OUTLANDER announces COVID-19 testing site at Cumbernauld studios
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread throughout the world (with 400,000 dead in the US alone as of this week!), many fans of the OUTLANDER TV series have been wondering how they will manage to film Season 6 while taking adequate precautions to keep the cast and crew safe.
We now have a partial answer to that question. Check out this article in Parade magazine. According to the article:
[One] of the precautions being taken for the safety of the cast and crew is the construction of a private COVID testing center at the Wadpark Film Studios, where the drama is filmed. And it was by no means cheap. The cost of building the center was more than £150,000 ($203,833 in U.S.D.)....
When production begins in a few weeks, Sam Heughan, Caitriona Balfe, Richard Rankin, Sophie Skelton and the rest of the cast and crew will be tested three times each week. As long as they test negative, they will be permitted to continue working.
This is good news, and I'm glad they made the effort to provide as safe an environment as possible in which to film the show. But it still sounds risky to me, given the huge number of crew members and extras needed on a daily basis to film an episode of OUTLANDER.
Let's all wish them the best of luck as they prepare to film Season 6 under very challenging conditions!
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please keep in mind that under normal circumstances (i.e., not filming in the middle of a pandemic), it takes 7-8 months to film 12 episodes of OUTLANDER, not counting several months of post-production after the main filming is completed. So even if everything goes smoothly, it will likely be fall 2021 before we see Season 6 on TV.
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