00:00Tyler Perry is opening up to The Hollywood Reporter about the challenges of filming during a pandemic
00:04after following through with his camp quarantine plan and restarting production on his BET series.
00:11Unlike other major studios who've pushed back their tentative start dates,
00:15Perry stuck with his restart plan with major health and safety protocols in place
00:19and successfully wrapped the first season of his BET series Sistas, which kicked off filming on July 15th.
00:25Following the safety protocols he laid out in a 30-page document and quarantined on his sprawling studio lot in Atlanta,
00:31the cast and crew managed to film all 22 episodes within 11 days,
00:35officially wrapping production a day ahead of schedule on July 25th.
00:39Perry spoke to THR about what went right and what went wrong on the set of Sistas,
00:44how he dealt with positive tests and people falling ill,
00:47and advice he has for other productions trying to get up and running.
00:50When asked what he learned from the experience, Perry said,
00:55When asked if there were any challenges he didn't anticipate, Perry responded,
01:14This may sound a little arrogant, but the truth is we literally sat and went through every scenario that we could,
01:19so there was nothing that caught us by surprise.
01:21I have Dr. Carlos Del Rio and Emory Hospital.
01:24They had the first Ebola patient.
01:26Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Dr. Colleen Kraft,
01:28they were on our team and they were helping us understand all of this before we started.
01:32So we went through everything as you see in that 30-page guideline.
01:36Perry also explained how he handled those that tested negative but had other health issues arise,
01:40saying,
01:41And as far as any advice to other productions looking to start,
02:09Perry said he's more than happy to help.
02:11We have a wealth of information and maybe I will do some sort of Zoom conference call
02:15for any producers who want to know about what happened during pre-production
02:18and who want to know about what happened during that bubble.
02:21I want to give all the information to this industry that I'd love to be able to help.
02:25For more on Tyler Perry's interview with The Hollywood Reporter, head to THR.com.
02:29For The Hollywood Reporter News, I'm Neha Joy.
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