Physical, Mental & Financial Wellbeing – In the COVID-19 Era

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There has been an influx of information on physical wellbeing in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. But we also have to give thought to our own and others’ mental and financial wellbeing.

As a union and an affiliate to the Council of Trade Unions, we have been able to rely on their considerable efforts over the recent weeks to lobby the Government on behalf of all workers, and to get information updates helpful to us.

Below we have pulled together a range of information and links to assist you in looking after yourself and others.

DEGNZ hopes this information proves useful to you as we seek to address this constantly changing situation. We are here to help if we can. You can contact us on 09 360 2102, or by emailing Executive Director Tui Ruwhiu at tui@deganz.co.nz.

 

Physical Wellbeing

The Ministry of Health update their webpage regularly with the latest advice, information about self-isolation, and common questions and answers about COVID-19.

Read the latest COVID-19 information on the Ministry of Health website

Some quick pointers:

  • Call your family doctor for advice or information. If you think you’ve been exposed to COVID-19 (through contact with someone who has it), it’s important to let your doctor know.
  • Call Health line on 0800 358 5453 (if you’re calling internationally call +64 9 358 5453). Calls are free and someone is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can call them:
    • if you don’t have a family doctor
    • if you’re feeling unwell but you’re not sure if you need to see a doctor
    • for advice about what’s happening to you and next steps.
  • Stay home if you feel unwell. If you have a fever, cough and difficulty breathing, seek medical attention early. Call Healthline or your doctor.
  • Wash and dry your hands (for at least 20 seconds) frequently – Regularly and thoroughly clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or wash them with soap and water.
  • Maintain social (physical) distancing – Maintain at least 2 metres (6 feet) distance between yourself and anyone who is coughing or sneezing. Make sure you, and the people around you, follow good respiratory hygiene. This means covering your mouth and nose with your bent elbow or a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Then dispose of the used tissue immediately and wash your hands.
  • In an emergency, always call 111.

 

Mental Wellbeing

These are stressful times. We need to look after our mind as well as our body:

Facts minimise fear

We need to stay informed by trusted sources. “There are two sources,” explained Aiysha Malik, Technical Officer, Department of Mental Health and Substance Use, World Health Organization. “One is WHO (World Health Organization); the other is your national authority [The Ministry of Health].”

A repeated message for managing fear in the COVID-19 response is to get facts. Facts minimise fear.

Social isolation is associated with poor mental health

  • Staying connected with your social and family networks via technology
  • Keeping your daily routines as much as possible
  • Exercising regularly and practising habits that you enjoy and find relaxing
  • Seeking practical, credible information each day

Shift narratives away from number of deaths toward number of recoveries

There often seems to be a dearth of positive stories about coronavirus and those who recover.

“We’re not seeing the stories of recovery,” said Ken Carswell, Technical Officer, World Health Organization. “We need to shift narratives away from number of deaths toward number of recoveries.”

Additionally, the negative effects of stigmatising language – such as attaching region or ethnicity to the virus or blaming people for transmission – exacerbate the sense of fear at a macro level. Journalists, news outlets and everyday citizens can help to increase hope and allay fear by being cognisant of the language they use in speaking about COVID-19.

In the coming days and weeks, fear and anxiety will likely increase as our lives continue to be disrupted and social distancing becomes necessary. As a society, we must work together with a sense of empathy. As individuals, we must inform ourselves of the facts, stay connected to the people we love and be kind to each other.

Taking care of children 

  • Take time to talk with your child or teen about the COVID-19 outbreak. Answer questions and share facts about COVID-19 in a way that your child or teen can understand.
  • Reassure your child or teen that they are safe. Let them know it is OK if they feel upset. Share with them how you deal with your own stress so that they can learn how to cope from you.
  • Limit your family’s exposure to news coverage of the event, including social media. Children may misinterpret what they hear and can be frightened about something they do not understand.
  • Try to keep up with regular routines. If schools close, create a schedule for learning activities and relaxing or fun activities.
  • Be a role model. Take breaks, get plenty of sleep, exercise, and eat well. Connect with your friends and family members.

Seek help and professional support if you feel you are not coping

Your family doctor is a good starting point. For support with grief, anxiety, distress or mental wellbeing, you can also call or text 1737. This service is free, available 24/7 and gives you the chance to talk it through with a trained counsellor.

Self-Isolation

Here’s a checklist from UK mental health charity, Mind, for preparing for a stay at home for two weeks (actor Stephen Fry is Mind’s President):

  • Food: do you have a way to get food delivered?
  • Cleaning: are your cleaning supplies stocked up?
  • Money: can you budget for any higher bills or expenses? Will you save money from lower transport costs that you could spend elsewhere?
  • Work: can you work from home or not? If not, what are your rights to payment or benefits?
  • Medication: do you have enough medication, or a way to get more?
  • Health: can you reorganise any planned therapy or treatments?
  • Commitments: can someone else help you care for any dependents, walk your dog, or take care of any other commitments?
  • Connectivity: have you checked the contact details of the people you see regularly, like their phone numbers or email addresses?
  • Routine: can you create a routine or timetable for yourself? And if you live with other people, should you create a household schedule? Do you need to agree how the household will run with everyone at home all day?
  • Exercise: is there any physical activity you can do inside your home, such as going up and down the stairs, using bean tins as weights, or exercises you can do in your chair?
  • Nature: have you thought how you could access nature? Can you get some seeds and planting equipment, houseplants or living herbs
  • Entertainment: have you thought about things to do, books to read or TV shows to watch?
  • Relax: have you got materials so you can do something creative, such as paper and colouring pencils?

 

Financial Wellbeing

Most New Zealand screen workers are contractors. Even with contracts, the termination period is usually one week. You need to prepare for a downturn in work and what you will do if faced with this situation.

Consider:

  • Opportunities for you to gain income outside the sector with work that will not suffer in the pandemic
  • Reducing unnecessary monthly outgoings or one-off expenditures
  • Chasing up outstanding payments for work performed
  • The Government has just announced financial assistance for businesses and beneficiaries. This includes contractors who essentially run their own businesses. You can learn more about this at Work & Income here.

If you have purchased a product or commissioned a service, consider making prompt payment. Your supply also needs  to ensure their financial health.

Work & Income NZ also offer assistance and advice as follows:

If you’ve been affected by COVID-19, we may be able to help – even if you’re not on a benefit. There are various ways we can help, whether you’re an individual or an employer.

Financial support for individuals

Contact us if you:

  • would like assistance
  • aren’t sure if you can get assistance
  • are struggling to support yourself, or your family
  • would like more information.

In emergencies, we can help you with costs you don’t have any other way of paying.

Even if you don’t think you qualify, call us on 0800 559 009 (Monday to Friday 7am–6pm, Saturday 8am – 1pm) to check your eligibility. There may be other options available and we can point you in the right direction.

In emergencies, we can help with:

  • loss of livelihood (where you can’t work and have lost your income)
  • food, clothing and bedding (immediate needs up to a maximum amount)
  • accommodation costs if you have to move.
  • You may have to pay the money back depending on your situation.

Find out more about what support we offer and who can get this

Stand-down if you apply for a benefit

Most weekly benefits have a stand-down. This is a period of time where you can’t get any money from us. It’s usually 1 or 2 weeks after your application is approved. From 23 March, there will be no stand-down period for 8 months. We’ll provide more information on this soon.

More information about stand-down periods

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COVID-19 – A Reminder of the Small World We Live In

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I asked myself and my colleague whether or not I should write about the impact of the coronavirus on our industry in my regular Op Ed. I’d decided not to, then woke up to some news that has changed my mind.

CANNESERIES, the TV version of the Cannes Film Festival, has decided to postpone from April to coincide with MIPTV in October, while the Cannes Film Fest is currently going ahead as planned in May… so far. And the next in the James Bond franchise, No Time To Die (an apt title if ever there was one) has decided to move its opening slot from April to November—the only tent-pole film scheduled for this year to do so at the moment. Perhaps the studios are buoyed by the prospects of Niko Caro’s Mulan, which goes out this month in the US with a projected US$85 million opening.

In February, Paramount Pictures postponed a three-week shoot in Venice for the latest in the Mission Impossible franchise, while at Berlin, Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke (Ash Is Purest White, A Touch of Sin) told media that his next film slated for a start in April is delayed indefinitely.

The number of major entertainment companies pulling out of the SXSW Festival, due to start tomorrow, is increasing daily.

With the movie theatres empty in China, Korea and Japan, and undoubtedly so in Italy and Iran, I know I’m not the only one thinking about what this all means for the film business.

The Hollywood studios have already assembled coronavirus strategy teams and many are in contact with the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in Washington and the World Health Organisation (WHO), monitoring the situation. As with the James Bond and Mission Impossible films, the studios are having to consider what it all means to their production and releasing schedules, but more importantly what the overall impact is going to be to their business.

In China where the virus originated and has been impacting the longest, there have been rapid moves to deal with the theatrical ramifications. Huanxi, distributor of the Chinese blockbuster Lost in Russia, premiered the film online for free, while Enter the Fat Dragon becomes the second major Chinese film to premiere online.

I’m sure the streamers aren’t rubbing their hands with glee, but they are and will be an obvious benefactor of theatres shutting down and people being forced to stay at home… as long as subscribers can continue to afford to pay for their subscriptions.

A lot of my European film colleagues attended this February’s Berlin International Film Festival. I have already given consideration as to whether or not I will go to Cannes this year. I’ve gone for the last three, and this year the head of the new Australian Directors Guild wanted to use the opportunity for all of the English-language speaking guilds to gather. I’m most likely not going to attend as I pretty much get sick with a cold or the flu every time I come back from a European trip. I have already cancelled my trip to Seoul in April, which was to attend the second gathering of the Alliance of Asia Pacific Audiovisual Writers and Directors—an event that was postponed in February after the coronavirus outbreak in China was becoming more serious.

Back home, I was talking with a New Zealand filmmaker whose feature is due out soon and COVID-19 was certainly on his mind in regard to what, if any, effect it could have on his box office. I just learned this week that NZFC has instituted a conservative travel policy for its staff.

Officially, I haven’t heard of any strategic thinking going on in regard to New Zealand’s film and TV industries in relation to the virus, but it’s undoubtedly weighing on a few minds including ours. We will update you if any news comes in.

As I sit writing this I have just learned we have a fourth confirmed case of COVID-19. I, therefore, am providing a link here to the Ministry of Health website about the virus and what to do should you display any kind of symptoms.

Take care out there.

 

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

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DEGNZ Selects: Q&A with Editor Tom Eagles

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Tom Eagles

DEGNZ Selects is honoured to present a special industry Q&A evening with New Zealand editor Tom Eagles on Monday 2 March.

Oscar and BAFTA-nominated for his work on Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit and recently back from the red carpet, Tom joins us to discuss his career, his craft and his collaborations.

Tom was recognised by the American Cinema Editors with the award for Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy) for Jojo Rabbit at the 70th Annual ACE Eddie Awards held in January. Tom also edited Hunt for the Wilderpeople, What We Do In the Shadows, Jackie van Beek’s The Inland Road and for television, Wellington Paranormal, Ash vs Evil Dead and Go Girls amongst other projects. He is currently cutting Roseanne Liang’s thriller Shadow In the Cloud. 

WHEN:           Mon 2 March 2020, 7pm. Talk starts 7:15pm
WHERE:         Horse & Trap – Loft, 3 Enfield St, Mount Eden, Auckland

Cash bar

Event Registration

Register to reserve your seat.

DEGNZ members – Free

Non-members – $5 (cash only at the door)

We collect diversity data during registration so we can report to our primary funder, the NZ Film Commission. Any data reported will remain completely anonymous.

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This event is part of DEGNZ Selects, presented by the Directors & Editors Guild of NZ

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Directors Toolkit with Peter Burger – Auckland

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Peter Burger

Call for Applications – This two-day workshop is aimed at providing directors with practical tools that they can bring to their productions, both in pre-production and on set. We’ll work on the shape of pre-production (when do I prep what?), how to really read a script, blocking a scene on set, working with actors, the emotions of lenses, running a shoot day, budgeting your shoot time, and managing your own energy (very important!). Attendees will be expected to have done some amount of directing for screen, but want to develop their long form drama-directing experience further. We invite emerging to mid-career directors to apply.

About Peter Burger

Peter Meteherangi Tikao Burger is one of New Zealand’s premiere drama directors. He started his directing career making television commercials in the nineties. In 2001 his first tele-feature Fish Skin Suit won Best Drama in the Qantas NZTV awards, and the same year his short film Tūrangawaewae was selected for Critics’ Week at Cannes. Since then Peter has directed one feature film, seven tele-features, and more than thirty episodes of television drama. Recently, Peter was the lead director on The Dead Lands, a Māori action thriller series for the American network AMC, and is in post production on the upcoming TVNZ/Channel 7 production One Lane Bridge.

Workshop Details

Price:
DEGNZ member – Free
Non-member – $180

Lunch and refreshments provided

When:
Saturday 21 March 2020, 9.30am – 5.30pm
Sunday 22 March 2020, 9.30am – 4.30pm

Where: MTG RM, 2 Kingsland Terrace, Kingsland, Auckland

Travel Allowances:
If selected to attend, DEGNZ Full members may apply for financial assistance of up to $250 (incl. GST) towards their travel costs.

  • DEGNZ has up to 2 travel allowances available for this workshop.
  • Applicants must live in the South Island.
  • For further information and criteria, see here.

To Apply

Applications Close: 4PM, Friday 6 March 

STEP 1: Complete the registration form below.

STEP 2: Send in one PDF to tema@deganz.co.nz:

  • your CV or bio with filmography, and
  • a brief, maximum 1-page letter that summarises why you would like to participate and what you hope to gain from the workshop.

Late or incomplete applications will not be accepted.

 

Registration Form

 

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Refund Policy: Requests for refunds must be received by Sunday 15 March. Refunds can take up to approximately 10 working days to process.

 

This initiative is brought to you with the generous support of the New Zealand Film Commission.

NZFC

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Call for Applications: Drama Editor Attachment to Dan Kircher

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DEGNZ invites emerging drama editors to apply for a Drama Editor Attachment to editor Dan Kircher on feature film Millie Lies Low, directed by Michelle Savill, and produced by Desray Armstrong and Angela Littlejohn.

The DEGNZ Drama Editor Attachment Scheme gives emerging drama editors the opportunity to advance their craft through shadowing and mentoring from an experienced drama editor.

Dan Kircher is a film editor whose feature film credits include The Changeover, directed by Miranda Harcourt and Stuart McKenzie, and Ant Timpson’s Come To Daddy. At the 2014 Rialto Channel New Zealand Film Awards, he was nominated twice for Best Editor for Everything We Loved and The Dead Lands. He has also cut short films, web series and commercials.

Millie Lies Low – When a broke and anxiety-ridden architecture grad misses her flight to New York for a prestigious internship, she decides to fake having made it to New York, while lying low in her home town, scrounging for another ticket.

This attachment would suit an experienced assistant editor/editor who has dramatic narrative editing experience on short film, web series, drama or features. The successful candidate will likely have a body of narrative work. The initiative is targeted at editors who want to progress their career into feature film editing.

Its purpose is to allow an emerging drama editor to:

  • learn through attendance during editing, and later at director, producer and or funding body screenings about the critique and response process so vital to the successful creative collaboration required of the feature film editor.
  • get on-the-job feature-editing experience.
  • receive feedback and mentoring from an experienced feature film editor in a safe environment.

The opportunity for the attachment to get limited hands-on cutting experience is possible but entirely at the discretion of the editor, director and producers of the production.

This is a paid Auckland-based attachment and requires the successful candidate, depending on experience and flexibility, to start at the earliest in mid-March. If non-Auckland based, the candidate must cover their own travel and living costs.

The duration of the attachment would be up to a maximum of 20 full days broken down into a mixture of full days and half days over the shoot and post production period. The final schedule will be determined in discussions with the production team and successful candidate.

Eligibility

To be eligible, applicants MUST:

  1. Be a FULL member* of DEGNZ by the application deadline. The successful candidate is also required to be a Full member for the length of their attachment
  2. Be a NZ citizen or permanent resident
  3. Be fully competent with the AVID editing system

* Refers to Full Members on Tiers 1, 2 and 3.

To Apply

Application Deadline: 9AM, Monday 24 February 2020

Send your application in a single PDF to admin@deganz.co.nz with ‘Editor Attachment’ in the subject line.

Your application must include:

  • a maximum 1-page letter on why you would like to do the attachment
  • your CV and filmography, including links to a showreel/video samples that illustrate your dramatic narrative work
  • a completed Editor Attachment Application Cover Sheet.

Download the Editor Attachment Application Cover Sheet

 

Selection will be made by the production. DEGNZ will notify you as to whether or not your application has been successful, but the decision will be final and no further correspondence will be entered into regarding your application.

We look forward to receiving your applications.

 

This attachment is brought to you with the generous support of the New Zealand Film Commission.

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