Health and Safety

Health and Safety

Health and safety is in place to keep everybody on the set safe, "sticking to your H&S plan is crucial, and yes common sense is a key factor. It is also about working through your shoot in advance to make sure that you have that very plan in place". (Peter Clews, 2019)

In the words of director, Stephen Spielberg, "no movie is worth dying for"

Health and Safety Legislation and Procedure

"Health and Safety legislation applies to all work activities in the UK, whether conducted by UK nationals or foreigners, even if they are not being paid" HSE. Recognised by law, health and safety should be at the forefront of the mind throughout the process of filming and producing. 
The Health and Safety Executive guidelines, endorsed by the UK Government state that a management system should be in place to  define responsibility to "control the risk to employers or others from their work", management systems should be devised before shooting, and hazards to safety should be recognised and "more complex, hazardous or specialist productions advice may have to be sourced from a competent specialist or consultant. Guidelines also require that a risk assessment is made, following the strict process of:

  • systematically analysing your activities
  • deciding whether they present hazard and if so what that hazard is
  • assessment of the risk that this hazard exposes to employees
  • take measures to either minimise or eliminate the hazard
Reviewing your health and safety control throughout the process of production to ensure that the measures put in place are still effective so that everybody involved in the production remains safe. "After the production, it is good practise to review the whole system to see whether useful lessons could be learned for the future".
An example of a health and safety risk assessment for workers.

Potential Hazards Whilst Shooting

There are a number of potential risks at play when it comes to shooting a film, varying from the minimal risk task of filming a light-hearted conversation in a family feature to the more complex task of filming for an action movie. 
"Extremes of weather are a commonly overlooked hazard"(Moving Image Education,2016); colder seasons present issues such as hypothermia to the crew if they are filming on location, as well as slip hazards due to icy conditions so precautions such as coats, hats, winter boots and access to warm drinks and facilities, whereas warmer weather presents risks such as heatstroke and sunburn to the crew so an appropriate measure to minimise the hazard would be to ensure there is access to water and shade for the crew.
Other potential hazards include shooting on deep or moving sources of water, shooting scenes which may seem to appear illegal to the public, loose connections and wires, rushing to complete production in the allotted time frame, lifting hazards and shots from a height or from a precarious edge; they should all be individually discussed within separate risk assessments in the planning of the production to ensure that the overall risk that your crew is exposed to is minimised.

Release and Disclosure Forms

"Before commencing film making with young people you should obtain signed release forms from parents/guardians for everyone involved" (Moving Image Education,2016); this should also release them for photographs" This is due to parents and guardians holding parental responsibility over their children until they turn the legal age of responsibility, eighteen. Parental responsibility is "the legal rights, duties, powers, responsibility and authority that a parent has for a child and the child's property" (Gingerbread, 2018). 

Local disclosure services should be contacted if you are planning to enlist help and practical support from other adults alongside young people. This ensures that no risk is presented to the children by persons who may be on certain registers or may have committed certain crimes. (Moving Image Education, 2016)

An example of a release form that could be given to parents.



An example of  Government authority disclosure form.
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