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If you're thinking about doing like this guy did, please don't. Film crews are incredibly overworked, underpaid and work in absolutely terrible conditions. Fil

• TheBlerch 4y ago
  Appreciate a good film production documentary recommendation. Any suggestions? My partner worked in film and described sets - love to learn more about how a larger production functions. I think good film production teams require incredible organization and coordination skills and processes.
• gaws 4y ago
  We get it. You already made this comment: https://nibblestew.blogspot.com/2022/07/that-time-when-i-accidentally-social.html?showComment=1659041721982#c4306836029498830041 https://nibblestew.blogspot.com/2022/07/that-time-when-i-acc... The author responded: > In case it was not obvious from the text, I did not do either of these things. No-one else should either.
• reachableceo 4y ago
  • jjulius 4y ago
    >Oh please. Stop trying to be a hero. It's pathetic. This isn't much better.
  • flanbiscuit 4y ago
    disregard my comment, I took the parent comment too seriously and didn't get the joke/sarcasm. big whoosh over my head. d'oh! > I even chilled in the command center of a multi agency response to a bank robbery with hostages. Met the head of FBI LA SWAT and senior leadership of FBI LA office. wow. That's some real lack of security. What if the bank robbers had someone on the outside who did this and was sending text messages back to the robbers of everything they heard in the command center. That would be really smart of the robbers actually. So the fact that they allowed a stranger to wander into the command center and 'chill' with them is concerning.
    • JTbane 4y ago
      That would make a great heist film: the accomplice gaining access to the local PD and ensuring the team doesn't get caught.
    • dennisnedry 4y ago
      I believe the parent is being sarcastic.
  • deleted 4y ago
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• SkipperCat 4y ago
  Agreed. I don't know why but for some reason, more people feel like they need to be the main character in an adventure. Maybe it's TikTok or who knows what. Either way, I'm sure if some rando walked into their life and started messing with their work, they'd be quite miffed. I live in NYC and I see film crews all the time. I love the fact that it happens here because it's one of those things that makes NYC so neat. But it's like the zoo. You're encouraged to watch from a distance but please don't jump into the animal's enclosure.
• garyfirestorm 4y ago
  I don’t understand what exactly did this guy do wrong. He simply observed and chatted with someone and reported what he saw. When someone asked to leave, he left. What’s the problem here exactly?
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  • wrd 4y ago
    Walking onto a set without permission is inconsiderate and disruptive because the crew is working very, very hard to make something happen and his presence isn't helpful. He effectively got lucky that he didn't mess something up and accidentally force the crew to work longer and harder than they have to. There's a reason the entire job of some production assistants is just to keep random people off set.
    • rhoeft 4y ago
      The title kinda makes it sound like he tricked someone to let him on a set, but if you read the story he was watching from a distance and then they started setting up where he was standing. He just stood still until he was asked to move. He employed the same "social engineering" tactics as a frightened hare.
    • rascul 4y ago
      > He effectively got lucky that he didn't mess something up and accidentally force the crew to work longer and harder than they have to. You got that backwards. It's the film crew that got lucky, since they apparently didn't provide any indication that he shouldn't be in a place he is otherwise allowed to be.
• 627467 4y ago
  How is this topmost comment? > If you're thinking about doing like this guy did, please don't. The author starts by stating: > The area did not seem to be closed off so obviously I went in to take a closer look. And > I was probably there for around 30 minutes or so until someone finally asked me if I was part of the crew and then kindly asked me to leave which I did. Does one need to go through life like they are stepping on eggshells?
  • EUROCARE 4y ago
    Are you a machine? This is how machines act. "NO BOUNDARY DETECTED - PROCEEDING!" without any context awareness. Why not instead be considerate and respectful for others' work by not ruining it? Road workers don't always have perfect boundaries and yet I hope you don't just go step into their paint while reciting your constitutional rights. This is the same thing without the paint.
    • mrob 4y ago
      The work was not ruined. The film crew were working in a public space that the blog's author apparently had every right to be in. If they wanted to avoid any possibility of interaction with the public then they could have built a private set, but filming on a public street was presumably cheaper. I don't see why an uninvolved third party should have their rights curtailed just to save some corporation money.
      • EUROCARE 4y ago
        Public areas can be very easily closed off if you ask the local government, most have a form ready for it, it's very usual - and at that point you have absolutely zero rights to be there, it's trespassing. It's most likely this was the case there as well, they wouldn't be able to setup the whole shop there otherwise. And it's not cheaper, it's actually much more expensive - but the result is better. Corporations aren't the only ones making movies, btw. And the whole "but my rights" talk when it's about a person who could've just taken a different street makes me laugh, nothing else. Is that really how you think about your day to day life, or is it just a post-facto rationalization?
• krisoft 4y ago
  > If you're thinking about doing like this guy did, please don't. idk. Obviously don't be in other people's way, don't climb fences, don't lie to security, don't "social engineer" your way in, and if someone asks you politely to leave leave. This is in fact what has happened. Once they figured out that he doesn't belong they asked him to leave and he left. But if it is true what he writes the set was just a public street and he just walked up to them unimpeded. I don't see a problem with that. If it is a problem for the crew they should get fences and security to block people's way.
• jacquesm 4y ago
  I've lived in Toronto and more than once accidentally found myself on a badly demarcated set near the Carpet Factory (which is used every other week for a shoot it seems because filming in Canada is cheaper than in the USA and it is large enough that you can pan a camera without immediately having a couple of modern buildings in view). The degree to which this inconvenienced the locals was quite high, we didn't get any compensation at all for this use of the space that we were already paying for and more than once were unable to leave or enter the building because some hotshot director wanted to do things all over again. Whether film crews are underpaid and overworked or not is really none of my concern, it is up to them to stand up for their rights and whether they work in terrible conditions or not I can't verify but I can tell you that what they spent on catering in a day probably dwarfs the budget of some African countries to feed thousands of times more people (and don't get me started on the amount of stuff they threw away afterwards). So if someone accidentally walks on to a set then that's just too bad. Some people have a life and/or a job and that counts as well.
  • Cd00d 4y ago
    It's possible you are compensated for this though. It's not unlikely that the shoot pays your locality for the inconvenience and in turn your taxes are lower than they may otherwise be.
    • softfalcon 4y ago
      I live in Canadian city, I know some of the officials for my city who manage the budgeting and scheduling for film crews in our city. I also know some of the music and film production studios that are hired out for these shoots. We are also one of the primary cities for filming in Canada. I know for a fact that we subsidize film production into our city. Us tax payers literally pay money to the film companies to subsidize their costs. They do not pay us or our city. The idea is that this would promote more use of local businesses. It does not usually work out that way though. A bunch of investigative reporting has been done in our local news that indicates that the majority of the companies filming here do not even hire local businesses, even going as far as to have their food frozen and flown in with their gear because they can treat it as a subsidized cost. In short, they frequently do not help our community, they actively tie up our streets, don't employ local businesses, and exploit our tax system to make a profit on their shoots. Never underestimate corporate greed and its ability to subvert tax laws for their own gain. To make matters worse, from the folks I know who run local film, recording, catering, etc, they indicate that they have to aggressively cut their prices down and make almost no profit because the corporations hiring them are unscrupulous in negotiation. If they don't cave to their demands, they corporation walks away and brings in their own stuff from outside the province/Canada and writes it off as further subsidized costs.
• IncRnd 4y ago
  > Film production isn't a secret. You can watch a documentary on it, read about it in forums or even get permission to observe a film shoot where they'll place you safely out of the way. From the article: All in all if you ever get the chance to observe a film crew in operation I highly recommend it. It is a better "making of" experience than any professionally produced featurette or documentary. > There are much better ways to satisfy this curiosity than just walking onto a set. Next time consider putting the set in a private location instead of literally in a public square. Everyone gets the benefit of entering such a public location.
  • mrandish 4y ago
    > It is a better "making of" experience than any professionally produced featurette or documentary. This shouldn't be true but, sadly, it probably is. Many "Making of"-type docs and featurettes used to actually show interesting things about how the film was made. As someone with extensive experience in video and film production, I always found these fascinating. In fact, seeing some of these as a kid strongly influenced the fact I worked in the technical end of production. However, for at least the past decade, outside of a few trade-specific publications, the vast majority of such docus feature very little that's not obvious about how something was made. These things now focus almost exclusively on celebrity actors because they have the broadest appeal to the mass market public and such docus are funded by the distributing studio's marketing dept. The rare exceptions are some massive-budget, effects heavy, blockbusters which already have huge fandoms where the marketers have enough budget and perceived interest to fund the creation of real behind-the-scenes, making-of content. A good example is some of content released around The Lord of the Rings trilogy which actually focused on individual aspects of production not directly involving the actors. As someone with a lot of production experience, I should add that I disagree with the idea that "just walking onto a set and watching" is a good way to learn anything - or even very interesting. I have a tween who was fascinated by movie production, until I actually took her to some movie sets where she got to experience just how slow and boring the process can be to watch. Hours of rigging, lighting and camera tests for two minutes of shooting, which you often can't clearly see from most places on the set other than directly behind the camera, and it's rare to be able to hear any significant dialog unless you're almost in the shot. Frankly, even I find visiting a set as an observer pretty boring (other than seeing old co-workers and friends), and I actually understand and like the arcane technical aspects of production like lens focal lengths, color temps, etc. I'd much rather watch a well-produced, insightful docu which shows the gear and setups being used edited together with through-the-camera results and narrated by the technical crew when they aren't busy actually working. Unfortunately, that kind of content is all-too-rare these days and most featurettes called "Making-of..." are 90% celebrity actor/director interviews focused on the marketing team's talking points about the film slapped over a little behind-the-scenes B-roll.
• prmoustache 4y ago
  On the other hand they act like they owned the street and you have no rights to be there. I have been annoyed by a film crew filming a netflix series for 2 x 5 days this spring around my house and it was fucking annoying. From the screetching tires and the horrible smell of that saab 900 they had chosen for one of the main character while I was on videocalls, to preventing me from actually leave my house and start my motorbike to do some errands and leave cigarette butts in front of my door. Not a single warning a few days before so I can accomodate nor a compensation for the annoyance. Additionnally it may not be entirely the fault of tge film set but the police would put signs only the night before and tow all cars still parked in the street the next morning. Nice for the people not in town or who simply don't use their car everyday.
  • rubylark 4y ago
    Isn't the issue with your city, then? It's not like the film crew just annexed your street without asking anybody. Your city council approved it, likely after several public hearings. At least that's how it worked in my small hometown 25 years ago when a major Hollywood film shot there. They made a mess scattering dish soap on the streets and river front to look like snow and closed a public park for a few weeks. Lots of people were angry, but at the city council, not the camera people. The film crew only did it after a bunch of people in charge told them they could.
    • TremendousJudge 4y ago
      >Your city council approved it, likely after several public hearings “But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.” “Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.” “But the plans were on display . . .” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” “With a flashlight.” “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” “So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’”
• analyst74 4y ago
  > Film crews are incredibly overworked, underpaid and work in absolutely terrible conditions. People get into the arts by choice, nobody chooses to work in films because they're starving. It's weird to feel sorry for people who get to do their dream jobs. > Film production is an intricate machine that requires everything to be perfectly in place in order to get a shot and things very frequently go wrong even without random people walking on set and gumming up the works. I've been on filmsets and have the opposite impression. While they have a script that describes the set, most of it is actually improvised. As long as you don't get into the shot, or disrupt people doing work, you are not affecting the production.
  • Hnaomyiph 4y ago
    Lots of people choose their industry. I have heard endless complaints from fellow devs about being overworked and burnt out. I think it’s okay to point out when conditions are rough even if you’re getting paid to do the thing you wanted to do.
• deleted 4y ago
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• andrew_ 4y ago
  As the author responded to you on your comment on their post; they did none of the things you're baselessly accusing them of. Bad form.
• tjs8rj 4y ago
  Film productions don’t do a good job of engendering good will. Too frequently have they popped up on my street out of no where and tried to prevent me from walking to my home because they are filming in front of it. Unless they are compensating people for the headache they cause, their not much more than an annoyance to a community they don’t even live in.