The Block resumes filming after 40-day COVID-19 shutdown
The Block’s newest contestants have resumed their renovations in Melbourne, 40 days after COVID-19 shut down production. And one of the show’s previous winners is helping keep them safe.
Production on the upcoming season of The Block has resumed, 40 days after contestants were sent home due to COVID-19.
Executive producer Julian Cress said the hit reno show’s newest contestants were “thrilled” to be back on the Brighton construction site where the 16th season is being filmed, after a stack of health and hygiene precautions were implemented to keep them, the crew and tradies safe.
Mr Cress is confident the series will now be able to “air when we’d originally intended”, in the second half of 2020.
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Filming with the contestants was halted in late March amid fears coronavirus-driven state border closures could leave them stranded in Melbourne, away from their families.
But local tradies continued working throughout the shutdown, completing extensions on five houses transported to the Bayside site for the contestants to renovate.
“We’ve been keeping a very close watch on the advice that’s been coming out of state and federal governments, and we felt we’d now reached a point with our building program … where we could safely bring the contestants back to work on their renovations,” Mr Cress told the Herald Sun.
“We were able to do a lot of structural work to get the houses to a lockup stage over the last five weeks. That helps us meet social distancing requirements, because the contestants are now working inside their houses.”
Mr Cress said the show “certainly didn’t force (the contestants) to return”.
“We kept in touch with them on a regular basis while they were home with their families and asked them, in light of where things stood, whether they felt comfortable returning,” he said.
“They all jumped at the opportunity.”
He didn’t expect meeting social distancing requirements to be too challenging, given the 3000sq m construction site would typically have 50 people working on it.
Everyone entering the site would also have their temperature checked by an on-site nurse “every single day”, while all cast, crew and tradies have had flu vaccines, he said.
And former The Block contestant Chantelle Ford — who’s been working as a milliner since winning the 2014 season with then-partner Steve O’Donnell — has made face masks and visors for when people working on the show require extra protection.
“We didn’t want to take protective gear way from frontline health workers. So we reached out to … Chantelle,” Mr Cress said.
“She wasn’t getting too many orders for Spring Racing hats, so she volunteered.”
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Originally published as The Block resumes filming after 40-day COVID-19 shutdown