The wizard of HAZ: Tina Weadick gets a Muggle's day pass to the set of the latest Harry Potter film to find out where health and safety fits in to the magical mayhem of disgruntled dragons, triple-decker buses, and malevolent mer-people.(FILM-SET SAFETY)

Publication: The Safety & Health Practitioner

Publication Date: 01-NOV-04

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COPYRIGHT 2004 CMP Information Ltd.

JAKE EDMONDS CALLS HIMSELF THE SAFETY co-ordinator of Leavesden Studios, the vast 'chamber of secrets' in Hertfordshire where JK Rowling's phenomenally popular Harry Potter stories are brought to life. However, like the schoolboy wizard himself, what Edmonds and his team of safety experts do at Leavesden is more akin to sorcery than simple co-ordination.

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"The film industry is as broad as it is long. You name it--we've got it," laughs Edmonds, who freely admits he is "so lucky" to be doing the work he is doing. He relishes the challenges that this extraordinary workplace presents to him and his team, whose motto, he says, is: 'Yes! Now what's the question?' The team is employed by MSL--Media Safety Ltd--of which Edmonds is director. (1) The company, which joined forces with safety consultancy QSA just over a year ago, provides comprehensive health and safety services for many of the major film companies and has been doing so for Warner Bros at Leavesden since the first Harry Potter film was shot there in 2000.

Working at Leavesden at the moment with Edmonds are fire safety specialist Larry Eydaman, and Jason Curtis, who originally started out as a rigger on film sets but moved to the safety side via a NEBOSH course and is now a registered safety practitioner. Two members of the team are at Pinewood Studios, where Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, starring Johnny Depp, is being filmed; one is in Morocco, on location for the George Clooney picture, Syriana; and another is based at Cardington Studios, in Bedford.

Leavesden Studios are currently hosting the filming of Rowling's fourth book in the series--Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Among the spectacular scenes in the book that director Mike Newell has to bring to life are an underwater fight scene between the young wizard and the 'mer-people', who have taken his friends hostage; a battle with a fearsome dragon; and an international tournament of Quidditch--the swooping, swirling game of tag that takes place high up in the air on rocket-fast broomsticks. It is Jake Edmonds and his team's job to figure out how all of this can be done safely!

Bring it on

Think of a hazard--any hazard--and you can bet your broomstick it has been, is being, or will have to be dealt with by MSL. Work at height?--the sets probably involve more scaffolding, rope work, structure scaling, and roof climbing than even the biggest construction project, and that's before you even get to the aerial stunt-work. Water hazards?--filming recently finished on the aforementioned underwater...

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