May 2, 2024Safe Elephant, entertainment safety consultants, have released an industry safety whitepaper called: “Improving Risk Communication in Film and TV”, which they hope can improve safety practices in the sector.
Entertainment health and safety holds “unique challenges”, Safe Elephant said, and the whitepaper aims to be a tool for industry stakeholders to improve safety practices within the sector.
Drawing lessons from the aviation industry, it offers an exploration of risk communication strategies. Both industries share high public profiles and have faced damning impacts from past incidents.
This year an armorer who passed a live gun to Alec Baldwin which led to a fatal shooting was jailed for 18 months. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, 26, was found guilty in March of involuntary manslaughter after cinematographer Halnya Hutchins, 42, was fatally shot on the set of the film Rust in 2021.
The whitepaper covers three key recommendations:
In the report it explained how making these changes can have greater impact across a business: “Implementing these recommendations promotes a culture of safety, mitigates risks, safeguards crew members, and enhances productivity. As the industry evolves under heightened public scrutiny and growing production scales, the responsibility to safeguard crew members becomes increasingly imperative.
“Adopting communication strategies and practices from the aviation industry can help proactively address risks, ensuring compliance with legal, financial, and ethical standards while improving industry standards and reducing reputational risks.”
The whitepaper is a result of collaboration between King’s College London, through an internship programme with a student from their Risk Analysis, Disasters & Resilience MSc, and experienced Health & Safety professionals in the Film & Television Industries.
Safe Elephant Managing Director, David Downing said: “At Safe Elephant we believe in the importance of sharing knowledge and learnings at all levels, and with that in mind we are incredibly happy to release this paper in collaboration with King’s College University. We appreciate their input on this paper and hope that their knowledge and findings will benefit the whole industry”.
