Health and Safety

Health and Safety is an important part of making a film. There are a lot of risk and assessments to be done and for every risk there must be preventions in place to stop anything bad happening. Here are the things you need to consider.

Location, the place you are filming may cause all kinds of risks for your crew and cast. For example if you are shooting on a busy road you might have to shut the road down to eliminate the danger of on coming cars or at least you would need your crew to be wearing high visibility jackets. All locations will have risk that can be avoided with simple safety measure and health and safety assessments and location recces should been done on every location used in filming.

The weather can also be a risk to your cast and crew. In the cold is vital to make sure your crew are wrapped up warm and the actors costumes are not to cold and if so between shoots they are given warmer clothing. Also in the heat it is vital to make sure you provide shade and lots of water for everyone working on your shoot.

Costume and props can also cause problems they are kneed to be checked over to make sure they are safe to use. For example if you know that a certain chair needs to be stood on in a scene make sure it is safe to do so a that the chair will not break. The same with costume the actors need to be comfortable and safe things that may restrict their vision or ability to walk could cause accidents.

Stunts are obviously a major health and safety risk in any film the need to be fully rehearsed and performed by professionals. If you are using fire and explosions all the necessary fire equipment needs to be in place and professionals need to be in charge at all times as they will have had the necessary training.

Equipment can also cause accidents on set the heavy filming, light and sound equipment need to be stored in a safe place and be looked after properly. All wires need to be out of they way or taped down to stop people tripping on them. Things like this seem like common sense but they need to be thought to make sure the set is safe.

Another part of health and safety is the facilities available. On set especially on location you need to provide things to make your cast and crew comfortable. This includes things like having toilets on location up a mountain, or providing food and drink.

These are just that main things your need to think about there may be other thing that are individual to the film your shooting. To demonstrate the health and safety issues I will apply them to my 3 film ideas and suggest the preventions.

Idea 1

• Location- I am using a street and a public park in my idea. I could prevent accidents by using high visibility jackets on the street and going to the park in quite times to shoot. This would reduce the risk of cars and interference by the public.
• I am filming in February so it may be cold, I will make sure my actors have coats for in-between shots.
• I will check my actors are comfortable in all their costume before filming begins. I will also check all the props for any faulty parts of dangers.
• There are no stunts in this film.
• My equipment is very small but I will make sure I will have correct case to carry and store the camera to avoid any accidents.
• I am going to provided lunch for my actors on days when we are filming for a long time.

Idea 2

• The main and only location for this film is a lift this means I will have to arrange for a lift to be shut down for me to film in. I will need to discuss they safety aspects of using the lift with the people who own it and make sure that myself and the actors keep to the safety rules they give us.
• I am filming in February so it may be cold, I will make sure my actors have coats for in-between shots.
• I will check my actors are comfortable in all their costume before filming begins. I will also check all the props for any faulty parts of dangers.
• There are no stunts in this film.
• My equipment is very small but I will make sure I will have correct case to carry and store the camera to avoid any accidents.
• I am going to provided lunch for my actors on days when we are filming for a long time.

Idea 3

• I am using quite a few locations in this film. The street- high visibility jackets to make sure the actors and myself can been seen by traffic and be very careful of cars. The park- go at quite time to reduce interference by public, pick safe spot to film in. The house- be careful if filming in kitchen of knives and cooker and in the bathroom of water and the equipment and clear all clutter so the space is as clear as possible to shoot in and there no trip hazards.
• I am also using a car in this film I will use the car in a quite residential area to reduce other traffic risks and the car will be driven by the person who is insured to drive it and has a full driving licenses.
• I am filming in February so it may be cold, I will make sure my actors have coats for in-between shots.
• I will check my actors are comfortable in all their costume before filming begins. I will also check all the props for any faulty parts of dangers.
• There are no stunts in this film.
• My equipment is very small but I will make sure I will have correct case to carry and store the camera to avoid any accidents.
• I am going to provided lunch for my actors on days when we are filming for a long time.