The Hollywood Reporter: One of my first days back on a TV set after pandemic shutdowns didn’t turn out as planned. On a summer morning, I arrived around 7 a.m. for the filming of a reality lifestyle show where I was working as a field producer. The plan was to demo a home, but simmering tensions involving the on-camera talent escalated into a moment of shock for crew as a hammer went flying across the room, leaving a hole in the wall.
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As someone who works behind the scenes and plans to go into that as a career, it’s very concerning to me that safety is becoming less and less of a priority. I understand that the theatre world is all about timing and deadlines, but production managers need to understand that the safety of the crew takes priority above a fast-paced schedule. Crew work takes time - valuable time - and the less time you give crew, the more room there is for mistakes and injuries. If the crew is rushing the building of the set, it will inevitably lead to messy construction, leading to injury of actors. Crew members should not feel like they have to keep their heads down in response to unsafe practices. They deserve to be values at the same level as the talent, and they should be able to speak up for themselves. The industry will learn soon enough if they keep slashing budgets and speeding up production.
The title of this article totally caught my attention. and the story about a hammer getting thrown across the room is really interesting and definitely concerning. Although it was interesting to me that filming shut down for a whole month due to that. The author makes a true point about the film industry more or less rushing through safety concerns, which is why the month long shut down kind of shocks me. It feel like something that would have a week and a half long stop rather than a month. Although a full month or more may be what is needed, I don't know. The author also makes a good point in saying that when companies come back to filming after a safety concern it sometimes feels like nothing happened and everything is back to the way it was with no change in protocol to prevent another accident. I'll be interested to see if this begins to change as more people raise these concerns.
Well the example that the author gives is just downright embarrassing and there really is no excuse for talent or anyone else to be putting people in danger because they can’t manage their tempers. That really should be a fireable offense. The standard injuries that the author alludes to are slips, trips, and falls which are the most common types of workplace injuries. Fortunately, most of these incidents don’t lead to life threatening injuries but they can lead to lost work time and doctors visits (not to mention the expense of workers comp.) Something that I’ve come to realize in the last couple of years - mainly through my work as a paramedic is that there is no use in rushing. It’s a waste of time because in the long run you’ll end up spending more time fixing the mistakes you caused while rushing. I’m not advocating for feet dragging, but it’s in everyone’s best interest to work at a safe and methodical pace.
I agree with Owen in that this hammer incident should have resulted in the perpetrator getting fired, maybe even getting blacklisted. The entertainment industry has always been quite brazen in flouting safety measures, but this was not even a streak of some nasty producer cutting costs that resulted in unsafe working conditions or bad equipment or whatnot. This was someone being a straight up asshole and endangering people over, what, hurt feelings? I hope the month-long shutdown served as a much-needed and effective cooldown period for the show, but I do worry for those who might have gone out of guaranteed work for that period of time. I also hope that this incident was addressed with due gravity by management once the workers returned for the next stretch of filming. Acting like it never happened will not be helpful and may just allow similar things to happen in the future.
This is a very important and relevant article to the theatre world as well. We are all constantly trying to “make it work” as “the show must go on” when in fact, it shouldnt. Sometimes we just need to stop and actually address safety issues. Not everything should be a “oh we’ll do better next time” type of thing. As the article says, this topic is not seen in mainstream media unless it is a big incident, for theatre it has to be spiderman big to make news. It should also be normalized for crew members and production teams to look out for each other’s safety and actually be comfortable with their work environment to question things and get them changed for the better. Our industry has the added challenge of productions being short term gigs so their is no accountability to maintain safety to the highest degree as by the time a complaint is being filled, it may be time to move on to the next show.
I haven't started the article yet, but yikes, it continues to amaze me how quickly safety is sacrificed in the interest of the bottom line. Greed is truly unstoppable. I literally cannot fathom why the risk is worth it. When money is involved, some people truly loose all ability to be compassionate human beings.
Now that I've read the article... I'm shocked but not surprised to read that the hammer-throwing incident resulted in...nothing. No consequences for the offender whatsoever. It's not stated, but I'm better that it was an on-screen talent or producer that threw the hammer. I can't imagine a scenario where anyone else would walk away unscathed. Crewmembers are clearly dispensable, as the article suggests.
This industry needs to do better at combatting workplace negligence. I don't blame the people who work on these sets; often, they're overworked, underpaid, and under supported. When people are wearing too many hats, mistakes happen. Even when someone is aware of all of the potential dangers, stress and lack of sleep can cause lapses in judgment. And when budgets are slashed, often the people who are hired are inexperienced, leading to more complications. It's just unfortunate and maddening. I'm not even sure how to go about fixing it. Hollywood seems to respond best to external pressure, so perhaps it's about using social media to expose the conditions on these sets. If the talent won't address these issues (and they tend to have the biggest social sway), then it's probably on the crew members to push back. I loathe TikTok but it would be a wonderful tool to utilize.
I originally thought that this article had to do with safety concerns around COVID, but I didn't know that just general safety is a growing problem. The example about the hammer that the author gives really says it all. It's concerning to see that not only are these accidents or incidents on the rise, but it seems that leadership tends to not take action to correct the situations. Likewise, it's upsetting to know that the entire film industry as a whole seems to be promoting these types of situations: as the article says, they're trying to meet tighter deadlines on smaller budgets in order to beat competitors. This article describes so many problems, too - from stressed workers losing their temper to crew members falling victim to a lack of safety measures. I hope that there's a union that will take action on this problem, because I feel like that may be the only way to bring back safer work environments.
The title of this article definitely encouraged me to click in the link and see what it is talking about. It is interesting in how it started the article by descriptions a scene in daily life to not only attract reader attention but also to help audience see how close it could relate to their daily life. Stage safety is extremely important and crucial, it does not only provide staff with a safer environment but also a better place for creativity and new ideas to bloom. It is also surprising to me in how little attention has been given to personal safety issues as what has been talked about in this article. Even though it seems that these issues should be commonly talked about and has a regulated system in regarding things related to it, it appears that there is not and could potentially put staff in life threatening danger.
It’s never great to hear that the industry you’re planning on maybe going into is getting less and less safe by the second. It’s quite shocking to hear that these stories just quietly exist everywhere, passed along from crew member to crew member. I think that the causes of this are correctly identified: wanting a cheaper, faster product that still looks good enough to entice consumers. I think that it’s often unsuccessful, besides the safety concerns, because an audience can recognize the cheap and hurried make and lose interest in paying attention to the media they're supposed to be sold on. I believe that this “hush” mentality surrounding these kinds of unsafe production environments needs to be lost. When people have the ability to note the dangers of what they’re working with, or to raise flags when situations get bad, the whole environment can become much safer and more productive.
Seeing crew members continuously put in dangerous situations is really upsetting. I wish producers could see the benefit in having a healthy workplace where workers are encouraged to take care of themselves. Maybe shooting days would be quicker and smoother if one didn’t have to stop and evaluate when someone is injured or put in serious danger? I’m surprised that this home renovation show even shut down for as long as it did to discuss the incident, but I’m sure not every show is like this. Working as a PA is really difficult because of the long hours and need to be available to everyone at every moment. Often times PAs are the first ones in and the last ones out and the ones operating motor vehicles so they need to be kept safe and given the opportunity for proper rest and recovery. Hopefully some productions choose to scale back the scope of the show in order to reduce the budget.
I think people always forget about any form of danger when they’re on set, not out of lack of care, but I feel like it’s because everyone’s just gotten so used to doing what we do, we don’t remember all of the different ways we could get hurt. Like just earlier, someone didn’t know how to carry a ladder properly onstage or they didn’t care to hold it correctly or pay attention to what they were doing. They almost hurt themselves and another person, and that’s so scary to have a tall ladder just come crashing down on your shoulders. It’s up to people’s skill level and ability to pay attention to prevent injuries on the surface level, but if you really want to curb your accidents you might need to involve upper management and try to negotiate some kind of working condition that could be fixed…. or better personnel.
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