SAG-AFTRA, The Actors’ union released a series of standards and guidelines on the use of intimacy coordinators on film sets to help protect actors from abuse in the wake of the #MeToo movement on Wednesday.
The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists introduced a framework with a common set of policies for the “intimacy coordinators” to help navigate sexually sensitive scenes.
‘Under the guidelines, intimacy coordinators should have pre-production meetings with producers, directors, and writers to establish the exact degrees of nudity expected and the specifics of simulated sex as established in scripts. They should have one-on-one meetings with actors to be clear about what they consent to.
“These protocols and guidelines will help to normalize and encourage the use of intimacy coordinators in productions, therefore ensuring the safety and security of SAG-AFTRA members while they work,” union President Gabrielle Carteris said in a statement.
According to the guidelines, the coordinators on the set should review the physical barriers and modesty garments that are used during the scenes. Also, be familiar with the way to assist the directors and help them choreograph the scenes in ways that keep them artistic and yet believable without compromising the safety of performers.
The Union’s National Executive Director David White said in a statement, The guidelines, drawn up by a team of leaders from the union, actors and intimacy coordinators, directly address the problem of sexual harassment on sets.
Amanda Blumenthal, the founder of the Intimacy Professionals Association, helped create the guidelines and said in a statement that they “strike the right balance between describing the roles and responsibilities of intimacy coordinators while still allowing for flexibility from show-to-show.”
“It is our hope that this process can be widely adopted for an effective and reasonable path for productions to work with a trained intimacy coordinator,” Alicia Rodis, associate director and co-founder of Intimacy Directors International, a nonprofit group that certifies industry professionals, said in a statement. “With these protocols already field-tested by an ever-growing number of productions and studios, we believe we can make important and welcome industry changes.”
This move aims to fight sexual harassment and other sexual misconduct aimed at actors