OHMYGOSSIP — ‘Coronation Street’ ditched characters talking while wearing face masks after shooting a “farcical” scene.
John Whiston, Managing Director of Continuing Drama & Head of ITV in the North, has revealed the ITV soap had to use “dramatic license” when it came to allowing actors to pull down their masks to speak while filming, because producers shot one scene of two characters speaking with masks on that “became comedic and not in a good way”.
He said: “The biggest issue for us has been trying to adhere to the ever-changing rules nationally and between the nations for things like face masks, some businesses being open and others not. How big a household can you have? How many people can you interact with?
“With masks, for example, the watchword has been to respect masks but enjoy the drama. We did shoot an intense scene where two people had masks on and, frankly, after 25 seconds it became farcical. It became comedic and not in a good way.
“So we had to take some dramatic license. The view we took is that people are seen wearing masks in the same way as they appear in real life. But people will take their masks down in order to have a conversation. And I think the audience has gone along with that and feels that is fine.”
John has admitted one of the key decisions made about Covid-19 protocols on the ‘Corrie’ set was to apply two-metre distancing among the cast and crew, and while he knows they still stick to it because everyone wears proximity buzzers, he doesn’t notice the distance on screen any more.
He added: “Early on we took the decision that no-one should be closer to each other than two metres – cast or crew or anyone else.
“That dictated a whole lot of stuff like how many people we could have on set, the complexity of shots and so on.
“It also meant people had to think about how they could appear to be closer than two metres but actually not be.
“There was a whole new language that the directors, the camera people, lighting and the actors had to learn. The actors had to learn a little dance they do between each other, ‘I’ll come forward, you come back…’
“When I watch episodes now I don’t really notice any social distancing. But there actually is.
“I know that because everyone is wearing buzzers and they buzz if anyone is closer than two metres to them.”

Source: VacationHunter.Online
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