Is everyone getting insurance for their shoot?

JOE BLO

JOE BLO

Well-known member
I'm going back and forth on this. I've gotten estimates for unsurance for my two day shoot at $1,350 to $2,400. I know that you have to have insurance to rent equipment, and secure locations and permits. On this shoot, the DP owns all the equipment, the locations are owned by friends or family and the actors don't mind signing a waiver.

Is it crazy not to get insurance? How many of you are getting it? Is it just not possible to shoot something with a bunch of your friends and all it costs you is Pizza and Beer?

Please help me out. Thanks.
 
I worked with them once, they seem pretty good.
This time we worked with no insurance or permits and we were shut down by homeland security with 1 page left to film. :shocked:
 
No insurance. No permits. No permission (the answer is always "no" anyway). Set-up fast, steal every shot, be ready to rewrite for another location. Those are my rules.
 
We're trying to secure locations now, we'll see 'bout what insurance we'll need after the fact. Rez, wear your running shoes and eat Wheaties.
 
Haha, Check out my thread, (link in sig) I'll post an answer there for you so I don't gum this one up.

JOE BLO said:
... I've gotten estimates for unsurance for my two day shoot at $1,350 to $2,400. I know that you have to have insurance to rent equipment, and secure locations and permits. ...
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msconce said:
We have a quote for 700 from filmemporium.com Check em out.
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Actually - correct me if I am wrong but Msconce, but that $700 is for liability only, which is about what we were quoted for the standard week to ten day coverage $800. It does not cover rental or your own equipment or your friend's. It is only good to secure a location permit from a city / or if your dolly rolls out into the street and causes a motorcycle accident (happened to a friend of mine). Once you add protecting rental equipment to the basic liability it gets up to $1300 or $1500.

So if you NEED it for a city permit location then get it, but don't get it for another reason (unless of course you are worried about liability).
 
Keystoned said:
Actually - correct me if I am wrong but Msconce, but that $700 is for liability only, which is about what we were quoted for the standard week to ten day coverage $800. It does not cover rental or your own equipment or your friend's. It is only good to secure a location permit from a city / or if your dolly rolls out into the street and causes a motorcycle accident (happened to a friend of mine). Once you add protecting rental equipment to the basic liability it gets up to $1300 or $1500.

So if you NEED it for a city permit location then get it, but don't get it for another reason (unless of course you are worried about liability).
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That's right. We are having to get the liability for the city.
 
alot of places do not require permits to shoot. My state for example, does not require permits unless you are on goverment property, such as a state park or city buildings. Even in light of this .. without any permit whatsoever ..in our last little short "the fallen" for one scene we shot in the state capitol building for a couple hours using 2 fully uniformed security officers, setting up lights ect, and all i had to do was clear it with the state capitol police. it went something like this..

-me -walking into police headquarters

"hi, were here for the film shoot today. I was unable to get ahold of your media coodinator mrs _____. I tried a few times but she must be out on vacation. (...yes, I actually did try) Heres what we'll be doing.. a few uniformed officers.. some dolly shots.. some lights set up in the halls, ..we'll have to move in some equipment and we'll be using building power, but we wont block public access."

-officer

"do they have any weapons?"


-me

"nope. ....definitely do not"



-officer

"ok."

-me

"thanks guys.. have a nice day"


..i think its the 3rdth or 4th time ive had, or chose to shoot there, and each time has been just as simple. and although we did not block public access, simply having one of the uniformed gaurds stand on either side of us as we set up and shot, ect.. kept the people at bay without any questions.
But as for insurance, thats a whole other ball game. in that case you do what youve got to do, or feel you should do. Im all about shooting things legitimately when the reasoning is there, but there are also plenty of opportunities to simply shoot something over some food and drink. :)
 
Thanks a lot for your insight. I can't believe you just walked up and told them what you are doing. Great technique, I'm going to give that a try. I think it might be a little different response in Los Angeles, but I'll let you know how it goes.
 
haha. Believe me, I wouldnt have been nearly as forward had I not shot there a few times before and knew the drill, but I have to wish you the best of luck getting the same reults in L.A. :)
 
Insurance?! Permits? That's why I like having the kids along. Who's gonna shut down a "school video project"?:thumbsup:
 
Neil Rowe said:
haha. Believe me, I wouldnt have been nearly as forward had I not shot there a few times before and knew the drill, but I have to wish you the best of luck getting the same reults in L.A. :)
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We'll see. By the way, I thought the Fallen was amazing. It was my favorite short in Dramafest.
 
insurance? permits? what?!?!?!?

if you have that kind of money, dump it into the production. nobody i know gets insurance or permits. you can still rent gear with a credit card deposit most places. indierentals hooks me up. i just rented an hvx package for 3 weeks from hd pioneers with no insurance.

as far as permits go i personally have never had any trouble. i have heard the stories people tell about confiscated gear, etc. but i have yet to see evidence to support it. for instance, 2 weeks ago we were shooting an ext. bar scene on the sidewalk from 8pm till 5am. it was right on melrose near vine, right in the middle of hollywood. we had lights, dolly, jib, 5 cast, 10 crew, and 10 background actors. we had a video cart, an audio cart, and a crafty table. it was a reasonably large set for a small indie project stealing shots on the street. we must have seen 20 cops pass throughout the night and never got so much as a glance.

keep in mind you can always get a film student to come p.a. for you for food and if someone does come around asking q's, just have him whip out his student card and tell them it's a student project........
 
just have him whip out his student card and tell them it's a student project........
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That's what I'm doing to help secure locations for free and to rent equipment from the college I just graduated from. My friend who is the lead actress is co-producing it with me and she still goes to school there, so we're using the "it's her film" line for anything involving locations and equipment.
 
JOE BLO said:
We'll see. By the way, I thought the Fallen was amazing. It was my favorite short in Dramafest.
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hey thanks. i thought there was a whole bunch of really great films this last time around, and i'm really anticipating viewing all of these soyfest shorts as well. uh ..and by soyfest.. i meant spyfest. ..one little typo and your sentence takes on a whole other meaning. :)
 
That's one of the reasons why I still have my college ID card... even though I graduated 7 years ago. It doesn't have a date on it. Student discounts at the movies and helps with fending off police when shooting my own. NEVER throw your student ID away.
 
Haha, the student thing works great. My friend and I did a shoot for an independent feature were working on at Santiago Canyon College in Tustin, CA last week and all we did was meet with the campus overseer (wasn't the dean, someone else), told him we were making a student film, and it was on. Totally legit, the security was even coming up asking us if we needed anything to ease the shoot.

All I did was type up an agreement basically stating that they would be free of liability over us and that we could use what weve recorded in our final product. Both parties signed, and all was gravy.
 
We just got our insurance and we also did all our apps for our permits. I think the insurance was just under $700 for a few weeks. The thing is, we thought about going gorilla, but we want to do to many FX shots and that makes it kind of hard when you are running from the man. We are still iffy on one local, but we applied for our back up location in the permits just in case. We already have verbal approval on that one so it makes for a nice back up. I have no problem going gorilla, but it is a nice feeling knowing that no one is going to give you grief about it when you go through the proper channels. Heck, we even reuqested a shot in City Hall, which the film comissioner said would be fine if we did it on a saturday. That's pretty cool... it is a neat location so it will add production value for sure.

My take is that if you don't do it the legal way, it may cause problems later if you want to show it and you need to produce releases and all of that.
 
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