you to share with your teams, and also to use as a point of reference with clients who may try and push you for further leniency:

Quarantine Exemptions Simplified:

Everyone coming to the UK must quarantine for 14 days unless they are coming from a country on the exempt list.

Except for the following 3 specific roles: 
– (Film) Directors
– Directors of Photography
– Actors 

ONLY these 3 roles.
There are no exceptions to this.

For what?
– Audio visual advertising only. 
– Not music videos.
– Not stills.

What Can These 3 Roles Do? 
– Leave quarantine BUT ONLY for days of engagement on the filming location. 
– This includes a recce and pre-light at the confirmed filming location only.
– All other UK COVID quarantine restrictions still apply when not on location.

What about someone from these 3 roles returning to the UK?
YES
– They can be based overseas and coming into the UK to shoot. 
– They can be a UK national returning to the UK from an overseas shoot. 

Why Only These 3 Roles?
– The Govt is keeping exemptions tightly restricted while we remain in a pandemic. 
– The APA suggested others, including production roles, but the Government would not expand the list.

Attached is the law that exempts commercials production from the requirement that people coming to the UK quarantine for 14 days on arrival, which came into effect at 4am on Saturday morning (26th Sept 2020). It is on page 3 of the document the Government sent to me.

Discussions with the Government have continued over several weeks, during which we have presented them with case studies to show the benefits to APA members and the UK economy of granting an exemption to commercials productions. They aren’t granting extensions of the quarantine exemptions generally, but they granted one to us.

It means directors, directors of photography and artists coming into the UK for a production can attend a shoot at any time after arriving. There are still restrictions on them (as with the other exemptions) such as self isolating when not working, but it enables productions to go ahead and I hope will attract productions from the US and elsewhere and enable APA members to win more work generally.

Our “Travelling to the UK for work on a Commercials Production During COVID:19 Self-isolation Exemptions Guidance” note is attached.