Free on-set document · Ref ASC-01
The Action
Safety Checklist
for a safe,
action-packed
production.
The on-set gates for weapons, water, height, fire and physical force: what has to be true before the camera rolls, who has to be standing there, and what stops the take. Written by a working stunt coordinator, not a safety officer.
Free. For stunt performers, coordinators, 1st ADs, producers and directors.
Checklist
The part nobody tells you
It goes wrong because something ordinary was missing.
Action does not go wrong because somebody attempted something impossible. It goes wrong because nobody was coordinating, or the rehearsal got cut for schedule, or the person who should have been watching the water was also holding a light.
Nobody hands a first-time filmmaker the standard, and nobody hands a new performer the right to ask for it. Both are expected to already know what a properly run action day looks like.
This is that standard, written down as a checklist of gates. Not technique. What has to be true, and who has to be there, before the camera rolls.
What you get
Four documents you
can use on day one.
Not theory, and not technique. Each one is built to be used on a working set, in the order the day actually happens.
Eight Department Gates
Weapons, water, height, physical force, fire and vehicles. Each section names the one condition that has to be true before that work happens at all, the checks that run before every take, and what stops the day.
Know in one page whether you are cleared to shoot it.
The Pre-Production Eight
The questions to answer before the action scene is scheduled. Every one of them costs money to fix on the day and almost nothing to fix now.
Budget and schedule the scene properly, once.
The Pre-Take Card
Sized for a phone screen and downloadable as an image, so it lives in a camera roll rather than a bookmark. Run it in the seconds before the camera rolls.
Save it once. Carry it for the rest of your career.
Action Sequence Sign-Off
A printable sheet with the universal and department gates, fields for production, scene and unit, and signature lines for the coordinator, 1st AD and producer.
Goes in the day’s paperwork, like everything else that matters.
The whole checklist in one line
Make it look real. Bring everyone home.
Those are not competing goals. The performers who last worked out that the second one is how you keep getting paid for the first.
Straight answer
Who this is for.
Use it if
- You are directing or producing action and need to know what has to be in place.
- You are a 1st AD running a floor with action on it.
- You are taking action work and learning the floor as you go.
- You have felt a setup was wrong and said nothing.
- You are writing a schedule and do not know what the action scene really costs.
It will not
- Teach you to handle a weapon, rig a fall or work underwater. Those need qualified people, not a document.
- Replace a coordinator, an armorer, a water safety team or a licensed operator. It tells you when you must hire one.
- Certify anything, or satisfy your insurer or your territory on its own.
Who wrote it
Osondu Thambo
Stunt coordinator, fight choreographer and action film safety consultant. Three decades of reality based combatives, built for camera. Brooklyn born, South Africa based, working internationally.
- Fifth degree black belt and founder of 52 Blocks Self-Defense Academy.
- Screen credits include stunt work on Blood Mixed and Icon.
- Runs stunt performer workshops and safety consulting for productions.
Get the checklist
Send it to me.
Read the gates for the departments you are shooting, print the sign-off sheet for the day, and keep the card on your phone.
- Free, and yours to use on your own productions
- Opens straight away, no waiting on an email
- Built to print, so it works on set with no signal
- Unsubscribe whenever you want
You are in.
Opening your checklist now, and a copy is on its way to your inbox. Bookmark it. It is built to be read on set, not filed away.
Open the checklistBefore you ask
Three fair questions.
We are a small production.
Then this matters more, not less. The gates do not get cheaper on a small crew, they get skipped, and the checklist exists so that skipping one is a decision somebody makes out loud rather than something that just happens.
Is this not the coordinator’s job?
It is, and section 00 says you need one. The checklist is what lets a producer know whether they have hired enough, a 1st AD run the floor to a standard, and a performer tell in ten minutes what kind of day they have walked onto.
Does having this make us covered?
No, and it says so on the sheet. It is not a legal standard and it does not transfer responsibility. It records that the gates were checked, which is worth a great deal on the day and nothing at all as a substitute for the qualified people it tells you to hire.