Would you shoot on a busy street without permission ?

Ask_the_dusk

Ask_the_dusk

Member
Hello to all,

I'm not sure, probably that queatinon was asked before, but nevertheless I need a fresh output on it.

I'm making my first short and planing to shoot a scene on a busy street. My character is walking among other pedestrians. I need to do an establishing shot of the street, then shoot him with steady cam as he walk towards us. There is no dialogue so there wont be a boom attracting attention.
I need some ideas of how to not show recognizable faces when I do the edit.

And lastly, if you where directing it would you shoot without a permit in such situation?

Many thanks in advance
 
I don't know about the cops in your area but ours will take you to JAIL for trespassing if they feel like it. Why not get a location permit?
 
Accidents happen!
Having a permit and insurance are a good thing.
The last thing you need is for your Steadicam op to accidentally trip because of an imperfection in the sidewalk, falling on a pedestrian mother holding her baby, causing a gash in the babies head and knocking out a couple of the mothers teeth. You would be held liable!
Good Luck with your choice!

Dave
 
Since shorts are a good learning tool for larger projects, crowd scenes can give you the opportunity to work with extras and have the opportunity to learn how to work with an Assistant Director (AD), who normally looks after coordinating all the extras.
 
If your film is not for commercial use you don't really need a permit or need to be concerned about peoples faces. As long as you are not stopping traffic or causing a nuisance I wouldn't be too worried about it. I shot a whole feature on 16mm on the L.A. streets (near, on and around the beach areas) and was seen by the L.A.P.D. a number of times and never had a problem. But we only had 1 guy on a camera and never did sound outside. I avoided reflectors too. I was worried about it but nothing ever came of it. I actually once rigged a street with Home Depot lights at night and 200 feet of extension cord. Some cops came by looking for someone who had evaded them and asked what I was doing. I told them "filming a car going down the street", they stayed to watch me film it and thought it was cool.

Just say something like, "I just bought this camera and am testing it out". If it's you, a guy on a Steadicam and someone walking down the street you are not seen as a film crew.
 
Ask_the_dusk said:
Hello to all,

I'm not sure, probably that queatinon was asked before, but nevertheless I need a fresh output on it.

I'm making my first short and planing to shoot a scene on a busy street. My character is walking among other pedestrians. I need to do an establishing shot of the street, then shoot him with steady cam as he walk towards us. There is no dialogue so there wont be a boom attracting attention.
I need some ideas of how to not show recognizable faces when I do the edit.

And lastly, if you where directing it would you shoot without a permit in such situation?

Many thanks in advance
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Absent the steady cam, I'd probably shoot a 'simple guy walking' shot on a city street 'guerrilla' style... any more 'equipment', and that would be a cue for people in the background/surround to start 'acting' doing the 'high mom' or whatever...

A famous 'unpermited' shot occurs in Hitchcock's "North by Northwest"(1959), where Hitchcock could not get permission to shoot the UN building... so he had the camera setup in a van across the street, and shot the arrival of Cary Grant at the UN to 'place' the action. The actual interiors of the "UN" where shot elsewhere...
 
WhiteMonkey said:
I don't know about the cops in your area but ours will take you to JAIL for trespassing if they feel like it. Why not get a location permit?
Click to expand...

Like most things relative to film... getting a location permit is usually not a matter of walking in, filling out a form, and getting a permit... In my area, one has to have enough of a 'business' to have a business insurance policy, and put the 'city' (or which ever governmental entity) as a rider on that insurance police, usually for a cost of $500, depending, etc... Even if it is just a guy walking on the streets... no traffic control, or fire, or whatever... Then there's LA which is worse...

If a scene isn't anything more than a guy walking... no additional 'movie personel', other than the camera person and the single talent... why pay a governmental entity, have to hassel with the paperwork, etc...

I could be inclined to go through the permit BS if there was a significant impact on The City... or County, or Backcountry, or whatever...

It is even worse... even if you are on 'private property' entirely, technically you are required to get a permit in most So Cal jurisdictions...

My personal 'standard' would be if one made no more of an impact than a 'tourist' shooting a building, or whatever, then no permit should be required...
 
I warrant no responsibility. This is my opinion and should you follow it, you may face legal repercussions. Should you act on this YOU DO SO TAKING FULL RESPONSIBILITY. My opinion does not reflect in any way the opinion of DVXUSER.

But seriously? Just do it. Find a public street so your'e not on private property. Never make Joe Public the subject of your shot. Have someone lead your steadicam. Rehearse with your actor somewhere off street so he has it down. Go in shoot - get the shot - get out.
 
Noel Evans said:
I warrant no responsibility. This is my opinion and should you follow it, you may face legal repercussions. Should you act on this YOU DO SO TAKING FULL RESPONSIBILITY. My opinion does not reflect in any way the opinion of DVXUSER.

But seriously? Just do it. Find a public street so your'e not on private property. Never make Joe Public the subject of your shot. Have someone lead your steadicam. Rehearse with your actor somewhere off street so he has it down. Go in shoot - get the shot - get out.
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Haha, way to cover your legal basis there. Sad state of litigious affairs in the US!
 
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Noel Evans said:
I warrant no responsibility. This is my opinion and should you follow it, you may face legal repercussions. Should you act on this YOU DO SO TAKING FULL RESPONSIBILITY. My opinion does not reflect in any way the opinion of DVXUSER.

But seriously? Just do it. Find a public street so your'e not on private property. Never make Joe Public the subject of your shot. Have someone lead your steadicam. Rehearse with your actor somewhere off street so he has it down. Go in shoot - get the shot - get out.
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LOL Noel!
 
Make an effort not to get in anyone's way when filming, that will minimise your chances of being arrested/fined/whatever. In fact, the ideal way to film this would be early on a Sunday morning on a deserted city street, with lots of your friends playing pedestrians.

Re avoiding recognisable faces in the final footage (which i strongly recommend), simply keeping a shallow focus will mostly fix this (although will also be more difficult for keeping your actor in focus). If you end up with a few passing pedestrians briefly in recognisable focus, I suggest applying a blur to their faces for those few frames - done well, it won't be noticeable in the final shot.
 
clang said:
Make an effort not to get in anyone's way when filming, that will minimise your chances of being arrested/fined/whatever. In fact, the ideal way to film this would be early on a Sunday morning on a deserted city street, with lots of your friends playing pedestrians.

Re avoiding recognisable faces in the final footage (which i strongly recommend), simply keeping a shallow focus will mostly fix this (although will also be more difficult for keeping your actor in focus). If you end up with a few passing pedestrians briefly in recognisable focus, I suggest applying a blur to their faces for those few frames - done well, it won't be noticeable in the final shot.
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I also thought about shooting it with crew members posing as pedestrians. But problem is that I need the establishing shot over the busy street , since the hero walks, then he turns and sees the street deserted ( empty, not a soul ). So I planed to soot this in a busy street at night, then return later when there is nobody and do the shot from the same mark , which the previous should cut to.

As to recognisable faces, you are write. I don't want some well off maniac seeing himself on film and hiring some fancy lawyer to sue me, just because he can, even if nothing comes from case like this.
 
I remember during college, when we went to New York to shoot the short films that we'd been tasked with writing, we were told by our tutors that it was important that we go to the Mayor's office & obtain permits for the shoot, otherwise we might face having our equipment seized by the police. So off we went & subsequently spent two days waiting around there, filling in forms & highlighting on maps exactly where we'd be shooting & when - only to find out that the Mayor's office could not get any kind of insurance info from the college back in England & that we would not be able to get our permits afterall.

I since found out afterwards (and suspected anyway), that our college didn't even have any insurance in place for this and that it WOULD NOT have been necessary for us to have permits because our films were not for commercial use. So that was two out of four days wasted on trying to get permits & as a result we only got about half of the footage that we needed & had to attempt to make the streets of Birmingham, England - look like New York City when we got back (which is not easy at all).

So, in short - if you're not planning on selling this (and even if you are, but are going 'indie' with it) - I suggest you just follow the advice that plenty of others on here have given & just go & shoot whatever you can get away with. Just explain that you're just filming for a hobby.
 
I shot a short film while I was at UCLA wherein we needed to frame the shot from the middle of a busy street. On a Friday. In LA.

So there I was in the middle of said busy street with a tripod and camera right on the double yellow lines with traffic going around me. At one point, a cop car pulled right by and we all froze only to see them pull up a few hundred feet away, laugh at what we were doing, and go on with their lives.

My point is, I definitely wouldn't worry about the recognizable face part and frankly, permits are annoying. Warner Herzog would advise that you fake one if you really need it (seriously) but the police have a lot better things to do than to bother indie filmmakers who are shooting permit-less. And part of the romantic appeal of indie/guerilla filmmaking is the stories like that you can tell later.
 
rahulvictor said:
I shot a short film while I was at UCLA wherein we needed to frame the shot from the middle of a busy street. On a Friday. In LA.

So there I was in the middle of said busy street with a tripod and camera right on the double yellow lines with traffic going around me. At one point, a cop car pulled right by and we all froze only to see them pull up a few hundred feet away, laugh at what we were doing, and go on with their lives.

My point is, I definitely wouldn't worry about the recognizable face part and frankly, permits are annoying. Warner Herzog would advise that you fake one if you really need it (seriously) but the police have a lot better things to do than to bother indie filmmakers who are shooting permit-less. And part of the romantic appeal of indie/guerilla filmmaking is the stories like that you can tell later.
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I should supplement all that by saying if you have a $30 mil budget, sure, get some permits and insurance.
 
Binary77 said:
So, in short - if you're not planning on selling this (and even if you are, but are going 'indie' with it) - I suggest you just follow the advice that plenty of others on here have given & just go & shoot whatever you can get away with. Just explain that you're just filming for a hobby.
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Then if you do try and sell it, the distributor's going to want releases from every recognizable face, or else no sale. Also car license tags, signs and logos on buildings and vehicles (especially if they have phone numbers) are going to need releases.
 
"the distributor's going to want releases ... Also car license tags, signs and logos on buildings and vehicles (especially if they have phone numbers) are going to need releases."
​
A distributor may want all that, but for a short it's probably moot.

One of the clearance lawyer blogs said something to the effect... logos on buildings, if they're in the background and you shoot from a public area (the street) can be used without permission. The logos shouldn't be the focus of the shot, or the subject of the scene however. Incidental things in the background can be allowed (ask your own lawyer). Things that the filmmaker places in the shot however are treated differently (if you have you actor place a soda can with a logo, it would be a different case).
 
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