In a recent interview, Tyler Perry spoke on how much money he is spending to make sure his 90% African American studio has top of the line sanitation and procedures. According to The Jasmine Brand, Perry said, “It’s an enormous undertaking and an enormous cost to the budget. And I just have to say that Scott Mills at BET and Bob Bakish at ViacomCBS were completely understanding of what that meant financially. But they also understand being the first to go back is one thing, but also being a company that has 90% African American workers — and we are the most affected by COVID-19 — it had to be done right. So just for them to step up speaks a great deal.”
In addition to wearing masks, his crew will be tested before they come in to work and traveling cast members will be tested before they get on a plane entering Atlanta — and then will be tested one more time, once everyone comes to the studio and an additional four times during the shooting schedule/production. They will also have the “bare minimum of people on set” when they shoot intimate scenes.
He explained, “We’ll still be wearing masks. We cut our crew size down drastically. What we do when we’re doing intimate scenes, it’s called a closed set, which means a bare minimum of people on set. So that is what we’ll be doing for every setup.”