Production HEALTH AND SAFETY ASSESSING THE RISKS


being relayed to various industry bodies following the investigation’s (redacted) conclusions. Stunt co-ordinator Julian Spencer


admits that stunt work is not an exact science. “No amount of planning or calculations can guarantee that a result will go the same way each time,” he says. His advice to producers is: “Be realistic about what you want to achieve. You can have a stunt if you can afford the time, but otherwise, write it out of the script or leave things to the imagination.” Spencer, who has worked in the


industry for 22 years, adds that a popular TV drama request currently is a “Bourne Identity-style fi ght scene” – “but that’s going to take more than just a two-hour period within a TV day to create.”


Working on a budget While camera angles and special effects can replicate some scenes, Spencer admits “you can’t cheat the real stuff – but budget-wise, what we can help you do is make it look faster, bigger and higher”. Spencer has worked closely on


several projects with health and safety consultant Clem Leneghan, a former fi lm and TV production manager who has set up his own company, Safety Guys. “We have a dialogue and discuss and defend our views pretty robustly but always manage to agree a solution in the end,” he says. Leneghan, whose recent credits


include ITV1’s madcap entertainment vehicle Sing If You Can, adds that when you work in health and safety, it’s very easy to say “No”, or “It’s too dangerous”, or “It’s against the law”. “Essentially, it’s our job to keep


clients out of hospital and out of the courts,” he says. “But if I have to say no, I’m already thinking about the alterna- tive. How can we achieve a similar shot without putting people at risk?” Leneghan, whose health and safety


career has spanned everything from Danny Boyle movies to Rebecca Loos’ pig-pleasuring activities on Channel 5 reality show The Farm, is a regular industry trainer, and stresses the importance of fi lling out risk-assess- ment forms in the right way. “When they are done correctly,


most of the time they should be nothing more than a helpful method of working through health and safety issues. But the moment an incident happens, they become one of the most important documents you’ve


30 | Broadcast | 1 July 2011 Time Team: Videotext and Channel 4 were cleared over jousting incident


‘Accidents do happen but if you and your company do everything that is legally practicable to ensure safety, I don’t have a case


against you’ Melvin Sandell, HSE investigator


got. They get read out in court and I teach clients how to fi ll them out with this in mind.” It was due diligence in assessing the


known risks that cleared Videotext, the production company behind Channel 4’s Time Team, of breaching established safety codes (Leneghan was not involved in this case). Earlier this year, a coroner’s court


heard how the re-enactment of a medi- eval jousting event for the TV series in 2007 ended in the death of one of its actors. It was established that the riding enthusiast – who had no previous experience of jousting – was kitted out in the wrong helmet and his protective shield had not been appropriately assembled for jousting purposes. But after examining the


evidence, including Video- text’s risk assessment, the HSE was satisfi ed that Videotext had taken all the appropriate safety measures. The HSE’s report said there was no estab- lished safe practice for this kind of jousting, adding: “Until there is, such mistakes are likely to occur.” HSE investigator Melvin Sandell


adds: “Accidents do happen but if you and your company do everything that is legally practicable to ensure safety, then I don’t have a case against you.” It’s worth noting that, according to


the HSE, the only risk assessment rele- vant to the stunt that led to Holmes’ injuries was “of a very generic nature


and had little or no direct relevance to the stunt”. One of the few conclusions about the case to be revealed was “the need to ensure that risk assessments were made directly relevant to the par- ticular stunt”. In the Batman case, this March the


156


causing major injuries reported over the past fi ve years


Number of incidents


jury was convinced that special effects expert Christopher Corbould took suf- fi cient measures to ensure Dark Knight cameraman Conway Wick- liffe’s safety at the site in Surrey. Wickliffe – who was pronounced dead at the scene after the car he was fi lming in collided with a tree – was shooting out of the window from the back seat with a handheld camera and was not wearing a seatbelt. During the trial at


Guildford Crown Court, Corbould told jurors he


had followed safety procedures


correctly and had informed all crew members, including Wickliffe, of every detail of the stunt, which involved a vehicle going up a ramp and fl ipping over. According to special effects super-


visor and founder of Pinewood Stu- dios-based SFX Ltd Andy McVean (who was not involved in the Batman case), communication is paramount when it comes to integrating safety into stunts. “I tell my NFTS students that if there’s one thing that will guarantee a production goes safely, it’s communica- tion. Communicate what you are going to do and make sure everyone is aware.


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