Risk Assessment: Set Practice

Following the green light day with Kathleen Rogers on the 6th of March, I wanted to double check if my Risk Assessment was good to go with Rosie Gunn. After discussing some of the measures I had in place, Rosie suggested that I speak to Tim Savage as my project was actually considered a medium-risk due to the fact that we are working with water around equipment.

I consulted Tim Savage and he said that he had to seek secondary advise with another coordinator. He advised that I came back the following day for a meeting at 1:30PM.

I did as instructed and received the following control measures that had to take place in addition to our current list:

• RCD's (circuit breakers) are to be used on all electrical items - these are available from the stores. 
• Electrical floor sockets must be covered with water proof material and duct taped down (and not covered by the pool). 
• Use two tarpaulins (one to cover the ground, the second to create the vessel holding the water). Tarps are to be checked in advance for water retention and robustness - to avoid toe nails or sharp objects penetrating the material (simulate in a location without electricity before studio use). If insufficient, a pond liner should be purchased from a garden centre. 
• Provide a non-slip matting for the model when getting in to the pool. Maximum depth of water is limited to one inch. 
• Do not use Red Head lighting - only use the overhead studio lighting. 
• Any water based practices (set up, filming, striking the set) can take place while supervised by Studio technician (Chris Pinnock) 
• During evenings (after 5PM) only low risk process can take place (no smoke, water, heights). 
• A calculation is required of how much water is required to fill the pool. (If the pool size is 3m x 3m this totals 9m2). This requires 270 litres of water (which weighs 270kg). Where is this water coming form? And once completed, how is this volume of water removed from the studio safely? 
• In respect of the sand, the area should be regularly swept to avoid a build up (which increases the risk of slips). 

After bringing this information to the team, we respected the additional controls that Tim Savage put in place for us. Thankfully we had five days left before shooting so there was still some time to implement these changes. 

• I can book RCDs from the equipment hire. I will be doing this on Thursday the 13th of March. 
• We can cover the electrical floor sockets with plastic bags, and tape down the edges. This is considered a waterproof material. 
• Our "tarpaulin" is actually visqueen, which is construction-strength and waterproof. I spoke to Tim Savage and negotiated with the fact that we do not have it in our student budget to purchase another tarpaulin sheet. We came to the compromise that if we shrank down our water set to 2m x 2m, then the University actually has a tarpaulin sheet that we can borrow. Considering that our dancer doesn't actually travel a lot in the water segment this seemed appropriate. This also minimise our use of water. 
• We have already purchased the non-slip mats for the dancer. We have agreed that maximum pool depth should be one inch. 
• We can switch to the 2K lights that are in the KN Singh studio, so that we minimise electrocution risks if water does spill through the studio. The boys were disappointed, but we can learn to deal with different lighting. This entire project is a learning process.
• We will not be performing any of the medium-risk stunts after 5:00PM. I have this scheduled to finish by 4PM everyday, so that we have the supervision of Chris Pinnock. 
• The team has already agreed that we will be bringing in our brooms and buckets from home, so that we can try and keep the set as clean as possible. As producer on set, this will be my priority along with safety.

The only issue we had left was that we actually had to construct our 2m x 2m water bed. Tim Savage requested that we experiment with this, showing him photographic evidence of the visqueen sheet being robust enough for the project. If we did this he would be able to sign us off and help us supply the water vacuum and second tarpaulin sheet. 

We got busy that afternoon:

The experiment with the set concluded that our visqueen was indeed strong enough to resist accidental tear (it requires a blade to be torn) and that there was no water leakage when used on set. We will be bringing these photos in as evidence to Tim Savage tomorrow morning.