British Film & TV Facilities Journal

Hostile environments

By Paul Rees

The hazards of working abroad.
For film crews working abroad, covering stories is becoming ever more hazardous. Paul Rees looks at ways of minimising the risk...

Is it a camerman. or a sniper? It is one of life's strange ironies that the more difficult and dangerous a country is, the more reasons some people have for going there. Certainly this is true of the military, of which I was a member for 20 years as a Royal Marine Commando, but also of journalistic teams whose job it is to bring the images of a country's problems to the world's attention. For film crews and reporters, getting images and covering stories is becoming more and more hazardous. in the last ten years, there have been 250 deaths in the media business. Last year alone, the International Federation of Journalists report that 31 journalists were killed globally, and 19 others died in suspicious circumstances, 'probably related to their jobs'. That's almost a death a week!

There is a number of growing trends that influence these figures; In general, the world is becoming a more dangerous place - during the first half of the 1990s over 5.5m people (the majority of them civilians) died in 73 wars involving 70 states. Warring factions, even in less developed countries, are becoming much more media-astute. Increasingly they dislike seeing their atrocities broadcast all over the world because it brings them bad PR. And the people who film these images for public consumption are no longer seen as impartial observers, but as legitimate targets.

Such is the ill feeling in some countries towards television crews today that, in Bosnia for example, returning journalists have reported that bounties have been placed on their heads and those of their teams. In short, in some countries, media crews are very unwelcome and are increasingly looked upon as 'the enemy'.

Added to this is another complication. The ease and speed with which crews can get to hotspots and start working today, means there is precious little time for 'acclimatising' before switching the camera on.

A reconstruction demonstrates how not recognising warning signs can often lead to trouble. It's not unusual for teams to arrive at a foreign location at lunchtime and start work in the afternoon. But what inevitably gets sacrificed, in the race to get the story, is vital time to research the territory and find out where it is safe or unsafe to go, and who can be trusted etc. The recent murder of Sandor Thoenes in East Timor was perhaps a tragic example of this.

Faced with all these pressures, but still with a job to do the dilemma becomes: How do I cover a story in a strife-torn country, without becoming a victim of its problems? The answer lies in awareness training.

Five years ago, the BBC asked my company, Centurion Risk Assessment Services, to devise an awareness training course for its staff many of whom regularly work in hostile environments.

Since then, nearly 5,000 people have been put through their paces on our now well-established Hostile Environments and Hostile Environments First Aid courses. Apart from the BBC, Centurion also trains staff from ITN, Reuters, APTN Newsforce, Reuter Foundation, freelancers and other independent companies that work in the field of factual programming. The list of companies participating continues to grow.

When describing our training, the first thing we do is to explain what we mean by a hostile environment. The most obvious example, of course, is a war zone. But there are plenty of others, the majority of which are not immediately obvious, and they are not exclusively abroad. For example, at Centurion we would describe the following as being potential hostile environments whose symptoms, in some circumstances, can even be applied to areas of the UK; Anywhere with harsh climatic conditions, areas with extreme poverty; Areas with high crime, places where there is poor health and hygiene, countries with unfriendly governments or regimes, the sites of man-made or natural disasters, anywhere there is civil, military or political unrest, countries where there is religious fanaticism, places where there is known terrorist activity or locations where there is inhospitable terrain.

The chances are you may be sent somewhere that has at least one of the above problems. As an outsider, especially abroad, trying to work in unfamiliar environments gives you a higher than average chance of becoming prey to misfortune.

What we try to do, with Centurion's Hostile Environments training, is to even the odds a little. We aim to heighten participants' awareness of any given surrounding or assignment, and to use this awareness to make informed assessments of the dangers. Once aware of the dangers, it is then possible to minimise the risks.

Take harsh climates for example. We might use the scenario of an assignment covering a story in Bosnia during the winter. Apart from the problem of hostilities (which we cover elsewhere), another problem a crew might face comes from Mother Nature. We explain the hidden perils of working in cold climates, like hypothermia or frostbite, and teach people how to spot the warning signs.' If they suspect something is wrong with a colleague, we tell them what to do to help him. We demonstrate the benefits of different kinds of clothing, and show how to make emergency shelters if caught out overnight.

If travelling to areas of conflict, we show how to film less obviously to avoid being singled out for attack. For example, we ask crews to think about where to film from in order to get the shots they need, and assess the advantages and disadvantages of different positions. By filming a few feet below the top of a hill, for example, it is possible to get the shots they require without being skylined, which would give a sniper an easy target.

We also ask people to think more about the way they look to others. To a sniper, a camera on the shoulder looks from a distance a lot like a shoulder-held rocket launcher. When they consider too, that a sniper's range can be anything from 1,000 metres, it is guaranteed he would see them long before they saw him.

Working in many Third World countries illustrates the link between poverty and crime. In such places if they're wearing a watch and carrying a mobile phone they're a good target for a mugging or, worse still, a kidnapping. We teach them how to avoid sticking out in a crowd, and some basic techniques on surveillance and counter-surveillance. And if the worst happens and they're taken hostage, we teach them how best to react to their captors in order to save their life. We also pass on tips about how to tell if your hijackers are professionals or amateurs, and the different dangers each of these alternatives pose.

When working in war zones and areas of conflict, we teach participants where offers the best protection if caught in crossfire. Here Hollywood has got it wrong - our advice is don't follow Mel Gibson's example and seek shelter behind a car door or they'll be dead in seconds!

Like the car door, we show participants that no bulletproof jacket is 100% going to stop a bullet, but it can be very effective against shrapnel. In a war zone they stand more chance of dying without one, but it's a good idea to know what its limitations and advantages are.

It's a sad fact that many injuries and fatalities are sustained not simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or a lack of past experience. Some of the world's most experienced camera people have still been injured, and well-respected journalists have been killed, doing an increasingly dangerous job. While experience does help, a lot of veterans of the business will admit their survival has had as much to do with luck. But relying on past luck to stay alive in the future is like playing Russian Roulette.

The great tragedy is that too often injuries and fatalities in these difficult environments, whether suffered by a journalist or a civilian, are caused primarily by not reading warning signs -or even recognising what they are. We encourage everyone to share their own past experiences with their fellow workers to see what lessons can be learned. The courses have become a unique pool of practical information, geared towards working in hostile environments.

Centurion Risk Assessment Services Ltd is an unconventional company, providing a unique service, but whose product can't be measured by any normal means. We have had a phenomenal response, but perhaps the greatest compliment comes from the participants themselves.

The other day I received a satellite phone call from a journalist we recently trained. From the middle of a war zone, he was ringing to tell me that when the s**t had hit the fan earlier that day, he remembered some advice he'd received on the course. It was his view that this advice had probably just saved his life.

As the director of a company dedicated to safety, what greater job satisfaction can there be?