Risk Assessments are important to any project, whether it's digital or physical. They are created to ensure that everyone is aware of the risks, and how to prevent or what to do if they happen.
Risks can be anything from tripping over equipment to falling off a building. There is a vast range of risks that can listed, but it all depends on the kind of project you're filming or creating, and the location of this project.
Things that need to be taken into account are: the risks, any direct victims of these risks, anything that may be damaged if this happens, any prevention actions that can be taken, the probability of it happening, and the severity if it did happen.
This is a risk assessment for the filming we did last year for our robot animation project. Since it was filmed in a classroom filled with computers on the third floor of a building, there are various risks about this.
For example, someone could trip over the camera equipment, or if a rig was used with the camera, then they could also tip over that. Any thing I realised was that when carrying equipment up the stairs, you could easily fall down and get an injury. Luckily, the way the stairs are built, you wouldn't fall far, but it would still hurt. This would only be possible if the lifts were not working, however.
This is an example of a list of risks that can be ticked off. All of these are risks for filming, which is most similar to the ones we were using in college. There can be more risks than this, however, these are the most obvious ones. After ticking off all the risks that apply, the next to do is fill out a chart like the one before and the others after this.
This risk assessment is the one I made for the horror trailer project we created in groups at the beginning of this academic year. The top chart is for a shot we did outside by a forest in the day. As it's a popular place for dog walkers and joggers, I knew that was one of the main risks of the filming. Another risk that happened to us when we went out to film was that we had no idea how the camera worked, and that set us back for quite a few minutes as we tried to work it out.
The second is for the takes we did in the green screen studio, where Archie and I worked with the baby doll I brought in to create the footage we needed for the trailer. The main hazard was definitely tripping over cables, as there's a lot of equipment in there.
The final chart I made is for the takes I did up the stairs in my Grandma's house. This also has the risk of me filming by myself, but luckily there were other people in the house with me if I got hurt. Tripping on the skirting board on the stairs was a definite risk, as it does stick out from the stairs a lot. And the obvious risk was falling down the stairs.
This is a risk assessment for the Synoptic Project. A definite risk we faced was the deletion or loss of work. We had a few control measures in place for this, such as GitHub and OneDrive. The severity of this happening are dependant on what work was lost. For example, if a large chunk of code was lost, that's a highly severity consequence.
Risk Assessments are important, because they can prevent horrible accidents from occurring on film sets. For example, an actor could slip and fall if the floor is wet, which could've been prevented by picking a different time or location to film, giving the actor shoes with grips, changing the choreography and movements the actor takes, or drying the floor if possible.
Other risks are things such as: being in enclosed spaces, working with animals, working with flammable substances, and working in foreign countries. These risks are recognised to keep both the actors and filming team safe.