Filming at a bar. Do you have to clear all liquor bottles?

A

Angelshare1

Well-known member
So lets assume it's a fully stocked bar with 100 or so bottles on the backwall along with tap beer. Do you have to cover all these or get premission?

My film is a small independent production. I'm sure in Hollywood they clear everything.

What's an independent filmmaker to do?
 
If the logo is visible, then filming it is in fact reproducing it, which is trademark infringement. You could blur it, or bring black tape and cover the labels. You could simply turn them all around provided there is no reflection in a mirror.
 
Just shoot wide. You won't see the actual name on the bottles in the background.

I'm shooting a short in bar soon, and I'm not worried at all..Just block it out.

Robbie
 
My advice is to not showcase any specific liquors, but there are rules/laws regarding fair use relating to the environment. What i mean is, we all know what a Crown Royal bottle looks like even if the label is blurred, covered or turned around. or there will be beer signs/ Neons everywhere, just don't showcase them. So, if your gonna have a bar brawl ( I hope!) don't bust any easily identifiable bottles over someone's head. I would relabel anything your cast will be sipping on during dialog or close-ups. and don't mention any specific brands. for example:
BAD: jack n coke
GOOD: bourbon/whiskey n Cola

There is a detailed thread on this somewhere in this forum. an example i recall from the aforementioned thread is that, if you are shooting in a scene supermarket, and in the background is Kraft mac n cheese next to all the other mac n cheeses, you should be good. but as a fellow indy, I wouldn't sweat it one bit
 
The other day I was visiting a sitcom stage and they had ketchup bottles on the tables, they were turned around, but you could clearly see the heinz shape of them. Actually, they turned the bottles for us and they were heinz, but they just make sure you can't see the label, and that's it. Unless they have registered the shape, I think coca cola has the shape of its classical bottle registered.
 
This is totally insane. On one side companies pay for product placement, but when they got it for free they sue you?

Blurring stuff in a movie? Like they blur genitalia in Asian porn flicks?
What´s next? Blurring out license plates or faces on a street scene?

If there is one sign, that this society is on the downfall, than it is behavior like that.

Frank
 
It's all about "brand protection", i.e. Pepsi would probably be upset if you had some kind of evil character who was prominently seen sipping on one, even if you weren't trying to make any particular statement by having that scene.
 
Jeeeez! What a kindergarten.

They would be protect their brand better, if they wouldn´t use corn syrup and artificial sweeteners that make people sick.

Frank
 
just shoot with shallow DOF for certain scenes, and wide for others...it should be fine. it wouldn't hurt to have a bartender rearrange things a bit, but most tenders will not. depends if you're filming during open hours, or after.
 
Postmaster said:
Jeeeez! What a kindergarten.

They would be protect their brand better, if they wouldn´t use corn syrup and artificial sweeteners that make people sick.

Frank
Click to expand...

HAHA, I couldn't agree more. The processed food today is poison, red#40 to High fructose corn syrup. Most americans are clue less as they feed their kids poison in the form of food. Aspertame is one of the worst.
 
maranfilms said:
HAHA, I couldn't agree more. The processed food today is poison, red#40 to High fructose corn syrup. Most americans are clue less as they feed their kids poison in the form of food. Aspertame is one of the worst.
Click to expand...

It's not just Americans. Ever watch The Cove?
 
some of us are not clueless and know exactly what we feed our kids. why generalize? pointless, especially when the OP needs real advice.
 
Unless you have an actor simulating a sex act with a bottle with a lable showing, I wouldn't sweat it. Turn bottles, minimize, make a reasonable effort to avoid showcasing brands but don't lose any sleep over it. I have a friend that sold a film (very famous film) and that film had a scene from a famous foreighn film showing in the background (actually very prominently showcased in the scene), they just reshot/reedited the scene before it was distributed.
 
Chris Light said:
some of us are not clueless and know exactly what we feed our kids. why generalize? pointless, especially when the OP needs real advice.
Click to expand...

Yeah that stuff annoys me too. If we could all just laugh about it (and ourselves) as we freely generalize any other country or culture then I'd be fine with general statements... but it never goes that way... the same people that are comfortable stereotyping others never take kindly to being stereotyped themselves.

On topic with the OP... I think the first suggestion to blur out the liquor labels meant through shallow DOF. That's what I would do... just pull your actors out a bit and make sure any trademarks are lost in the DOF. If you had a lone coke can or something... you could still identify it... but generally speaking I'm sure you're not going to get in trouble by a "fuzzy" brand amongst all the other fuzzy brands.

Depending on the shot... and where the project is really going... you may not have to worry about this THAT much. If you think your project is going to be a real success and be seen by quite a few people... then just take the minimum necessary precautions.

I'm not supporting the other side of the argument, but let me give you an example for perspective... suppose you do an entry for thrillfest and you depict a gruesome murder in a suburban area at night... in the background we clearly see the golden arches glowing... at what point (if you owned a mcdonald's) would you take notice of that? Maybe if it were at an angle and wasn't clearly the big "M" you wouldn't care... maybe if the short film was so tasteful and made a point you agreed with you wouldn't care... OR, to take it to an extreme the other way... let's suppose that murder happens in a parking lot right next to micky-d's... and when the victim looks up at the killer, just as the hammer comes down... we see the giant glowing M over the killer's shoulder?

There's a line where you (as the McDonald's owner) may decide to act on the prevalence of your brand and the degree to which you were offended.

If you can't relate to that analogy... take EITHER side of any religion or abortion issue (something everybody is passionate about) and imagine your product seen clearly in a scene where somebody is making impassioned points that go directly against your feelings on the issue?

All I'm saying is... it's not that unreasonable to assume... if you don't want somebody getting into your business, then don't get into their business.

Do a soft focus... if the brands are too prominent... put the actors at an angle to increase the distance to the labels.
 
Yes you have to clear liquor bottles if logos are legible. One simple solution is to turn the bottles around so logos aren't visible. This can definitely bite you later on if this project is going to be sold and seen by people.

I've designed graphics for pill and liquor bottles before. It's actually fun to insert inside jokes or even throw in a reference to something else you've done before. Have fun with it.

Not sure how Pepsi and artificial sweeteners got into this discussion, but please keep the politics out of this thread.
 
If I´m getting sued because I display reality - and that is bottles, logos, people andwhatnot - what is the point of being a filmmaker?

Shoot only in artificial environments with fake products?

What´s next? Cars? Can I use a Cadillac if a killer is driving it?
I mean, hey everyone knows a Cadillac, even if you remove the logo?

How did Tatrantino got away with "Le BigMac?" Du you think they asked McDonalds?
You can see a bazillion logos in street scenes of every feature film - no one ever cares.

Those companies spend millions to make sure their logo is seen everywhere.
Call them beverage companies and ask them for money because of product placement.

Frank
 
It's really a paranoia curve: I've worked on large studio projects wherein we *had* items cleared for us and clearance ->still<- insisted upon blanking out nameplates and creating fake labels...because they are *that* gun-shy. Like a big military-espionage one-hour drama series on which Dell provided all of our on-set computers and monitors...and I had to send PAs to put black tape over all the Dell logos even though we had a product placement deal, with them. Like location shoots wherein McDonalds signs were visible in-background - and being filmed on public streets McDonalds actually had nothing to say about it one way or another - and we were still directed to mask or blur them in post.

I strongly suspect that 99 times out of every one hundred it will not matter one bit if you have trademarked material in your shots, and 98 time out of one hundred your characters can indulge in fifteen-minute-long soliloquies bashing the products by name - and no one will care. Not one bit. You will never hear a word about it. Ever.

Unless you do.
 
Y'all letting fear dictate your actions. Relax. Common sense will guide you through nearly every situation.

If a scene is supposed to be a bar, let it look like a bar and the actors that occupy the bar are the topic of that image.

Product placement is where the choice of framing makes the product become the topic of the image, not the actor.
 
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