In so doing, CrisisCast provides learners with an irrevocable first encounter with the emotional challenges of any hostile incident.

Our role play actors are psychologically trained in criminal and victim behaviour. They bring intense realism to simulated mass casualty incidents on the battlefield, during kidnap and ransom and emergency evacuation situations and in hostile threat incidents in urban or public places.

We bring all of our experience creating highly credible, dramatic scenarios to bear preparing your people for the worst and equipping them with the psychological and practical tools that will help them save lives and survive disaster.

Our crisis management exercises can test monitoring and communications systems, safety plans including lockdown and evacuation procedures, the ability of emergency services to co-operate and respond effectively and – of increasing importance – their joint ability to respond to the press, media and information posted on social platforms and the internet.

Heads of department manage each discipline and report to the lead producer who is your direct contact at all times.

Our producers work with your trainers to create a ‘script’ that enables the role play actors to know when to trigger key developments in an evolving crisis management scenario. We brief and rehearse the team – where possible on location – but at least with video surveillance footage.

Cast

Our crisis management actors rehearse and deliver in teams of two. We find that saves fees on directors and wranglers and gives each actor responsibility for his or her ‘buddy’. So our minimum offer is for two actors to work with you in a classroom environment for a day.

But we can – and do – supply up to two hundred fully trained and rehearsed actors. The way we do this is by building teams of twelve (six pairs per team) and each team of twelve will have a wrangler whose job is to make sure all logistics are handled for his team; from casting and contracts (including NDA’s), to being paid and put safely on the bus home. The Team Wrangler will also be responsible for Health and Safety during a simulation.

Film

Most of our work incorporates filmed coverage of events, which is not only a useful record of the training but which we also use to produce interactive training tools for you to use after the event. Our stereoscopic 3D cameras generate highly immersive films. Any filmed requirements are handled by Mark and will be operated within a careful budget and full insurance. Mark can work with anything from covert pinhole cameras or aerial drones, to crews in helicopters or steadycam. Everything is shot in HD.

We find rehearsal is invaluable in creating an event that really changes how people behave in an emergency. Preferable, is an onsite rehearsal – for the team wranglers at least, if it’s a big cast – but technology like Skype does allow us to gather our teams for briefings and to share recce pictures and film of the simulation environment, without incurring travel costs.

Prosthetics

Make up, wounds and blood are created by professional makeup artists who are credited in film and television for managing highly effective and sometimes horrendous injuries. We really recommend good make up because it shocks – and that generates the sort of feelings we want trainers to be able to identify in simulations.

SFX

We are experienced in the use of CGI to apply special effects to footage after a simulation and in our filmed training modules (available soon by download) we will lay in gunfire, explosions, animated fly-throughs, animated flow charts and graphics that help to show how an event unfolded, what the options were during the event and the actual and alternative outcomes.

Social Media

Is now an essential communication channel in crisis management not only for broadcasting emergency messages to the public but also as a way of directly addressing and engaging with a distressed community. George is an expert in PR, media training, social media and crisis management. Most of our simulations are scripted to show George’s key communications nodes.