4.1 Health and safety practice

Risk Assessment: 

Health and safety is important because there are a lot of possible accidents that could happen during a film shoot.  In order to keep everyone safe on set you can go over all the possible accidents by having a risk assessment. A risk assessment is important because you have the opportunity to identify all the possible accidents that could happen on set and learn how to be prepared to prevent them or deal with them properly if they happen. The First Assistant Director is in charge of managing what happens on the set. They make sure that everyone is following the rules in order to stay safe. Although, everyone on set should be aware of their surroundings so that they can be safe and make sure that everyone else is safe as well. Everyone should be accountable for their actions.

Health & Safety during Film Production: Possible issues to be careful of are…

• Tripping on electrical cords.
• Weather (storms), if the set is outside (lightning, rain, cold temperatures).
• Lifting heavy things (could hurt your back, always ask for assistance if you can not do it by yourself).
• Moving things around ( be aware of your surroundings so that you do not bump into someone or something).
• Camera accidents (like if you are moving backwards on a set while filming it is best to have someone keep an eye on you): Filming in water (make sure everyone can swim, keep electrical equipment away from water). Filming in high elevated areas (do not want to fall, have someone guiding you).
• Filming in public while doing illegal things (like a fake gun fight, always make sure the public is aware that you are filming).

How I applied good health and safety practice while making the film: 

• When I was using the boom, I avoided any accidents by making sure to keep my cords out of the way so that nobody would trip.
• When I was moving around with the boom stick I made sure to hold it above my head so that I did not hit anyone with the end of it.
• When I was acting, during in between takes I made sure to take breaks and move around so that I did not hurt myself if I sat in the same position for a very long time.
• When I was helping to make the sets, I made sure I was moving around the set carefully and handling things gently so that nothing got damaged.
• When I was using potentially dangerous tools like scissors I made sure to not leave them laying around and to handle them carefully.

4.2 Explain why copyright is important in the film industry

The Importance of Copyright & IP in the Film Industry:

Copyright is what is in place to protect your intellectual property. IP is any form of original creation that can be bought or sold. The copyright law exists so that you can protect your work and prevent others from using it and taking all the credit for the developmental process and the idea. Films, books, scripts, and artwork all are covered by copyright. If you were to use copyrighted material in your film you would have to pay to use it. You might have to monitor your film to make sure that it does not be reported for violation of copyright. You can make sure not to infringe copyright and other IP laws by just using your own original creations.

For example we used a laptop with an apple logo on it and we covered the logo with our own logo. We also did not feature any original posters in or set. Copyright affected the film production when we used posters that were copyrighted. We had to make sure that they were not shown in the shot so we did not have to give credit.