The Pandemica  drive-in event might’ve seemed “easy to do,” but appearances can be  ridiculously deceiving. From not being allowed to grab your own drinks to  getting tested for COVID-19 three times in 24 hours, STEFFAN CHIRAZI gets the  story behind the event’s creation and delivery.
“I think, right now, we just need to see how  this all works out…”
Tony DiCioccio, part of Metallica’s management  team and the man who specifically oversees the live performance side of  operations, was sitting in front of me at the Gundlach Bundschu Winery in  Sonoma, California. We were not sitting across from each other discussing  vintages or how much stoving takes place at this fine establishment, one of the  oldest wineries in Northern California. We were not even discussing the series  of concerts owner Jeff Bundschu has staged in the small barn-like venue a few  hundred yards away from us (including Television and Johnny Marr). No, we were  “backstage” at the first Metallica show since September 2019, the final  S&M2 Chase Center show. I had asked Tony a question pertaining to the  future. There is, he said, much to learn in real-time during this COVID-19 era.  “This one is about us being back together and getting with the fans as best as  we can right now.”
Metallica has done many out-of-the-box things,  from playing in Antarctica to three gigs in a day during an egregious Parisian  heatwave. I never thought that playing a valley-backed parking lot at a  celebrated Sonoma winery would list among these moments, but I also didn’t  figure we’d be in a world where hugging and shaking hands was frowned upon, or  where masks in public were mandatory. So all-told, this was one hell of a  unique moment in Metallica’s history, a moment where the band decided to call  an audible and just see how it all went down. Hopefully, you were a part of it this  past Saturday.
Ah, but the route there…
It was as far from straight-forward as you can  get. 
How many shows has Metallica done which  required multiple disease tests? You’re right, the answer is none. How many  shows has Metallica done at a winery? You’re right again, the answer is none.  How many shows has Metallica done where the valley is their backdrop and the  stage a gravel parking lot? Fancy that, you are correctamundo one more time,  none! We sat for six months wondering how this might all happen again, how we  might see a live event of some description, and of course it was  Metallica that made the first step in rock. Because this is the sort of thing  Metallica has done it’s whole career, gone where others haven’t, strode boldly  into the unknown. To be clear, only country artists Blake Shelton and Garth  Brooks had tried this format. No rock bands. Add that to the fact that Metallica  + inertia = malfunction, and it was inevitable that they would stride forth and  try something. So a concept was agreed upon to give us a live event which would  get us all off the sofa and into something resembling the real world again, the  core crew was engaged once more, Greg Fidelman stepped up remotely as the sound  man, and the framework for what is a full live production in this COVID-19 era  was put together in a rapid amount of time.
As you will see via the words of Jesse  Greenberg from Encore Live, the conduit between the event and drive-in theaters;  Vicki Huxel, Metallica co-production; Chad Zaemisch, James’ guitar tech; Butch Allen,  Entertainment Industry Response safety compliance officer (and previously  Metallica lighting director); Tony DiCioccio, part of Metallica’s management  team; Brett Murray, digital media producer; Gene McAuliffe, video director and  editor; and Vickie Strate, Metallica HQ, this production was far from smooth  sailing or a cheap venture. Again, more than ever in the global situation we  all find ourselves in, nothing ventured is nothing gained. 

SOWING THE SEEDS
Jesse Greenberg: Encore  is a large-scale event production and experience company. It’s the idea that  people’s most deeply held beliefs are developed through their own experiences,  them going through it, feeling it, and igniting all their senses. I took over  as president of Encore on January 6, so I took over a business that was fully  invested in the experience economy and large scale gatherings. We had to  quickly shift into, “Okay, how do we take all these things that we are doing  and try to create the same outcomes for our clients in a virtual space?” 
Tony DiCioccio: When  this was brought to us, we thought it was interesting because [Encore] had an  infrastructure and access to over 200 theaters, plus they had parameters in  place with the distancing and all the other necessary components. It was also  great because everyone’s been anxious to work. 
JG: The  decision to explore the concept didn’t start until May 12. That was the day we  came to realize that large scale artists were never gonna play at a drive-in for  a one-off, in-person concert. The scale wasn’t big enough, there frankly wasn’t  enough money to be made for them to go play for 400 cars, and we also believed  that, from a fan standpoint, they were gonna get tired of being alone and  watching Instagram concerts or Zoom concerts, and we needed to bring people  together in a safe way, to allow people to make plans and actually put  something on their calendar. 
TD: I believe discussions started in early June, but then fell off the face of the  Earth for about a month. We officially began the production on July 29, with  the original event dated to go on September 3, before being moved up to August  29.
JG: Dennis  Arfa [the Founder and CEO of AGI and Metallica’s booking agent – ED] and my  head of talent, Leigh Dodson King, started having discussions. We wanted to work  with a group that cared about this, that wanted to do something really special  for their fans and was aligned with both promoting the event and giving  something back to their fan base. 

EVENT PLANNING
Vicki Huxel: When we got the call that this was what we were doing, I started doing a little  bit more research. There was no really good example to follow, because  everybody’s just sort of learning as they go. But this band wants the best of everything,  and they’re not gonna take any chances, so we needed to go in full force and  then scale down if we saw the need to. Bringing the crew in meant us traveling  a good week and a half early just so that we could arrive, get our tests going,  and then be together, sit, and quarantine. Social distancing? Well, you never  think about now needing one vehicle for two or three people max, you’re not  just renting a 15-seat passenger van and getting twelve people in there. That’s  not working anymore. So already, the budget that I’m used to working with  pretty much doubled or tripled with just those little things. Take the food and  beverages for everyone. You can’t do catering anymore in terms of having a buffet,  salad bars, sandwich spreads, or anything like that. Now it’s all individual and pre-packaged. I really had to make sure I had everyone with  dietary restrictions taken care of. Coolers! Who would’ve thought coolers? That  you can’t just dip your hand into a cooler that everybody else has dipped into  now, so making sure that everybody is not touching the same thing. 
Butch  Allen: The last tour I designed [the lighting] for  Metallica was [2003’s] Madly In Anger. I went on from there and did a whole  bunch of other shows for a whole bunch of other bands. Then March 12, 2020 came,  and the live music industry ended in America. And we found ourselves with  nothing to do, but with this great desire to try to figure out how to help all  of our friends get back to work. So I heard a rumor from some friends of mine  that five companies had gotten together and tried to come up with a way to  help, and I called my friend Baz Halpin from Silent House Productions and asked,  “How can I help?” As time passed, the white papers started to come out from all  the unions, like the Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild, the Producers Guild,  AFTRA, IATSE, about how they were ready to go back to work. And they created a  position called the COVID Compliance Officer.   We [the people helping who formed the company Entertainment Industry  Response (EIR) – ED] had been so deep into learning about COVID-19 and  mitigation strategies from the other part of this project, that we were already  well down the road with developing a workflow and a training manual. And  suddenly, multiple states were requiring this position on shoots. So we found  ourselves in this world we don’t want to be in, in a position that’s mandated,  but we’re getting to fulfill what our original mission was: to help people get  back to work and get back to work in the least risky, most mitigated situation  we could put them in.
VH: A  lot of it [the planned protocol] was Lug [John “Lug” Zajonc – production chief]  and Tony [DiCioccio]. Then we all talked and said, “Okay, this is what we’ve  read, this is what we know. A lot of it was just throwing out ideas to see what  has seemed to work from research and other people telling us what worked for  them. Lug knew a few people that had done it, and of course Tony knows  everybody, so he was getting feedback on things to do, and there was a little  bit of what I’ve read and what I’ve heard too. Traveling on the plane was a big  one for the crew because they were a little nervous. Nobody has traveled [in  the COVID-19 era], so what’s that gonna be like? And then actually trying to find a hotel out in the Bay Area because Marin County, San Rafael was all closed to  essential workers only. So we couldn’t even get a hotel near HQ. We ended up  out in Sonoma with 20+ rooms at a mom and pop lodge. And until I got on with  our travel agent and we started looking at hotels, we hadn’t heard that. I  hadn’t heard about that in Dallas, Lug hadn’t heard about that in Vegas. So  there were lots of learning moments.
Chad  Zaemisch: They wanted us out there about a week  before we would even see the band. The first hurdle was going to be getting  through the airport without catching the virus. That’s where a lot of things  are out of everyone’s control, because the virus can be anywhere. We did it to  create a bubble and we needed to make sure that people inside of our bubble  were safe and healthy. So that required us getting there pretty early, starting  with COVID-19 testing, and “masks on” around each other all the time. That was  pretty interesting to get used to, staying away from each other when we’re used  to working very close together. Grabbing something to help somebody, anything, everything was like a big no-no. It was, “don’t touch.”
BA: There’s so many classes I’ve been  through to learn about this [Butch stated clearly that he is not a trained  medical professional – ED], through the likes of the World Health Organization,  CDC, Johns Hopkins, Safe Sets International, Health Education Services. Along  with Cynthia Ukas-Bradley, who’s one of the founders of EIR, and our medical  advisor, Dr. Stuart Weiss, we put together this 90-page manual on how to, from  a production aspect, try to mitigate risk in a working environment. My  experience working during the pandemic has been nothing but 100 percent  compliance. I spend my time [in the current society] shaking my head at why  three simple things can’t be done. Wear a mask, wash your hands, give people  six feet. Guess what, we’d be out of the hole. It’s simple. It’s not political,  it’s not religious, it’s not anything, it’s just, that’s it. It’s really easy.
VH: The crew had already been quarantining on our own in the hotel, and when we  first went to HQ, that’s when we met up with Butch. We had a big meeting ahead  of time, just the crew, and he went over everything with us. But yeah, we  literally stayed at the hotel. Food was delivered in, left at the front desk  for us or brought right to our doors. It was like a 1970s mom and pop motor  lodge.
CZ: We were instructed to just use  contactless delivery, so I ordered some groceries to be delivered. All the food  had to be contactless delivery, dropped outside the door, we all went to same  hotel and kind of isolated in our rooms. Everyone was careful. We were trying  to figure out what was expected of us. Thinking about that, being responsible  for the health of everyone is, you know, a pretty large responsibility, and  everyone was pretty aware of that. No one wanted to be the spoiler for this  thing. No one wanted to be the person that got everybody else sick. 
BA: I think safety is a misnomer because you  can’t be safe. There’s no “safe.” “What is your tolerance for risk?” is the  question that you have to ask yourself. You know, this company doesn’t just  show up so that you’ve met your minimum compliance of having some person who’s  had a two-hour, $50 training class stand there, take a temperature, and ask you  four questions. We’ve partnered with these productions because they’re  motivated to stay healthy. And it’s kinda interesting, because normally, on  most things you do in entertainment, there’s a lot of pulls and pushes of  different things people need. The one thing you find here is everybody’s on the same path, which is “I don’t want to get sick.” Especially at work. 
VH: Everybody was very happy to see each other. We had one of our crew in Room 130,  and we were all able to stay six-to-eight feet apart outside that door, and we  came down with our own food or drink or whatever it was, and were able to catch  up with everybody. And that was probably the best part of all of this, we were  able to see old friends/family that we haven’t seen in, you know, almost a  year, since the S&M2 shows. Just to see somebody face-to-face that you  spend so much time with, sometimes more than your actual blood family, it was  nice after, like I said, a year to finally reconnect and know, “Okay, there’s  still hope that if we do this right that this will open the door for us to be  able to do something else again.” 
CZ: It was great to get back together, and  it was great to be doing what we all do, but all of the physical and mental  barriers were just that. But right now, we don’t have a choice but to get  better at doing it in the way we just did it.
Brett  Murray: Seeing everyone was awesome. Once I was in Sonoma and met up with  the rest of the crew, it was like being on the road again, but at least six  feet apart. We were pretty much hanging out outside a room next to the parking  lot and enjoying stories we’d missed for nearly a year. A story someone told?  Look, Dewey has so many stories that when we’re all out on the road, there’s  like this “time-slot” where he walks into our office and we’ll ask, “Is it story  time with Dewey?” and he’ll say, “Absolutely, yes!” and begin a new tale. There  were a few enjoyed!

SAFETY CONCERNS
BA: Okay, everybody. Testing’s not that bad. Regardless of what you hear, it’s not that bad. Don’t be afraid of the  testing. Zim, zam, zoom, it’s over.
Vickie  Strate: The testing process was obviously new to  all of us, and we had to become logistics experts in a very short time. There  were definitely some safety concerns, and at one point out of an abundance of  caution, we did shut down production at HQ for a couple days.
CZ: Fortunately, I tested negative each  time. But shutting down affected everyone in that we all had to then go into  super isolation where we didn’t want to leave our rooms. We were supposed to go  into HQ for the first day of getting together, and all of that was shut down  for two days. I started to realize more what it meant. Because until you really  know that you’re negative, you have to assume that you have it, and how’s it  gonna affect your health? How’s it gonna affect the family and different things  like that? During that time, we did two individual tests for everyone, and then  [an additional] company came in the next day and did the same test that would  go to a completely different lab altogether. So that was three tests in 24  hours. That really brought into the reality of, “How this is gonna go down if  somebody is positive?” You’re gonna be stuck. You can’t go anywhere; you can’t  do anything. It was pretty scary, pretty creepy, and kinda ominous. 
VS: After an extra series of testing and two-day  production delay, we regrouped and ensured that every precaution was firmly in  place.  We were extremely fortunate that  no one got infected during the entire time we were together, and we were able  to complete everything as scheduled despite the delay… not without a little bit  of stress, though!

WORKING IN A SANITARY-UM!
BA: Every night everything was disinfected. Clean,  sanitize, disinfect. Everybody came in to work, everyone worked, and then once  they were done and they left, we’d go through the building. First we laid down  a basic chemical fog that is an antiviral, food safe, EPA list N, level 4  product, and once that dissipated then we’d go through and retouch every  doorknob, every light switch, every toilet handle, in fact every single thing  that one of our colleagues would touch, we hand treated to make sure that when  everybody came in the next day it was thoroughly disinfected.
CZ: All of the normal stuff that you take  for granted, like how to do the guitar change and how long it takes you to tune  guitars and stuff, was basically all different. You didn’t have the kind of  time that you had before. We were trying to collectively sort out what was  practical and what was safe. We figured that rubber gloves were not practical;  it’s hard to tune a guitar with rubber gloves on. So, we decided how else can  we do this, and it really was just constant hand sanitizing for one. Another  thing we had to consider was the exchange of sweat. I put a guitar on James. He  plays it for two songs, maybe three songs, and gives it back to me. Well, now  the leather strap is soaked with his sweat. I don’t think there’s any studies  that say that sweat would pass the virus, I don’t know, but we had to treat it  like, “Yes, I can get the virus.” It was not just to protect James from myself,  it was also the other way around. James can’t sing with a mask on, he obviously  has his whole respiratory system open to me, so I have to take extra  precautions, which meant wearing a shield [plus double-mask – ED]. But yeah, a  lot of disinfecting the strap, wiping the body off. We basically wore these cut  up rain jackets to provide a barrier between the sweaty straps and our clothing  so we had a solid barrier between the strap and my shirt or whatever. Then we  would have the opportunity to get the guitar, set it down, wipe it up,  disinfect it, and then pick it up, tune it, set it back down, disinfect it, and  then sanitize.
VH: Jeff  [Bundschu] and the winery folks gave us a list of who was needed at the winery  for those two evenings of rehearsal and shooting, and they were tested with us.  They literally kept in their own little bubble as well; they knew that they  couldn’t be going out. There were also a set of rules for people that lived at  home, what they needed to adhere to as well as us in the hotel. We had  very few vendors. The two truck drivers were tested by their person and then  they stayed in their world. If they were hungry, they would either call me,  Butch, or their point person and we’d bring food to a certain point and then  leave it, and then they would come get it. 

THE PRODUCTION ITSELF
Gene McAuliffe: About two weeks before the show, we had conversations with Dan [Braun –  creative director], trying to come up with the best way to shoot a live show in  the current times. The idea he came up with was sort of an “outlaw” themed concept  of a band playing wherever they could find because they just needed to play,  and we carried that concept through to “no sign of production or crew on set.”  Which brought us into the idea of using all robotic cameras. 
BM: Usually I am focused on the band, but this time I was focused on documenting  what I usually don’t, which is the production. So, my [main] task was to  document as much of the production and behind-the-scenes as possible. That  started with the first time I showed up at HQ, from testing to masks on,  getting the gear ready and trying to tell a story. I also knew I had to edit  the intro video for “Ecstasy.” That was the big thing for me; it was the very  start of the movie, and I was trying to find a way to transition into the  performance.
GM: The  location was secretive. There were three options, all on the same site, and we  weren’t sure which one of these stages we wanted to use. The final location had  that amazing [natural] backdrop, and because of that, we had the idea of  shooting at sunset so as we could have a natural progression of the show as the  sun went down. Rob Koenig, being the lighting director, was tasked with an  equally daunting challenge of lighting the show, using almost old-school  lighting that doesn’t move, while using new fixtures and lighting for film as  much as for live performances. We worked a lot on key light, making sure the  band members were lit evenly. It was all about highlighting the band without  overpowering or losing the environment; nobody was trying to avoid the fact we  were in a gravel parking lot.  

  Dan and I developed the shooting  concept. We wound up with 16 cameras [plus a drone – ED], and everything was  operated remotely by six operators who were stage right off to the side. We  also used a remote dolly system [think Danny Torrance in the hotel corridors  during The Shining – ED], which give an added dimension to our  robotic cameras and offer more “cinematic” action. In order to stay in the  cinematic film look, we shot at 24 FPS with a very shallow depth of field, and  the idea was to capture every second of the performance, even when the band was  offstage, to really let the fans see every side of the production. 
BM: There were no hand-held cameras because the situation with the pandemic meant  we had to keep our distance as well. 
GM: Because my background is in the live event world, we shot the performance as  though it was a stadium performance. Then once we moved to post-production,  that was where we added effects and segues ways to build it into a cinematic  experience. I didn’t know the setlist until the night before, but we drew a lot  on the experience of knowing this band live inside out – knowing when Kirk goes  to his peddle, knowing when James scratches his chords, knowing when Lars jumps  from his kit – because all the operators I had out there had been with us for a  couple of years on WorldWired.
BM: Recording the “comms” between the video crew left us with something that  sounded like radio chatter, and it worked well with the intro tape for “One.” I  was also responsible for the treatments on particular songs, to [help] enhance  the visual experience, with the aim to always be as subtle as possible and let  the performance speak for itself as much as it could. We didn’t want it to  become a music video. From a creative perspective, my background is live event  sports entertainment, where you’re actively trying to entertain a crowd with  visuals, so it’s easy to go down that rabbit hole. What kept me out of them?  Dan Braun and Gene McAuliffe. They’d advise different directions and approaches  where necessary. We didn’t wanna use the same elements that were used in live  show, such as marching soldiers or breaking glass, we wanted something  different. I had mentioned something about including the fans somehow, because  that was what was missing, so Dan mentioned a dream sequence. He wanted a shot  where James was pondering “something,” we found the shot, and in that shot fans  were blurred in the background while there was footage of the band interacting  with them overlaid [for “Battery”]. I thought that was really cool.
GM: Three  of us, myself, Brett, and John Moore [one of the camera ops] edited the  performance together. We spent the following seven days after the performance  working on the edit for 18/19 hours a day at HQ. We did the edit,  color-correction, sending previews to band and management back and forth, with  Dan being the creative oversight. And he was really helpful in carrying it  through the storyline. The big goal in transition, from live performance to  cinematic release, is having a powerful yet subtle storyline carry through the  show, and Dan was integral in that role. 

REFLECTIONS ON THE EVENT AND  POTENTIAL FUTURE SIMILAR EVENTS
JG: I think all the drive-in owners are undoubtedly being innovative right now,  obviously by signing up to our type of thing, but also how they’re programming  their drive-ins during this time. As we know, disruption like we’re  experiencing right now usually lead to some level of technological  advancements, for example, how do we change the way that we receive the audio?  Are there other components that can work with a second screen as we’re watching  on the big screen? Can I have those components on my phone somehow to make the  experience better? I think there are a lot of opportunities down that  road.
VH: When it ended, we all felt like we had stuck to how we needed to maintain the  bubble and the distance. We didn’t have the luxury of local stagehands, which  was another reason that everything was kept to the very minimum that we could  do with just us. Everybody chipped in. And we’ve learned to do things that we  didn’t think we could do. In the big picture of our industry, this will help  show people what works, what doesn’t, and what can make it better next time. 
CZ: The thing that was difficult at first was  wearing a mask all day. It’s something I’m not used to. So once you get over  that little hurdle, then it becomes a little easier. Then once you get used to  wearing a face shield and trying to get the guitar strap over the top of your  head with that thing on, that gets a little bit easier. I feel like we  collectively came up with a way to do this.
BM: We’ll never stop trying to do what we can do to reach the Metallica community.  And for me? It was the most abnormal-normal thing I’ve ever been a part of. I  do hope we can do it again because it was a fun experience, and I hope people  respond well so as we can do it again.
JG: We’d love to take this internationally. We’ve been very focused on the  drive-in, and drive-ins internationally are limited. There’s a little bit more  in Australia, a touch in Ireland, but not really many. We’ve not offered this  up even to the indoor theaters that have opened up in certain parts of the  world because we want to keep people safe and at a good distance from each  other. But in that, there is an opportunity that people will be  experiencing these types of concerts internationally. Doesn’t seem like there  would be any reason why it shouldn’t.
GM: Having the artist be so involved with safety for everyone makes it possible to  work in those environments. I felt as though we were looked out for better than  anyone could’ve imagined. Our bubble was very well managed, and I think if we  can continue to operate with those measures in place, we can get back into  production.

THE VERDICT?
As I said earlier, I hope you were  there because it was a blast. Indeed, the event played like a gig and not a  movie, in the sense that the movie screen felt like watching those giant  stadium screens on the road, which made everything feel very real.  Some people were standing outside their  vehicles, within their areas of course, but standing and cheering. And the  band? Well for being their first gig in a year, I thought they were sharp, fresh,  and vibrant. Het looked happening and happy to be working the (gravel) stage  again, Kirk and Rob played like they’d had a two week break at most, and Lars  was wildly focused and sitting nicely in the pocket. It was easy to lose  yourself in it, and lose myself I did, subjecting my company to my horrific  singalongs, which were thankfully almost obliterated by the fine sound  screaming out of my car stereo. You know what else? Just seeing other  like-minded people headbanging behind their steering wheel, or walking to get a  beverage, or even heading to the goddamn toilet was a beautiful thing, a social  humanizer, another reminder that we haven’t had a chance to see enough of each  other, and that we need to do it more often in these crazy times… right? Right!  Here’s hoping that the Pandemica 2020 one-date Tour gets extended...

SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE SCENES:

Butch Allen

  Jeff Bass

  Joe Battle

  Dakota Bennet

  Dan Braun

  Jeff Bundschu

  Elizabeth Bundschu

  Mike Butler

  Joseph Cabrera

  Robert Canecchio

  Karina Carrillo

  Barbara Chavez

  Jimmy Clark

  Adam Correia

  Robert Cowan

  Justin Crew

  Monikka Delazerda

  Tony DiCioccio

  Dewey Evans

  Jason Fisher

  Wes Fiske

  Brie Gentry

  Jason Gossman

  Sarah Gustafson

  Zach Harmon

  Mark Hood

  Vicki Huxel

  Rachel Jeffries

  Rob Koenig

  Dana Lindstrom

  Andrew Long

  Ray Masterson

  Kent Matcke

  Marina Mayer

  Gene McAuliffe

  John Moore

  Brett Murray

  Kevin Paul

  Omar Regalado

  Marc Reiter

  Olivia Reiter

  Vickie Strate

  David Vega

  Avi Vinocur

  Benjamin Welch

  Martin Woytas

  Jeff Yeager

  Chad Zaemisch

  John Zajonc