Safety Above Board

Where there is a need for danger, there is a need for safety. Thankfully for us, the television and film industry is on the less-risky end of safety officer Willy Heatley’s workload, with a much better track record than other areas he works in like boat racing, water skiing and triathlons. By Carolyn Brooke.

People working in risk management or at the Department of Labour would say the key to a safe workplace is repetitive manner day in and out. Well, good luck to that in the film and television industry.

“We do different things every day in different places – you might be in a studio for a week and then be on the side of a mountain,” Lifeguard and Safety’s Willy Heatley says. “If you talk to the theoretical people, they’ll say go and do a familiarisation course in the snow and do training with a helicopter but there is never enough time or resource for that.”

Ironically, the mishaps are more likely to happen during routine tasks. “We very rarely have accidents on the big stunt days or during the big explosions, we’re more worried that we’d be shooting on Ponsonby Road and the production coordinator answers her phone, wanders out onto the street and gets run over.”

Along with traffic, it might be keeping a clear thoroughfare to ensure the public doesn’t end up walking on the road or checking that all gear and cables are tidy so no one trips over. The use of height access equipment like cherry pickers is another issue. “It makes us really nervous, they are quite dangerous and people get quite blasé about them.”

Heatley and his team work closely with 1st ADs, stunt coordinators, locations and special effects (SPFX) crew. Understanding the wants of the director and the DoP is also important. “On a film job everyone has something to do except us, we can actually stand back and think I wonder if they realize what they’ve done wrong.” One small angle change and the resulting camera move could mean the stunt person doesn’t have the space needed to do the job safely.

Safety plans become much more systematic on longer-running productions like Spartacus and Power Rangers, although the challenge can be in keeping good practices up when time pressure is on or if weather conditions change.

“Spartacus was great, there was a very proactive approach to safety right from the producers down, there were probably 500 people over four or five pre-production facilities and four studios, from stunts to special effects, there was lots of open flames, lots of dirt, horses galloping and dust as part of the set building – we were monitoring dust levels.”

In theory, New Zealand’s rules are similar to Australia’s, he says, but in practice there is less compliance here due to less enforcement.

A lot more TVCs are being shot here with no safety at all, and it just wouldn’t have happened five years ago, he says. “If something goes wrong and you haven’t identified the hazards and done a safety plan then you’d be in default of the law and the Department of Labour will probably prosecute.”

He says there are almost certainly people in the industry driving height access equipment unqualified or untrained to do so, if someone got hurt or killed and it was investigated, the producer would almost certainly face a prosecution. “In the construction industry, you wouldn’t be allowed to it, Fletchers would never take on the liability to let someone drive if they weren’t ticketed to. The industry is slightly different in that everyone is a contractor but ultimately the producer would probably be tied to it.”

Despite this, safety practices have improved over the years, following plenty of leeway during the 1990s after new legislation was introduced but things now seem to be at a plateau.

“Filming a big ad in New Zealand and complying 100% with health, safety and employment legislation would impact hugely on time and budget so quite often there are compromises.”

Most producers would agree it is an issue at the moment and it’s not going to change for a while, he says. “If I was a producer I would be tougher about it, I wouldn’t want the responsibility, especially in times when budgets are hard to come by, do you want to be writing a cheque for $80,000 to the Department of Labour because the contractor who was driving the cherry picker who was earning pretty good money couldn’t get a ticket to drive it.”

Overtime can be another issue, on one hand there might be make-up and wardrobe people who have been on set since 5 am and need to go home but then you also may have other crew who want the overtime.

Heatley encourages crew to approach the safety person on set with any concerns, no matter how big or small. It can be kept completely anonymous too. Safety, he says, can’t be addressed by one person alone, as crew buy-in is definitely needed for a safe set. “Ultimately, people are responsible for their own safety, if they are not happy about what is going on then there is probably a reason for it. Crew always have this feeling that if they rock the boat or cause trouble they’ll get on some imaginary black list.”

The black list is a myth he says, when it comes to safety. For the most part, he finds it to be a people-friendly industry. Everyone has the right intentions but budgets and time put huge pressure on.

“With the exception of maybe one or two production companies, we’ve never found a production company where a producer, after we’ve pointed out something dangerous, says that’s okay we’ll do it anyway,” he says. “Some of the other areas we work in, we deal with fatalities. We’ve been to jobs where people have been killed but not on a film set and I hope I never see it.”People working in risk management or at the Department of Labour would say the key to a safe workplace is repetitive manner day in and out. Well, good luck to that in the film and television industry.

“We do different things every day in different places – you might be in a studio for a week and then be on the side of a mountain,” Lifeguard and Safety’s Willy Heatley says. “If you talk to the theoretical people, they’ll say go and do a familiarisation course in the snow and do training with a helicopter but there is never enough time or resource for that.”

Ironically, the mishaps are more likely to happen during routine tasks. “We very rarely have accidents on the big stunt days or during the big explosions, we’re more worried that we’d be shooting on Ponsonby Road and the production coordinator answers her phone, wanders out onto the street and gets run over.”

Along with traffic, it might be keeping a clear thoroughfare to ensure the public doesn’t end up walking on the road or checking that all gear and cables are tidy so no one trips over. The use of height access equipment like cherry pickers is another issue. “It makes us really nervous, they are quite dangerous and people get quite blasé about them.”

Heatley and his team work closely with 1st ADs, stunt coordinators, locations and special effects (SPFX) crew. Understanding the wants of the director and the DoP is also important. “On a film job everyone has something to do except us, we can actually stand back and think I wonder if they realize what they’ve done wrong.” One small angle change and the resulting camera move could mean the stunt person doesn’t have the space needed to do the job safely.

Safety plans become much more systematic on longer-running productions like Spartacus and Power Rangers, although the challenge can be in keeping good practices up when time pressure is on or if weather conditions change.

“Spartacus was great, there was a very proactive approach to safety right from the producers down, there were probably 500 people over four or five pre-production facilities and four studios, from stunts to special effects, there was lots of open flames, lots of dirt, horses galloping and dust as part of the set building – we were monitoring dust levels.”

In theory, New Zealand’s rules are similar to Australia’s, he says, but in practice there is less compliance here due to less enforcement.

A lot more TVCs are being shot here with no safety at all, and it just wouldn’t have happened five years ago, he says. “If something goes wrong and you haven’t identified the hazards and done a safety plan then you’d be in default of the law and the Department of Labour will probably prosecute.”

He says there are almost certainly people in the industry driving height access equipment unqualified or untrained to do so, if someone got hurt or killed and it was investigated, the producer would almost certainly face a prosecution. “In the construction industry, you wouldn’t be allowed to it, Fletchers would never take on the liability to let someone drive if they weren’t ticketed to. The industry is slightly different in that everyone is a contractor but ultimately the producer would probably be tied to it.”

Despite this, safety practices have improved over the years, following plenty of leeway during the 1990s after new legislation was introduced but things now seem to be at a plateau.

“Filming a big ad in New Zealand and complying 100% with health, safety and employment legislation would impact hugely on time and budget so quite often there are compromises.”

Most producers would agree it is an issue at the moment and it’s not going to change for a while, he says. “If I was a producer I would be tougher about it, I wouldn’t want the responsibility, especially in times when budgets are hard to come by, do you want to be writing a cheque for $80,000 to the Department of Labour because the contractor who was driving the cherry picker who was earning pretty good money couldn’t get a ticket to drive it.”

Overtime can be another issue, on one hand there might be make-up and wardrobe people who have been on set since 5 am and need to go home but then you also may have other crew who want the overtime.

Heatley encourages crew to approach the safety person on set with any concerns, no matter how big or small. It can be kept completely anonymous too. Safety, he says, can’t be addressed by one person alone, as crew buy-in is definitely needed for a safe set. “Ultimately, people are responsible for their own safety, if they are not happy about what is going on then there is probably a reason for it. Crew always have this feeling that if they rock the boat or cause trouble they’ll get on some imaginary black list.”

The black list is a myth he says, when it comes to safety. For the most part, he finds it to be a people-friendly industry. Everyone has the right intentions but budgets and time put huge pressure on.

“With the exception of maybe one or two production companies, we’ve never found a production company where a producer, after we’ve pointed out something dangerous, says that’s okay we’ll do it anyway,” he says. “Some of the other areas we work in, we deal with fatalities. We’ve been to jobs where people have been killed but not on a film set and I hope I never see it.”