- Insider spoke to the president and CEO of
Pinewood Atlanta Studios , Frank Patterson, about the steps he's taken to reopen. - Pinewood Atlanta is one of the biggest production lots in the country and is the site where many of the Marvel
movies are made. - Patterson said testing for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, is done daily, everyone works in zones, and everyone wears a mask while on site.
Synexis , an air filtering system, has also been installed (an independent study is underway to see its effectiveness against COVID-19).- As of the end of July, out of the close to 150 people who enter the facility daily, there have been 18 positive COVID-19 tests, resulting in those people not being allowed to enter.
- No one has entered the facility who is positive, according to Patterson.
Hollywood continues to take very small baby steps to get back to work making movies and TV shows. One of the largest production studios in the country, Pinewood Atlanta Studios, has been leading the charge to get back to some form of normalcy during the pandemic.
The studio lot, known best for making some of the biggest Marvel movies, has been open since early July and tests roughly 150 people daily for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, to get into the facility. While there have been 18 positive COVID cases, no one who has tested positive has entered the facility as of late July, according to Pinewood Atlanta Studios president and CEO Frank Patterson.
Patterson says Pinewood Atlanta is using a combination of stringent testing, dedicated zones everyone is required to work in, and installing a ventilation system that can supposedly kill germs in the air.
"The studio is the safest in the film industry because no one else has done this level of things yet that we're doing," Patterson told Insider.
Daily testing, working in zones, and wearing a mask is the new normal at the studio
Not long after July 4, Pinewood Atlanta opened its 18 sound stages for the first time since March. Every single person who wanted to enter the 700-acre facility was met with an elaborate testing process just to get through the door.
Patterson said the testing process includes:
- A baseline test 24 hours before anyone can come on the lot, which includes a nasal swab.
- If it comes back negative, access is given to a daily checker portal in which you have to answer a set of questions each morning before entering the facility.
- If you succeed through that, a text message is sent that gives you access to a badge on the lot.
- You come to the lot in the morning with your badge and PPE and there your temperature is taken. Pass that and then you can enter the lot.
- This process is then repeated every day to enter Pinewood Atlanta Studios.
If you come back positive for COVID-19, you go into quarantine until you test negative, then go through the steps above again.
Along with working in specific zones, everyone wears colored wrist bands that indicate they have passed the test for that day, and are required to wear a mask. Patterson said this rule led to one objection by a person who wanted to enter without wearing a mask. But it was all worked out, according to Patterson, once it was explained to the person that the only way to enter and work was to have a face covering on.
On top of all this, Patterson said there's something going on in the facility keeping everyone healthy that cannot be seen by the human eye.
Pinewood is using an air filtering system that claims to 'reduce the effectiveness' of microbes, but it may not fight against COVID-19
After hearing about a company named Synexis that uses dry hydrogen peroxide and the natural humidity in the air to work continuously to claim to "reduce the effectiveness" of microbes, Patterson got on the phone back in March and cold-called its CEO, Eric Schlote.
"They had never done a studio," Patterson said when he enquired if they could install its system at Pinewood, "but they flew down here and they were like, 'we can do this.'"
Synexis has already been adapted at casinos and with seven professional sports teams (the Tampa Bay Rays have had them placed in their dugouts since 2017). The system claims to use Dry Hydrogen Peroxide to kill airborne and surface microbes as well as mold spores. But what about COVID-19?
"We have a lot of data on mold, and we essentially kill the spores of the mold," Schlote told Insider. "We improve the overall environment of the mold. We also kill various other airborne and surface microbes, including viruses in the coronavirus family. We are embarking on a study specific to the current strain that's causing COVID-19."
Schlote said Synexis has been put into the facility's ventilation and HVAC units, it has also provided surface fans for smaller areas like production offices.
"It basically creates an immune system in the building," Patterson said. "Our early baseline tests have shown a significant reduction in existing microbes so maybe we drank the Kool-Aid but I'm going to decrease my sick days and increase the
However, epidemiologist Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the John Hopkins Center for Health Security whose focus is on infectious disease, pandemic preparedness, and biosecurity, says that a company like Synexis is not a magic bullet when it comes to COVID-19.
"I don't think that there's going to be much benefit from doing that in this type of a setting," Dr. Adalja told Insider. "Many hospitals don't even use something like Synexis, so I don't know how a studio is at higher risk than a hospital. I would not change my behavior in a building based on the fact that hydrogen peroxide is being used in their ventilation system."
(In a statement to Insider, Synexis said that an independent study is underway on how its tech may possibly combat COVID-19. Unrelated to that study, the company also stated its baseline test first taken in May at Pinewood claimed to show a "63% reduction of viruses, bacteria, and fungi" in July.)
Pinewood plans to have crews go up to the thousands by September
Patterson says he feels safer in the halls of Pinewood than he does in his own home, but these are only the early days of the facility operating since the pandemic.
Only bare-bone crews on projects are currently on the lot (several are big blockbusters preparing to start production, according to Patterson), and even that comes with the occasional positive test. Patterson said most of the positive tests have come from "day players," crew members who are hired on a temporary basis for a specific day when extra help is needed.
He said the next challenge will come in September when the number of people entering the lot will grow from the hundreds to the thousands as production ramps up.
"We are still learning every day and making changes every day," Patterson said. "But it has been the corporation between production and their crews and the studios and our team to recognize that the quicker we get feedback the quicker we can improve the process."