Last updated on March 2nd, 2014 at 10:16 pm
Last week’s on-set death of a young camera assistant is prompting talks of more rigorous film industry safety guidelines.
On Thursday, February 20, Sarah Elizabeth Jones, a 27-year old Atlanta-based IATSE union camera assistant, was killed when she was struck by a train on a railway bridge near Jesup, Georgia. Jones was working on the set of the Gregg Allman biopic, “Midnight Rider”, where the crew had placed a bed on the train tracks as part of a dream sequence. When a train approached unexpectedly and struck the bed, Jones was hit by flying debris and fell into the path of the train. Seven other crew members were injured, one seriously.
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Since then, news of the tragedy has exploded over the internet, social media, and in the film industry trade papers, “Variety” and “The Hollywood Reporter”. A Facebook page, Slates for Sarah, featuring photos of camera slates bearing written tributes to Jones, was posted on Monday, February 24, and in five days has garnered over 52,000 likes. A petition and call-in campaign requesting Jones be recognized in the In Memorium segment of this Sunday’s Academy Awards telecast is ongoing, despite her obscurity to the filmgoing public (no slight intended). Another Facebook campaign urges Oscar presenters to memorialize Jones by wearing a black ribbon.
Prompting the uproar is suspicion that the “Rider” crew was working on the train bridge without permission. That suspicion is unconfirmed as yet by director Randall Miller, and Unclaimed Freight, the production company behind the film. The Wayne County, Georgia, sheriff’s office, who’re investigating the tragedy as a homicide, confirm the production had permission to be on the property through which the railway runs, but not on the tracks themselves. The tracks are owned by railway company, CSX. Investigators cite a CSX email to the film’s location manager specifically denying permission. Although standard safety practices dictate railway personnel be on set to coordinate with film crews in similar circumstances, there were no CSX personnel working with the “Rider” production.
Central to the incident is the question of who ultimately is responsible for crew members’ safety on film sets. A perusal of Facebook conversations between Atlanta- and nearby Savannah, Georgia-area film and television crew members suggest that the First Assistant Director and Key Grip are typically tasked with that responsibility. As someone with 30+ years’ experience in film and television production – where I’ve worked regularly as a First AD — this writer can confirm. But I also admit that AD’s and Key Gips balance a full load of responsibilities besides crew safety, some of which conflict with safety dictates. In a Wednesday, February 27, “Hollywood Reporter” article on the incident, the Directors Guild of America says safety is “…ultimately the responsibility of the crew members’ employers” — in this case, the Unclaimed Freight producers. And yet like any producers, Unclaimed Freight has a vested interest in bringing their production in on a timely schedule and within budget. It’s an interest that can conflict with safety concerns.
The conflict isn’t limited to film production. It’s one that’s dealt with in any manufacturing or other environment where a finished product is to be delivered within a specific time period. An automotive plant, a construction site, a film set – they’re all commercial environments that balance safety with the same focus on safety in the film production industry. And in those instances, the resulting action is usually to move non-essential crew to a safe distance – a practice that wouldn’t have saved Sarah Jones. If the track wasn’t being controlled as the result of permission granted by CSX, then there was no safe distance.
So following last Thursday’s tragedy, will the film industry take a page from similar industries and adopt more stringent safety policies and practices?
In the aforementioned “Hollywood Reporter” article, the Directors Guild of Canada opines that when working on the train bridge, “Rider” producers may have assumed “cinematic immunity” – a clause in the unwritten rules of filmmaking that holds producers free from responsibility when laws are bent or broken in the pursuit of a desired shot. It’s a phrase familiar to guerilla filmmakers and film school students struggling with scant budgets. But outside of maybe scoring a free drink or parking space, it’s not supposed to apply to commercial filmmakers. Says the DGC, “There is no immunity. Instead, there is jeopardy, risk and the potential for lost lives.”
Were she still with us, Sarah Jones might confirm.
