Queenstown company finds niche in risk management
From organising filming to coordinating a Covid19 bubble for 500 film crew in the United States, Julian Grimmond talks to Jacob McSweeny about one of the success stories happening in Queenstown this year.
JULIAN GRIMMOND is happy you may not have heard of GFS Risk. That keeps his clients happy, which in turn keeps the GFS chief executive happy.
‘‘We’re under the radar deliberately.’’
GFS Risk is a Queenstown risk management and film production company that helps organisations deal with issues relating to security, medical and safety issues.
Its clientele includes some of the biggest names in production: Amazon, Disney, Netflix and NBCUniversal.
‘‘We respect the confidentiality of our clients and their projects,’’ Mr Grimmond said, explaining his reasoning for keeping a low public profile.
‘‘Whether we’re dealing with commercially sensitive materials or health and safety and personnel issues . . . our clients keep coming back to us because we keep their projects as their projects. So we’re very cautions about what we talk about . . . out of respect to them.
‘‘I’d love to tell the story but it wouldn’t be a good business decision.’’
GFS Risk last month picked up one of the American Chamber of Commerce awards for success in innovation and trading relationships in the United States.
The company was commended for its ability to switch from film production to risk management.
‘‘Instead of closing down, they kept all their staff, moved into the risk business and started cranking that side of it up,’’ American Chamber of Commerce executive director Mike Hearn said.
‘‘[Their] business has taken off as production studios and companies come back online around the world. They’ve been able to add Covid into their insurance packages, et cetera. So they’ve done incredibly well.’’
Mr Grimmond, an Emmy Awardwinning producer, is one of the founders of GFS Risk.
He said the company, which has 13 staff, was well aware of Covid19’s potential to become a real headache for all businesses as early as January.
Before this it had riskmanaged its own business, setting up what Mr Grimmond called the left foot and the right foot.
On one side was the production services and production management consultancy, while on the other foot the company offered risk management advice.
GFS Risk helps companies, mainly those in the film and production industry, to protect their staff, assets, brand and their ability to keep working — a vital factor during a global pandemic.
‘‘We realised things can be lumpy ... we wanted a bit of continuity,’’ Mr Grimmond said of the strategy behind the two sides of the business.
Both sides had ups and downs — but to be able to pivot between the two evened out the ‘‘lumpiness,’’ Mr Grimmond said.
Having been involved in projects near the Ebola virus outbreak it had experience as to what a response to Covid19 would look like, Mr Grimmond said.
So, as part of its risk management it started to send warnings out to clients when they noticed concerning chatter about Covid19 and its imminent spread at the start of year.
‘‘. . . we realised we may need to do a pivot if production closed down.’’
One of the first things it did was a recruitment drive for safety officers for film sets across the United States.
It realised the industry was going to shut down and then start again with demand high for that type of worker.
In March, its production business indeed went to zero and New Zealand began its Alert Level 4 lockdown.
‘‘We started the day after we were all locked down and everyone working from home and we started to rebuild the business for Covid19.’’
It sent lists of risk advice to its clients around medical and safety issues with Covid19.
The big question its clients had was ‘‘how do we return to work,’’ Mr Grimmond said.
‘‘We’re always six months ahead of where the market is and that’s why our clients come back.
‘‘We give them our advice and they take that on board.’’
GFS Risk might have to put people on the ground — safety personnel for mountains or water or perhaps a security detail for protection of staff.
Often it translates what the latest regulations mean for largescale productions.
‘‘[At the moment] it’s medical and following regulations stipulated by the unions [Screen Actors Guild] and the DGA [Directors Guild of America] in America. It may be the city, county, state or federal regulation.’’
Usually risk management involved an assessment followed by a recommended plan to follow, Mr Grimmond said.
‘‘Then we’ll put someone on the ground who is suitably qualified to fit in with that production or a team,’’ he said.
‘‘Then we’ll manage that on the ground for the client and the studio or network overseeing it.’’
Recently they had to organise a Covid19 bubble for a film set in the United States with a crew of 500 people.
‘‘They wanted to create a bubble like what we’ve done in New Zealand.’’
They designed and implemented how people would travel, be tested before they travel, arrive, isolate, had a testing regime and once they passed that how they would then enter the bubble and how they could operate there.
Mr Grimmond said the way New Zealand had been successful in its Covid19 management meant its clients trusted it even more.
Once it had the 500person bubble operating it continued testing there; PPE management and zoning and hygiene rules had to be adhered to.
Wellbeing had to be looked after as well, Mr Grimmond said.
‘‘We introduced . . . webinars and sent digital content from here where they could then be able to express themselves and for them to articulate the stress.’’
The bulk of that work was done from GFS’ offices just outside Queenstown.
It had an eightperson team on the ground in that situation, made up of American citizens with paramedic and usually military background training and some production background training.
One of the big lessons Mr Grimmond — who has spent years of travelling all over the world for work — has learned is you can now carry out operations anywhere in the world from the South.
‘‘Covid’s thrown more light on that.
‘‘New Zealand and Otago, especially, have an incredible history of being able to operate globally. There’s a whole host of companies grown and developed here.’’
Looking around at many of the businesses in Queenstown, Mr Grimmond sees resilience.
‘‘There are a lot of people that are hurting . . . there are a lot of people turning that hurt into energy.’’
Businesses needed to do their best to survive and pivot towards higher profits if they could, he said.
‘‘Coming out of Covid, the economy, domestically and internationally, will have changed. We’ve been fortunate to come out of that.’’