What Are Students Doing When We Aren’t Looking: A Pilot Exploration of the Ways Students Interpret the Production and Risk Assessment Process when Working Independently of an Educator on Location Film Shoots.

Abstract

There is a gap in the knowledge in ways that educators understand how students relate to the risk assessment process when working independently on media practice film shoots in Higher Education (HE). This article maps the existing research in this area before going on to consider ways of closing the gap by exploring the findings of a pilot study. The results of the literature analysis reveal significant findings from health and safety literature of the construction industry (Lingard et al., 2015) as well as health and safety literature on HE chemistry lab work (Gibson, Schröder and Wayne, 2014; Hill and Finster, 2013) which both move the current field of film industry health and safety (H&S) literature and HE screen arts H&S literature (Kerrigan et al., 2011; Oughton, 2013) forward to explore a significant gap from which to conduct research. The article then examines the pilot study. Steeped in a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology, it utilises 360-camera capture technology, as a tool, to record the field and then re-immerse students back into the field using virtual reality headsets to re-live, reflect and re-experience their filming processes, alongside the researcher.