Following production processes and setting up appropriate equipment

When creating our short film it was of upmost importance to us that the process was kept safe as well as efficient. This meant that we spent long periods of time setting up equipment so that when the actors (who's safety we were responsible for while they were on a project run by us) arrived we could film their scenes quickly and to the best of our ability in a way which would not be of threat to our safety.

It is for this reason that we felt that it was necessary to create a risk assessment for this particular process. Blow I have gone through this assessment and made note of how we have attempted to follow it as strictly as possible so that none of our actors could possibly be in any danger.

Note: When filming our final film we did not utilise all of these locations. As that I am writing about the ways we attempted the risk assessments I will only be talking about the locations in which we did film. These locations were Café Crème, two different houses and Arundel street


1: Café Crème.

It is likely that Café Crème is the most dangerous place I which we filmed. The reason for this is because of the fact that it is a functioning café meaning that it has many pieces of silverware and fragile plates which could cause people to be cut or hurt. People falling and hurting themselves (potentially by accident or by the floors being wet) would also be a dangerous.
In order to make sure that the scene came out to a professional quality we made sure to bring the risk with us as that in our shooting schedule we had stated that we would be with both of our actors by this point in the day. This meant that we would have to make sure that all of the dangers that came we came across could be dealt with quickly so that we didn't waste time. When we arrived at the café we made sure that the table we were shooting didn't have any sharp objects on it and that the floor around it was dry. As well as this we checked that the café had a first aid kit which we kept to hand when we started shooting.
We used two tripods, two DSLRs and a slider  in order to capture the sequence in café crème so that the shot reverse shot structure could be filmed quickly. The slider we used to capture the shot of Andrew arriving at the café.

2: Arundel Street.

When filming the final scene of "The White Room" where Chris is kidnapped. We decided that we would have to be very quick as that the road was operational at the time of us filming. This helped us to avoid the risk of anyone being hit by a car or mugged as that we were only there for around 30 minutes.
We also made sure that we filmed on a day when it was dry so that the chances of someone slipping over were greatly reduced. As well as this I again made sure that there was a first aid kit on scene.
The equipment used here was a DSLR camera and a tripod only. For the first two shots (Chris walking down the street and Aaron following him from around the corner) we used the both pieces of equipment so that the camera remained steady and caught the actions being taken in each shot were shown in as much detail as possible. In contrast to this the over the shoulder shot of Aaron following Chris down the road I shot using only the camera. This made the resulting shot gave an impression of panic as that the camera was shaking.
In terms of Legal and ethical issues the shooting at Arundel Street presented several callanges. As to avoid a potential violation of the Data Protection act we had to make sure that nobody who had not given their consent to be in the film would appear. As well as this we had to consider the impct of using a public area and, as to not inconvenience anyone, make sure that we were not there for too long.

3: Peoples houses.

Shooting at peoples houses presented a series of challenges both in terms of health and safety as well as in terms of the personal safety of all parties involved. The largest health and safety risk we had while recording in these areas was the dog at Matts house. In order to make sure that it would present no problems we kept it locked in one of the rooms in which we were not recording and checked on it regularly. As well as this the dog meant that we had to ask our actors if they were allergic to dogs or if they were uncomfortable working with one present.
When at the houses it was important that the cameras were set up correctly. Below I have inserted an image of me setting up a camera on a slider which is attached to a tripod. This was for a shot which would move from one side of a character to the other while in a conversation. As can be seen in the photograph I am adjusting the lens of the camera so that the character would be in shot to the point I wanted.