31 August 2026 · 6 min read

Filming risk assessment template for small video crews

Nobody goes looking for a filming risk assessment template out of curiosity. You are looking because a venue manager, a client's health and safety team or a council film office has asked for one by Friday, and every template you can find is a twelve-page document built for a unit with a stunt coordinator. Below is the version a small commercial crew can genuinely fill in: one page, five columns, the hazards that actually turn up on brand shoots, and the bit that matters most - making sure someone reads it on the day. We are a working crew, not safety consultants, so treat this as a practical starting point rather than legal advice.

What it is and who asks for it

A risk assessment is a written record of what could go wrong on your shoot, who it could hurt, and what you are doing about it. In the UK you are expected to assess the risks of your own work, and the paperwork is how you show it. In practice it gets requested by four sorts of people: the venue or location owner, the client's facilities or health and safety contact, a council or landowner when you are filming in public, and occasionally your own insurer. Almost all of them ask for the same pair of documents - the risk assessment and your public liability certificate - and almost none of them read the assessment closely. That is not a reason to write it badly. It is the reason to write it once, properly, in a form you can adapt in ten minutes per job.

The template: five columns

Start with a header block, then one row per hazard. Anything more elaborate than this gets skipped by everyone including you.

  • Header - job name, client, date, location and address, who wrote the assessment, the date written, and who is in charge on the day.
  • 1. Hazard - the thing itself, in plain words. "Cables across a walkway", not "trip hazards may be present".
  • 2. Who could be harmed - crew, contributors, client staff, members of the public. Naming the group changes the control: a cable run in a locked studio is not a cable run in a busy reception.
  • 3. What could happen - one line on the realistic outcome, not the worst film you can imagine.
  • 4. Controls - what you are actually doing: mats and tape, a second person on the ladder, gear kept off the walkway, a briefing at crew call. This is the only column anyone should judge you on.
  • 5. Risk after controls - low, medium or high, once the controls are in place. If a row is still high, the plan is wrong.

Close the page with a short footer: nearest A and E with the address, who holds the first aid kit, the emergency assembly point if the venue has one, and a line confirming that the crew were briefed. Then sign and date it.

LIKELIHOODMINORMODERATEMAJORLikelyMediumHighHighPossibleLowMediumHighUnlikelyLowLowMediumSeverity of the realistic outcome, read left to right
Rate each hazard after your controls, not before. A row still landing in a red box is a job you change - a different setup, another pair of hands, or a conversation with the client before the day.

The hazards that actually come up

On a one-to-three person brand shoot, the same dozen rows cover almost every job. Keep them in a master document and delete the ones that do not apply.

  • Cables and stands in walkways - the single most common hazard on a corporate shoot, and the one that gets you asked to leave.
  • Working at height - anything on a ladder, a rigged light, a camera above head height. Two people or it does not happen.
  • Electrical - unfamiliar sockets, extension leads, whether the venue wants to see PAT labels. Ask on the recce, not on the morning.
  • Manual handling - loading in, carrying flight cases up stairs, a solo op with three trips to the van.
  • Lighting - hot fixtures near people and fabric, plus stands with weight on them in a room with children or dogs.
  • Filming in public or near traffic - pavements, car parks, loading bays, and whoever needs to be told you are there.
  • Lone working - solo recces and early starts. Someone should know where you are and when you are expected back.
  • Weather and terrain - exteriors, mud, wet stone, wind on a light stand.
  • Batteries and charging - lithium cells left charging unattended in a room nobody is in.
  • The client's own environment - workshops, kitchens, warehouses, forklifts. Their site rules beat yours, and there is usually an induction.
  • Fatigue and driving - the hazard everyone omits. A long day plus a two-hour drive home after wrap is a real risk, and the control is the schedule.

A worked example

Three rows from a real-shaped one-day shoot in a client office, written out as they would read on the page.

  • Cables across reception walkway · Crew, client staff, visitors · Trip and fall · Cables run along the wall, taped and matted where they cross, a stand-by kept clear of the door, reception told we are there · Low
  • Light rigged above head height on a stand · Crew, contributor · Falling fixture, burn · Sandbagged stand, no rigging above people, fixture cooled before derig, only two of us move it · Low
  • Filming on the loading bay for exteriors · Crew, delivery drivers · Vehicle strike · Site manager confirms a slot with no deliveries, hi-vis worn, one person watching the entrance while the other films · Medium

Notice how specific the controls are. "Take care around vehicles" is not a control; "the site manager has blocked out 2pm to 3pm and one of us is watching the gate" is. The first sentence protects nobody, and any competent facilities manager can tell the difference at a glance.

Getting it read on the day

Here is the honest bit: a signed risk assessment sitting in an email thread has changed nobody's behaviour. The document exists for the venue and your insurer. What actually keeps people safe is the two or three lines that make it onto the call sheet, in front of everyone at crew call - the walkway, the loading bay slot, where the first aid kit is. Write the full page, send it to whoever asked, then lift the top three onto the day itself.

The reccewhat you saw on siteRisk assessmenthazards and controlsThe call sheettop three, on the dayWritten once after the recce, sent ahead, then summarised where people will see it
The full assessment goes to the venue and the client. The two or three hazards that change what people do go on the call sheet, where they get read.

Keeping it from going stale

The failure mode is not writing one; it is copying last month's file, changing the client name and missing that this location has a loading bay and the last one did not. Two habits fix it. Write the assessment straight after the recce while the site is still in your head - our location recce checklist exists mainly so the hazards get noticed there rather than at 8am. And keep the hazards attached to the shoot rather than to a folder of documents that slowly stop matching each other.

That second habit is why Cinella works the way it does: the call sheet, kit list and generated run of day all hang off one shoot, so the safety notes you write go out with the day rather than in a separate attachment, and the client sees the confirmed version in their branded portal instead of hunting through an email chain. We are biased - we built it after one too many car-park mornings with the wrong document open. Cinella is £19 a month, or £190 a year with two months free (keep your rate for as long as you stay subscribed), with a 14-day free trial and nothing charged if you cancel inside it.

The template above is yours either way. One page, five columns, honest controls, and the top three where people will actually read them.

Try Cinella free for 14 days