Shooting in A liquor Store

C

Charlie06

Well-known member
Hey guys!

I'm doing D.P for a feature called The Appointment

We recently shot a scene in this liquor store outside chicago in some suburb.
Of course liquor stores are filled with hundreds of brand names everywhere, and it's nearly impossible to not have anything in the shot.

What are the legal issues with some of those brands showing at all?
 
I had the same issue. I just shot everything as is. and turned some of the bottles sideways for close up shots. Not really the right way, but we did not get sued. if you are using a 35mm adapter, you could set the shots up where the bottles are out of focus. or just turn as many around as you possibly can. It worked for us. If you drink some of the liquor it won't matter much anyway.
 
Not really related to brands and labels, but be careful if it's a robbery scene. I just saw something on the news last night where they were filming something in a convenience store and the cops showed up with guns drawn. Tt was a huge deal.
 
Hmmm

Hmmm

Alright!

Well I didn't have an adapter, shot iwth stock canon xh a1.
But I tried my best to keep them out of focus, or blocked out by heads. But some banners hanging off the ceiling just showed up.

I won't have to worry about any legal issues right?
Aren't they just..."there?"
Not focus of anything, just thing that are there....because it's a liquor store.
 
"Just coz it's there" will not deflect a lawsuit - e.g. Walt Disney could potentially sue your bottom off if you filmed a robbery in the Disney corner of a toy store. :)

That said, I'd have thought a booze maker would be unlikely to sue you unless the film in some way brings their brand into disrepute - to give a hypothetical example, if the clerk has their skull crushed in by a whiskey bottle, and the brand is clearly visible, the manufacturer might be rather upset with you. (Or might be delighted at the free publicity, depending on their intended marketing image - but the point is, you can't assume their reaction.) But if it's just a generic background which isn't involved in the action, and your film isn't a commercially released feature, they're probably not going to be too worried, in the unlikely event they ever see it.
 
Charlie06 said:
Alright!

Well I didn't have an adapter, shot iwth stock canon xh a1.
But I tried my best to keep them out of focus, or blocked out by heads. But some banners hanging off the ceiling just showed up.

I won't have to worry about any legal issues right?
Aren't they just..."there?"
Not focus of anything, just thing that are there....because it's a liquor store.
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You won't have to worry about "legal issues" as long as the film never approaches distribution. If it's only shown in festivals or in private, it's not an issue at all.

Any readable logos or trademarks will have to be cleared or blurred out if you ever want to sell or rent the film.

.
 
well then its the director and the producers problem and I meant it would be the art departments problem for future shoots. If you dont have an art department shoot with a shallow DOF as much as you can. Sometimes turning all the alcohal around isnt going to look natural. Plus Unless your telling a story about the alcohal behind the bar tender you dont need it in focus. It might be kinda distracting to keep everything in focus with that many things behind a person.
 
Sued on what basis?

What conceivably is the issue with showing labels? (I don t get it)

Get them to pay you for showing them - its called "product placement"
 
Shooter said:
Sued on what basis?

What conceivably is the issue with showing labels? (I don t get it)
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There are a multitude of reasons, and even trying to come up with a list of those reasons would be a daunting task. So let's just give a couple of examples:

1) if you're somehow trying to enhance your production by taking advantage of the product as an implied endorsement. So you so prominently feature Coke cans everywhere that any reasonable watcher would come to the conclusion that man, "Coke must have sponsored this" -- which gives implied legitimacy to your project when, in fact, they didn't. Which could be interpreted as taking advantage of Coke.

or

2) Associating their product with a negative image. Let's say you make a KKK film and you decide in this film that all KKK drinkers really, really, really like to drink Budweiser, and every time you show a Klan member he's got a Bud in his hand. I mean, go ahead and try that, you'll find yourself on the wrong side of an Anheiser Busch lawsuit VERY quickly.

Get them to pay you for showing them - its called "product placement"
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IF they want to be seen in your product, and if you ask permission, then yeah, go right ahead. But don't take someone's logo or design or reputation without permission. And respect that they may not mind you using their design but may not feel like paying for it either. Or maybe they'll go along with it and while they don't pay, they may even supply you with free product to put in your scenes. But the point is: ask. Don't just take.
 
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Give an art director a budget of a few $100 and you should be able to get a wall covered in "White Goose" vodka and "Swankeray" gin.

Remember what Bruce Willis smokes in Pulp Fiction? Red Apple Cigarettes.
 
There's a legal term called "Fair Use" and all indie film makers need to push the boundary on this. If a product happens to be secondary and is not prominent in the shots/scene then you're fine, just like cars driving by with Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota brands all over them, no one ever blurs those out, but those are trademark labels also. Why? because they're everywhere and a court would toss it out as being silly.

A few companies started playing games a few years back thinking they could get $ from artist for having their product in the shots [the reverse of product placement] and in some cases they have won, but under the Fair Use interpretation they don't have any such right as long as it's not prominently displayed, merely passing background. I urge all indie film makers to be adamant about fair use laws. This law is up to interpretation so don't let them push you around, assert your rights to the Public Domain. If we don't assert our rights then they will whither because the law leans toward those who are most vocal for the longest period of time [decades help].

Companies hate bad publicity, look at what jessie jackson does, pure intimidation & shakedown for money or he threatens massive protests by his rainbow coalition gang. So if we must, after being told we have to cut images etc... threaten them with bad press releases & jessie jackson type protesting [giant corporation attacks poor film artist, Big money kills little guy, etc...] that's after you know for sure your work falls safely under fair use boundaries and you talked to them kindly. We have a right to capture images of our public environment, it's our world.

On the other hand if the brand/product is in prominent, i.e., the bottle of Coke has nerve gas in it and is a main focus of the story, in that case you'd need a release from the authorized manager in the company that has legal power to grant such a release [this can be difficult sometimes for the comapny to answer] Not anyone from a company can sign a release.

You have the right to the fair use of images as long as they are passing background images.

The link below to the comic explaining the legal issues is excellent!

http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/digital.php
 
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10s said:
If a product happens to be secondary and is not prominent in the shots/scene then you're fine,

You have the right to the fair use of images as long as they are passing background images.
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Oh, no! This looks like it's going to become one of "those" threads!

I'm not going to add to it, except to say that we all need to read up on "Fair Use." And that you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT have the right to fair use of images "as long as they are passing background images." If you make money off the film that has those images, you can pretty much forget about a "fair use" defense.
 
Just to clarify my last post:
Yes, it's absurd that we have to turn bottles and soup cans around when we shoot, when they are just background and incidental, and we should fight that. But "fair use" is just the wrong defense for commercial projects.
 
It would be nice to know what was the deal in "The Gods must be Crazy". Why the heck would coca-cola allow them to use the brand in the movie?
 
ProfessorU said:
Give an art director a budget of a few $100 and you should be able to get a wall covered in "White Goose" vodka and "Swankeray" gin.

Remember what Bruce Willis smokes in Pulp Fiction? Red Apple Cigarettes.
Click to expand...


Exactly. Don't putz around with this stuff. If, somehow someone ends up with a saleable Indie film, having to deal with a bunch of recognizable logos, trademarks, and/or any other corporate marketing or promotional art can create serious issues with distributors, as in - reshoot the scenes or pay to get the materials cleared.

There are whole companies that deal only with "clearance" of such things for feature length films.

Avoid showing this stuff or you're asking for trouble ONLY if you might want to sell your film someday. A little tape, or marker action can go a long way towards keeping you legal, not to mention (as mentioned) positioning packaging so labels aren't visible (enough.)

As for this being a cinematography issue, it really is not at all. A producer gets actors to sign releases, right? It's also a producer's responsibility to (sometimes) get location releases, license music, and to get permission to show someones artwork or the aforementioned materials in a film.

If I was DP on a film and I went into a liquor store and I was expected to shoot scenes where this stuff was visible, is it MY problem? I don't think so, unless the director wants me to avoid showing any of it, then it definitely is a problem FOR me.

.
 
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