Managing filming requests

If you have been contacted by the media about filming with you on any one of our campuses, please let the College's news and media team know as there are various procedures we need to follow and we are happy to offer advice if needed.

If you are a member of the media looking to film at Imperial, please consult our pages for the media.

If you are asked about a location release, please contact us to obtain the College’s standard location release form. If filming includes patients, we will need to be alerted to this and we can provide you with the College’s patient release form.

We will need to attend some filming engagements, so please let us know about any you are involved in. However, if we agree that our presence is not necessary, here are some guidelines to make your filming go smoothly:

What to do before the crew arrives

• Organise locations for the filming and check that they suit what the production company is looking for. Try to avoid places that are noisy (e.g. from building work or machinery) unless that is part of the storytelling (e.g. if the researcher is showing off some noisy new machinery!)
• Organise a location release form
• Alert the people working in the spaces to the fact that a film crew is coming; let them know roughly how long you expect disruption to last and explain that it might be a bit disruptive
• If filming in a space where PPE is required, talk to those who will feature in the film to make sure they will be wearing the right PPE. Read more guidance on PPE.
• Organise a parking space if applicable

What to do on the day

• Meet the film crew and the academic
• Talk to the crew about wearing PPE, if applicable
• If filming on hospital grounds, remind the crew know that there should be no identifying shots of patients/visitors staff (aside from those who have consented to take part in the filming), and they are only permitted to film in the designated areas
• Supervise – watch! 
• If filming outside, help to keep passers-by out of shot
• Make a note if anything controversial is said

Things to say no to

• Filming outside of the room/area/lab agreed in the location release form
• Blocking entrances
• Moving things around (such as sharps boxes!)
• Filming people who haven’t agreed to be filmed
• If filming on hospital grounds, don’t get any identifying shots of patients/visitors/staff. If filming entrances, only film visitors' feet, don’t leave the area agreed to film in, e.g. wandering down wards etc.