By Morgan O’Neill

The entertainment industry has been one of the hardest hit industries globally due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Because of the casual nature of much entertainment work many of the employees in this industry have been left jobless and forced to rely on jobseeker.

However, in recent weeks the industry and its workers have been slowly recovering.

Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic was only one of an estimated 100 other projects forced to shut down virtually overnight leaving most of the 30,000 workers in the screen industry out of work.

Bryana Hartley, a sfx makeup artist who had been booked for the film, has been left scrabbling for income.

“It was an incredible moment when I got the job on the Elvis Biopic a dream come true but that didn’t last long because only a couple months later filming halted, and I was out of a job.”

Now Ms Hartley spends her days networking online and building on her skills.

It wasn’t only the screen industry that was hit other industries such as the music industry also suffered greatly.

Many musicians rely heavily on income generated by live performances and due to the social distancing and isolation restrictions had to rely on the minimal royalties they gained from streaming platforms.

Selfish Sons is a Brisbane based touring band that have suffered a massive loss in revenue as a result of coronavirus restrictions.

Finn Pol Bodetto, the drummer of the alternative rock band said “upwards of $10,000 worth of upcoming gigs got cancelled this year” due to these restrictions.

His brother Jordan, main guitarist of Selfish Sons and a solo artist, has had all of his upcoming solo and band gigs cancelled leaving him completely unemployed.

“It has been an extremely rough year for Selfish Sons, we couldn’t even go to the studio to create more music to put on Spotify because of social distancing requirements,” Mr Pol Bodetto said.

The shutdown of the entertainment industry has had a far-reaching, ripple effect, with places such as the Brisbane Exhibition and Convention Centre left empty.

However, with cases of coronavirus in Australia lower than they have been in months, the Exhibition Centre and the industry in general, is slowly opening its doors.

“Filming of the Elvis biopic has started again and I have had some valuable time to build upon my skills. It has been extremely difficult but I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else,” Bryana Hartley said.