What it actually takes to film on a Queensland mine or gas site

Filming on a Queensland mine or gas site takes six things: the Industry Safety Induction (ISI) through Safer Together, the site's own induction, tickets for confined space entry, gas detection and working at heights where they apply, permits for hot work or isolations, and public liability cover that clears the operator's contractor threshold.Every supplier will tell you they can work on site. Almost none of them will tell you what that involves, because most of them don't know.

Start with the ticket to work

In the energy production industry that's the Industry Safety Induction, run through Safer Together. One day. It sets a common safety standard across the industry and it's recognised by operators and contractors nationally. If a crew doesn't hold it, your first conversation is about whether they can get it in time, and the answer is usually no.

Mining sites outside gas often run on Standard 11 or their own equivalent. Ask which one applies to your site before you ask anyone for a quote. It changes who is even eligible.

Then the site induction, which isn't the same thing

Industry tickets get a crew through the conversation. Your site induction gets them through the gate. Every operation runs its own, they vary from an hour to a full day, and some require a medical.

Here's the part that costs people money. Inductions are almost never in the schedule. A comms team books a two day shoot, the crew arrives, and day one disappears into a classroom. Build it in. If your induction is a day, the shoot is three days, not two.

The tickets underneath

Where the crew goes determines what they need. Into a vessel or a tank, that's confined space entry, and it's a real accreditation, not a form. Anywhere gas may accumulate, that's gas detection training and usually a monitor. Onto a gantry, a structure or elevated plant, that's working at heights.

A crew that holds all three is a crew that can follow the job instead of standing at the fence photographing it from forty metres away. That difference shows up in the pictures.

Permits aren't paperwork, they're the schedule

If you're lighting inside a hazardous area, that's a permit. Hot work, a permit. Isolations, a permit. Each one has a lead time and an approver, and the approver has a day job.

Any supplier who talks about going around your permit system is telling you something important about themselves. The right answer is to go through it, early, with the shot list attached so the permit covers what you actually need rather than what somebody guessed.

Insurance, and the number that matters

Public liability cover, with a certificate of currency you can put in front of procurement the same day you ask. Check the amount against your own contractor threshold, because it varies by operator and a crew under it can't be engaged no matter how good the work is. Most small production companies carry $5 or $10 million, and on a tier one site that's not enough.

Ask about professional indemnity too. Public liability covers someone getting hurt or something getting broken. Professional indemnity covers the advice and the work itself, which is the one procurement actually reads.

Welcome to the Fold carries $20 million public liability, $10 million professional indemnity, and workers compensation in place. Certificates same day.

Shutdowns

The best content on any site happens during a shutdown, because that's when the plant is open and the work is visible. It's also the hardest window to get into and the one nobody will move for you.

Shutdowns are planned months ahead. If you want them documented, the conversation happens at planning, not in the week before. Once it starts there's no second pass and no reshoot. You get the window you were given.

Drones, briefly

Aerials on an operating site involve CASA rules, the site's own airspace restrictions, and often an exclusion zone that makes the shot pointless. They're worth it occasionally. They aren't the reason to hire a crew, and a supplier leading with drone footage is usually a supplier who can't get on the ground.

Weather and the roads

This is Queensland. We once had a gas field shoot where the roads went under and the only way in was a helicopter, so that's how we got in, because the window was that week and there wasn't another one.

Build a contingency. Ask your supplier what theirs is. If they haven't thought about it, they haven't worked out there.

What to ask before you engage anyone

Six questions. Most suppliers fall over on the second one.

Where Welcome to the Fold sits

Welcome to the Fold holds the Industry Safety Induction through Safer Together, plus confined space entry, gas detection and working at heights. $20 million public liability, $10 million professional indemnity, workers compensation. We don't carry standing site tickets and we don't want to. We do your induction, on your site, to your standard, every time.

Our answer to question five is that we once spent four weeks photographing every BHP site in Australia. Newman, Jimblebar, Area C, Olympic Dam, Carrapateena, Broadmeadow, Hay Point. Seven inductions, seven permit systems, one month. Then Roma, Fairview, Arcadia Valley, Moranbah, Dalby and Gladstone on top, including image library work for Santos.

Twenty five years, and we've never had a site stop a shoot.

If you have a site and a window, see our mining video production and mine site photography pages, or call 0413 766 520.