Global Film Solutions insures safety

New Zealand co manages risk for film shoots

By CAROLE HORST

Need to film in Liberia? Or on the ocean around Antarctica? And want to assure the network execs that the crew will return physically intact with usable footage? While webs and insurers have inhouse risk-assessment teams, New Zealand-based Global Film Solutions takes it one step further.

Company co-founders and producers themselves, Julian Grimmond and Bob Parr saw a niche in third-party risk assessment that includes everything from giving a simple risk breakdown to aiding in accessing remote and hostile locations, developing crisis-response plans and providing specialists such as dive masters and wilderness survival experts as well as security, as they did for "America's Next Top Model."

GFS, which counts Discovery Communications among its biggest clients, also has a large global network of trusted people "we tap into who can assess a situation," says Grimmond.

GFS recently launched Global Watch, a resource for pre-production location planning.

Jane E. Durkee, COO/VP of content management for Tremendous Entertainment, swears that the level of service GFS brings to the table is an essential ingredient of its Travel Channel skein "Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern." "They are producers themselves, so by marrying the production and insurance risk assessment they really understand what we need," she says.