I was doing some location recording and the police got involved...!

[Corran]

Just had to share this story with the Remote forum...

I got set up this morning to do a location shoot for a student film, in the woods behind a small group of houses. I was running almost 1500ft of mic cable to the scene, because I don't have a battery-powered location recorder so I was running it off my car battery. I am doing this movie for a friend (read: not very good pay) so I'm using whatever I have available. Anyway, we were just about to start when this old man comes up and asks what was going on. I was the only person around since everyone else was down the trail.

He insists that we shouldn't be here and this is private property. I tell him to go talk to the director. He starts to walk down but comes back out and says, "I'll just let the cops handle it." So he starts shuffling away and I tell him, it's just a student film, no big deal, but he won't stop.

So the jerk calls the cops and I had to call my friend and tell him to abort the shoot. We threw everything in my car (talk about a giant snaggle of mic cables ) and got the hell outta there. We could see a cop car coming down the street when we left. Hopefully they chastised the guy for making such an inane call.

Anyway, it was almost a funny experience. I don't know what I would have done if I had to explain to the authorities what all this equipment was...

[joelpatterson]

Your screenwriter couldn't have quickly improvised a storyline where the cops show up, out of the blue???

[Corran]

Ha, yeah, that would be great. Though a scene from "Cops" would be a little outta place in this movie; it's all about "the environment" and "destroying nature," typical student film I'd say.

[joelpatterson]

Sounds like they destroyed the nature of your morning, anyway!

You could put the cops in super slow-motion, and then have ominous Bach organ music droning on underneath... ah, I could been a student film-maker!...

[tnjazz]

I don't get it. Why did you cut and run before the cops came? Were you actually trespassing on private property?

[Corran]

Apparently so. It was just tucked behind the little neighborhood, and I guess was owned by some person or another rather than the state/county.

[MiserableSod]

You need to check this sort of thing out beforehand. ****ing amateurs.

[Corran]

Tell the director man, I'm just the sound guy.

[Remoteness]

IMO, director or no director, you still should look into things like that or at least ask a few simple questions.

You folks could have got into a serious mess for doing nothing intentionally wrong.

[Corran]

I hear you. I told the director today not to do that again, especially when it takes me a little while to pack up and such.

Anyway, I just thought it was a little funny...no harm no foul, I guess.

[Remoteness]

I hear you, but you folks are lucky that guy didn't take things into his own hands and do something that could not be reversed.

[jacobfarron]

We've all had to "steal shots" before. I remember walking around in a mall several years ago with a riducously huge jacket covering an X5 and four 411's. The cam op had an HDX900 with I forget what covering it up. Haha. We looked insane. But it was a reality show, and the talent had decided to dart into a mall to do some shopping - no heads up, no time to do anything.

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by Corran

Just had to share this story with the Remote forum...

I got set up this morning to do a location shoot for a student film, in the woods behind a small group of houses. I was running almost 1500ft of mic cable to the scene, because I don't have a battery-powered location recorder so I was running it off my car battery. I am doing this movie for a friend (read: not very good pay) so I'm using whatever I have available. Anyway, we were just about to start when this old man comes up and asks what was going on. I was the only person around since everyone else was down the trail.

He insists that we shouldn't be here and this is private property. I tell him to go talk to the director. He starts to walk down but comes back out and says, "I'll just let the cops handle it." So he starts shuffling away and I tell him, it's just a student film, no big deal, but he won't stop.

So the jerk calls the cops and I had to call my friend and tell him to abort the shoot. We threw everything in my car (talk about a giant snaggle of mic cables ) and got the hell outta there. We could see a cop car coming down the street when we left. Hopefully they chastised the guy for making such an inane call.

Anyway, it was almost a funny experience. I don't know what I would have done if I had to explain to the authorities what all this equipment was...

how would you respond to a bunch of strangers in your yard?

that is what permits are for- and insurance- something obviously not taken care of ahead of time.

[Corran]

Actually it wasn't his yard, just a trail leading off into woods at the end of a dead-end road. It was not his land.

[Remoteness]

Awesome, so why did you folks flee?

[Corran]

I guess the director didn't want to deal with the police. I think he said that the land was not a public park or anything, it's just not developed, so technically I guess we were trespassing. But then so is any resident of the neighborhood who takes an evening hike down the trail that was there.

[Remoteness]

If nothing else, it was a drag that everyones time and efforts did not pay off.

[videoteque]

It reminds me of an amateur shortfilm we were shooting more than ten years ago in the Madrid subway...

We got "caught" by the private security guys and they stopped us and controlled our IDs. One of them said: "You are not shooting a shortfilm, police is not stupid".

[ONDRAY]

well if you're tresspassing, i'd bolt too.

But on the opposite side of the spectrum. I was on a shot for an indie film downtown Toronto. The scene was to shot a car driving down the street. I was in the van with the trunk open where the camera was filming the car behind it, and we were driving down the street shooting. We drove to Yonge st downtown (one of the main streets.), and some cops were their. I don’t know what happened or if we got lucky and accidently interrupted another film during their break. But the cops stopped traffic and escorted us to the end of the street, stopping traffic for us.

Why I don’t know. I think the cops thought we were part of the other film shoot in the area and they were hired for the shoot. We were lucky, nothing happened, they actually helped. LOL

[bishopthomas]

I was shut down by the NYC cops on Friday. We were providing sound for an arts festival in a park. As scheduled, we started at noon with a poetry reading. A few minutes later a city official shows up and informs us that we cannot use the PA until 3:00 and have to end by 7:00. Apparently the promoter "didn't know" that the permit only allowed four hours of amplification. It was a three day festival, so you can guess how the rest of the weekend went...

[Remoteness]

Man, that blows!

So, am I to assume that no one (the client that is) read the permit restrictions?

[bishopthomas]

I would think that anyone who knows of the hoops to jump through to obtain a permit would realize the restrictions involved. I'm not sure what happened, but I have a guess. The "organizers" of the event were nowhere to be found, if that sheds a little light on things.

[Samc]

If I'm going to be in a position where I could be legally liable for ANYTHING, or if I'm bringing a lot of expensive equipment to a gig outside a regular venue, I would need to have a copy of all necessary permits.

I'm not willing, and don't want to pay for someone else's ****up.

[musikwerks]

Your producer should be fired for not getting the appropriate location clearances. Whilst it sucks you set up for nothing, those above you should know better.

[zoom]

for my last project the police was involved too. but in a very pleasant way.
our producer got the permission to film at the location from the town government and they required the police for security reasons. so we got two guys from the local police for that day and had a very comfortable work! they kept people and cars away from our filmset and they liked to have such a nice job that day. we didn't need to pay them - i think this is the way how it goes... ;-)

[postdigital]

get outa here ye dang terrorists

[ngarjuna]

Reminds me of a funny occurrence from film school...

We were shooting in Manhattan (near Time's Square pre-Giulani). At Times Square was a giant, big-budget Arnold shoot (I believe it was the Last Action Hero), complete with cranes and explosives and a big crowd waiting around to see if Arnold would show up.

We were a couple blocks away, but somebody noticed and the next thing you knew, there was a mob of people harassing our (somewhat conspicuously) student-looking crew. When the cops noticed that people were swarming on our little shoot, they came over and escorted everyone back behind the sidewalk line and asked them to please give us some quiet. They must have assumed we were second unit or something (yeah, because most Arnold shoots have a second unit of 19 year olds running around with an old/abused Arriflex).

Thank goodness someone had permits for our little shoot; granted, not us, but it all worked out in the long run.

[KingDaddyO]

Instead of telling him to 'talk to the director' (which he didn't seem to appreciate ) you might have tried explaining to him what you were doing, and that you & your friends didn't mean to cause any concern. Even an apology would not have been out of line. He might have been willing to back down once he understood what was going on - especially if you were to show him a little respect. Who knows - he might have even found it interesting, maybe not ... but as a property owner, I imagine he had a brief internal dialogue which went something like this:

'Go talk to the director? ... like hell. Now where'd I put that dadburn shotgun?'.

[Corran]

I'm surprised I see this getting bumped...

Trust me, all kinds of explanations were given, he was just being a grumpy old man.

Oh and if we fired the producer we wouldn't have a movie since he's the guy who started this project.

[Remoteness]

I would have fired the "grumpy old man" instead...
He didn't seem to fit the plot of the story anyway.