Production

Right, you’re in the production stage. Ideally, you will have already agreed your plan for prioritising mental health and wellbeing on this production and discussed it, or at least started to, with the senior team.

Camera operator working on a production set watches an external monitor.

If you haven’t yet and you want to find out more about how to do that, check out our guide on agreeing a wellbeing plan. You might also have come to this section to read about some specific support you’d like to offer and the best ways to do that, and hopefully you can find what you need below.

Production has moments of high pressure and expectation. Whether you’re working on a high-end feature film, a low-budget short, a documentary series or a children’s animation show, it’s important that your team feels supported. It’s very easy to let the importance of your crew and their wellbeing slip at this point, but this is precisely when good health and wellbeing is vital. Make sure everyone knows about the support they can access when they first come on board, and keep sharing gentle reminders throughout.

As well as keeping your whole team aware of your production’s values and any policies or codes of conduct in place, production is also the time to make sure you are supporting people with their individual needs. You may have already done this in pre-production, but if not, now is a good time. It might feel daunting to start a conversation about what support someone might need, but it could have an incredibly positive impact on their lives and performance at work, benefiting the production as a whole.

Two production crew members with a video camera shoot in low light.

Let’s get started

The guides in this section will help you to communicate and raise awareness about the mental health and wellbeing support in place, as well as offering guidance on supporting individuals and making sure that your specific production’s needs are being met. For example, supporting team members who are filming and editing sensitive content.