That time when I accidentally social engineered myself to a film set
nibblestew.blogspot.comI once was leaving my work studio space in north Brooklyn and there was a pretty large shoot happening a block away. I had my headphones on and was going to a bodega on the corner before heading home, not really paying attention to the shoot itself because you sort of get desensitized to it living in NYC.
As I'm walking all of a sudden I notice that J Lo was a few feet from me with cameras on her, clearly in the middle of a scene they were actively filming. I play it cool and walk into the bodega, where the film monitors were setup and people were watching the live feed. Some guy -- I read him as the DP -- goes "hey nice work, you're background?" to which I respond "oh, no man, I'm just buying something". They shut the whole scene down, because clearly I had no contract and ruined the shot, and as I walk out of the bodega J Lo is just looking at me smiling.
Some PA totally got fired that day.
Moments like that make me wonder what would have happened if you’d just answered “yes”.
One of the Star Trek films included a moment where they asked a bunch of extras some question. She wasn't supposed to answer, but nobody told her that, so she replied totally normally. I mean, they were back in time in the "present day" (for when it was filmed) so her answer made sense for the scene.
They loved it and kept the shot, but then realized- whoever this was, she now had a spoken part in the film! They had to find her, get her to join the actors guild, and then pay her some minimum amount for having a line in the film.
I'm sure someone will reply now with the correct version of this story, the woman's name, which Star Trek film it was, and a link to proof of this all.
Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home. That I can tell you off the top of my head because I remember the scene you are talking about.
But the rest of the story requires reading: https://legendsrevealed.com/entertainment/2016/02/25/did-a-w...
>So they had her sign up for the Screen Actors Guild (everyone who has a line in a film has to be a member)
Anyone know why this is? Why a person uttering a line must be part of a guild? Is this a U.S. thing, or international?
Also, why aren't the talks of unions here on HN using the world guild? Union? Meh. Guild? Yeah! Developers would flock to be part of a Developers Guild.
Edit: Answer to first questions:
https://www.quora.com/Are-all-actors-and-actresses-part-of-t...
>SAG-AFTRA is a USA union. There are many many hundreds of thousands of actors in other countries around the world. Other countries have unions too. Some, like SAG-AFTRA are strong and look out for actors’ interests very well. They may also act as gatekeepers and insist that their members have a certain standard and professionalism. There are plenty of countries where unions have little strength and actors are bullied and have next to no bargaining power. American actors have a lot to be thankful for.
> Anyone know why this is? Why a person uttering a line must be part of a guild? Is this a U.S. thing, or international?
Because the guild has an agreement with the studio that only guild members can have speaking roles.
Joining the guild is pretty straight-forward. It's a lot less work than the typical whiteboard interview.
Note that in general it's obnoxiously hard to get in, and that screws people over all the time. It'd be nice if the general case was being able to join when it makes sense...
Maybe it's just my family because my dad worked in Alameda for a while, but at least for us that's the most quoted line in the movie!
Everything would have just kept going along? If he wasn't just a random guy and was actually supposed to be there, there wouldn't have been anything to worry about.
Accidentally walked through the set of The Devil Wears Prada who were set up to film on around 5th Avenue and West 55th, fortunately they weren't filming. They had a really nice craft services table. Hopefully no one got fired.
could they have offered you a contract at that point to save the shot?
Nah. OP _almost_ finessed his mistake, almost.
What the subtext says to me is that the assistant director, or whoever OP talked to, was well aware that OP was just some rando passing through, (probably through experience working in cities), and not a unionized member of SAG. The “nice work” comment was an opportunity for OP to say, ‘uh huh’ and float the director enough plausible deniability to salvage the shot. As soon as he said, “no”, it’s cut and reshoot. Probably not a big deal, but worth a shot (pun intended) from the director.
Yeah, this is how I read it as well. The fact that I was trying to buy something from the bodega owner is I think what tipped them off that I wasn't supposed to be there. The place was clearly closed for regular business.
They definitely didn't want to have to call 'cut' in that moment -- you've already set up the shot and have J Lo (and I think Ray Liotta) doing their thing. Starting over isn't ideal (but probably not a huge deal).
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. 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.
Distracting people or touching / moving things can absolutely hold up a shot and bring the entire set to a halt. The result of that is you'll end up keep a very tired crew out for much longer than they need to be. It can also easily cost a production assistant their job.
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. There are much better ways to satisfy this curiosity than just walking onto a set.
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.
This literally happened to my neighbour when a film crew came into our neighbourhood.
My neighbour was out of town, off vacationing with their family. They had a large family with several kids, so they had a good 2 or 3 cars parked around the front of their home.
The film crew had mandated that all cars needed to be cleared from the set. So absolutely no cars on the street. They went around asking people to move all their cars down to the school parking lot a couple blocks away. My neighbours weren't home to hear this or even be notified.
The set director (I think that must be who they were cause they yelled a lot at everyone) was cursing at my neighbour's home, waving hands angrily, and called a tow truck to move all of the neighbour's cars. A person came to ask if we knew where they were or had their contact number. We told them they were out of town.
They did not move the cars back. School re-opened after the long weekend, neighbour got fined for parking tickets down at the school. Came back home to missing vehicles, called the cops, freaked out, eventually found their cars down at the school, had to pay over $500 in parking fines, one of their cars had even been towed down to the impound lot for improper parking on a private space.
It was a gigantic mess. Doubt the film crew cares, they were long gone and probably not even in the country by the time my neighbour was capable of filing a grievance with them.
In NY the film crews out up emergency no parking signs 2-3 days in advance which 1) are issued by the police; 2) describe the time and date of the shooting and name of the production; 3) list the name of a production assistant in charge and a cell phone number. Seems like a pretty good compromise.
How does that fix the issue where someone is on a week-long vacation? Seems like a letter a few weeks in advance is they least they could do.
In many large cities, there's shorter-than-a-week minimum notices for street closures. For example in DC, no-parking permits have to be posted at least 72 hours in advance.
If you are going out of town for longer than that amount of time, you either need to find somewhere you can pay to park your car, or you need to get a neighbor or friend to check in on it periodically and move it if there's a sign.
This responsibility is the only cost of using public space to store your car, aside from a nominal annual vehicle registration fee. Seems fair to me.
Most big cities have the shorter notice periods because they also generally have maximum parking time limits. In Seattle, for instance, you have to move your car every 72 hours if you're parked on the street.
Is it enforced? No. But technically, it's there.
> Is it enforced? No. But technically, it's there.
Very much enforced in NYC - where they do around $600 million a year in parking tickets.
I would argue that most of those 600 million are not "parked for too long in one place", which is what I said is not enforced.
The vast majority of them are likely the ones that can be verified on the spot -- things like being parked in a no parking zone (whether street cleaning or regular), expired or hasn't paid parking, etc.
Yes. That is correct.
NYC has alternate side of the street parking on most streets which means that for a two hour period, typically midday, on Mon/Thu or Tue/Fri. This has the effect of making you move your car every 72 hours, and it is trivially enforceable. Additionally there are 1 & 2 hour spots which are typically metered.
> Is it enforced? No. But technically, it's there.
In California we have the same law, and it is certainly enforced, usually at the behest of nosy neighbors who have nothing else to do.
It's probably the same here -- it's enforced extremely selectively and only because they're tired of getting the complaint for the dozenth time.
To verify, they usually have to mark your tires to check you haven't moved the car in the 72 hours (you could've just parked in the same place), so it usually requires two outcalls to even issue a ticket. That's a lot of work when you're anywhere outside of the downtown core where that initial call could be done as part of other work.
The "improper parking on a private space" example in the story a few posts up strongly suggests that the car was parked in their own driveway. And yet the car was towed and impounded.
Even in the event of a street closure, I expect that a car parked on my own driveway is fine. And since I'm not using public space to store it, your "public space to store your car" comment is not applicable.
The filming crew towed the cars to a school's parking lot. When the school opened the cars were towed and impounded.
Thanks for the correction.
I understand how that happened, but wow. I hope that the filming crew was forced to pay for this.
A lot of cities require that the city tows the car, rather than the filming crew. Exactly to avoid this kind of problem.
This is correct. My neighbour had some of their cars parked in their driveway on their own property.
Film crew moved all of their cars off of their own property down to the school.
Once school opened up, they were now “improperly parked” (by the film crew) and fines were issued and one of the cars was impounded.
I took it to mean it was improperly parked at the school.
In NYC you generally have to move your car twice a week due to street cleaning. No way you could park for weeks without issue.
That is also commonplace.
Yeah; I live in Toronto, and that's the closest thing that gets me to road rage. Streets are randomly closed for extended period of time, and everybody involved acts like... unprintables. Which, I get, is a self-feeding process - public members are unprintables to police and security and film makers, who then in turn are pre-emptive unprintables to anybody. But gawd, it's an awful experience that's difficult to describe to people who haven't lived it - it's my home on my street with the shop I go to and school my kids go to, and my car or my bus station I take to my work, and suddenly we can't use it, are third-class citizens on our own street, with no rights or permission or ask, and not for some emergency infrastructure process, but so that Jaw Sharks On a Plane 27 can be filmed :-<
I have some empathy to the film crew, but while I'm all about practical effects in some ways, the city neighbourhoods should be CGId ASAP. This isn't a tiny-non-issue. Think about all the movies and shows on all the networks on all the streaming services. The 37 seasons of NCIS and 32 seasons of Law & Order and ten million episodes of all the crappy shows - every how many scenes in all of them closing down some neighbourhood somewhere for the shot of actor walking down the street.
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.
>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.’”
You're assuming they worked within the bounds the city agreed with them. I encountered a filming location near me recently, and the crew absolutely tried to restrict my movements beyond what was legally permitted, and did so rudely - presumably to appear authoritative, so that I would simply obey them.
Well the film crew were still rude with the people, most of them having no idea what was happening before seeing the equipment nor having experience with how they operate.
They are actually renting the street and are paying the city for it. Sure there are guerilla film crews that just show up and do stuff, but that tends to be very lightweight, in and out quick, or using a location with so little traffic that it won't really impinge.
However, it's really the city's responsibility to notify everyone, unless otherwise negotiated; when film crews do all that it's generally a courtesy thing. Sometimes the crew wants to do that in advance but the city will ding them for taking the initiative.
Film shoots are a big kickback to the police department. Hiring cops for security is required contractually and it's a sweet assignment because overtime is inevitable. Those jobs go to cops who are close to retirement because pensions are usually calculated as a % of final 2 years' pay. Smart crews also hire or plan their own security because the cops just show up to eat and flirt with the actresses and can't be relied on to watch gear.
Location scouts get paid the big bucks to not only know where to shot but how and to grease all the appropriate wheels.
> However, it's really the city's responsibility to notify everyone, unless otherwise negotiated; when film crews do all that it's generally a courtesy thing.
Is this really common? If so, I'm glad we have rules here that say otherwise. If you want a permit to close a street in my city, it's your responsibility to notify residents and businesses affected. If you don't, the city might not issue it. And even if they do, if a car is in your way because you didn't notify folks in advance, the police will happily stand around to watch what happens. Here, our tax dollars go toward using the roads, not closing them. You pay for notices, you pay for the barricades, you pay for the guards. You even pay for the police, standing around, laughing at you for failing to follow through on your obligation.
The reason it's sometimes left to the city is that they don't want the production company to start taking the initiative before the commencement of the permit period; they might ask for more than they're entitled to by the permit, or city officials might not like them treading on their toes. Recall that the production company is paying for the privilege, and it's the city that sets the prices and conditions.
I'm guessing this varies a lot by location and what the local authorities are like.
I live in a turn of the century neighborhood with a lot of craftsman bungalows, four squares, victorians, etc. So there's usually a couple smaller film productions every summer.
They're generally quite considerate. If they're doing an exterior shot they'll only block people going through for the brief moment they're actually filming. They're organized and tidy other than yes there's gonna be a ton of generator cables running around. Knitting seems to be the big hobby for staff waiting for the next shot.
I talked with the owner of the convenience store about this stuff one time. Some production was shooting across the corner and liked the look of his store and wanted to use it as a backdrop for a few things. So they worked out a simple deal where they'd repaint his entire exterior in trade for the rights to film. He was totally happy with the situation and said they didn't really disrupt his business.
I wonder what ends up making the difference?
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?
>How is this topmost comment?
My guess would be that you're interpreting the comment as, "Please don't accidentally wander onto a film set out of ignorance," whereas my interpretation (and perhaps that of those who have voted for it) of the comment was, "Please don't be inspired by this to seek out and actively trespass on a closed film set."
They're two slightly different things.
I would say the title is disingenuous the same way clickbait is. A suggested alternate could be, “the time I wandered around somebody’s worksite until the inconvenience of my presence outweighed the crews’ Canadian-level non-confrontational demeanor”. But that’s not as grabby.
Right! I was waiting for the “I’m now on this film, officially launching in 2023” drop.
I completely agree. Reading the title, and then reading the article, I was quite underwhelmed.
Exactly. "Social engineering" implies he did something to make his happen. He didn't do any social engineering, it's just that nobody cared.
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.
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.
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?
If they really had the legal right to exclude the blog author, then they also had the obligation to put up signs or barriers to exclude them.
And that's the point where contextual awareness and respect for others come into play.
Exactly. The film crew should have had the contextual awareness to block off the area and respectfully inform people to go around if they didn't want people walking through. It seems like they didn't have at least the contextual awareness. From the pictures, I doubt I would realize it's a film set.
I've accidentally wandered onto a film set before. When it's in a public space it's not always obvious what's going on or that you shouldn't be there. I had no idea why a generally quite busy part of town was almost entirely devoid of traffic that day. There were no clear signs or ways for me to know what was going on until I talked to a random guy and he told me.
Perhaps your ability to detect and understand context is simply vastly superior to mine.
Especially when they're shooting on one side of a street near dusk (quite common for the good light) in downtown... yea, it's easy to assume you can walk on the other side of the street before realizing that the crew has shut down the entire block since they're capturing shots across the open street and all those randos walking on the other side of the street are extras.
That said, they'll often just let you wander across as long as you're not wearing distracting clothing.
Accidents happen, and I am not perfect too. I live in a city where film sets in public spaces are an (almost) everyday thing, so I also wandered into a film set few times. But I'd never do it on purpose - when you meet them at a bar you'll see they really do work hard, and that random strangers at the set are a really big problem they face daily.
It's funny how the robot argument can apply to anything and the contrary: are all filming crews overworked robots unable to willingly decide to engaging in casual conversation with a stranger who happened to be in a public area before it was cordoned off?
It's not about the film crew being overworked robots who can't talk, it's about accidentally ruining their work without even realizing it by walking into the middle of filming. This dude got lucky that he didn't ruin anything. The next 1000 dudes who will try based on his blogpost won't be so lucky - and I bet the film crews won't be as happy talking to them.
The film crew got lucky that they didn't ruin anything by failing to secure the location for their shoot. If a film crew wants to exclude the public from a public space, it is on them to make that happen. J. Random Bystander has no responsibility to know or care what a film crew is hoping to accomplish.
It's the most human of things to seek boundaries. Maybe in the thoroughly schooled and desocialized humans it is not a thing
It’s clear that the OP is curious, which was ultimately harmless in this case.
But as someone who lives in Los Angeles and sees this all the time — and has many friends who work on sets — you absolutely should not do this. Sets almost always “look like they’re open.” That doesn’t mean they are, it’s because there’s a-million-and-one things being done on the set by _skilled_ people who are being paid near minimum wage, working late, getting yelled at, and skipping meals and still can’t get everything that needs to be done done (Hollywood is lucrative once you get above the ground floor, but those early levels are brutal in every part of the industry).
How would you feel if someone just came and sat next to you working on a PR in a coffee shop and kept asking questions about everything you were doing? Now imagine you were as exhausted as the people on set, and there were dozens of people asking you the same question. Because this happens all the time here in Los Angeles.
Again, totally agree what they do is interesting! But they’re not doing it for you, and they’re in the middle of working.
Do you walk into the middle of a construction site when a crew is working because you’re interested in that process, too?
Bystanders standing around watching and commenting on construction work is so common that there's a name for a specific type of guy who does that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umarell
Construction sites are often on private property and in any case have clearly marked boundaries, though. I don't think it's unreasonable for people doing work in a public space to expect and handle a certain amount of polite curiosity from the public.
Yeah, my analogy could have been more clear, I think Umarells are a fun cultural phenomenon.
I meant that even in a public space for construction, however, spectators usually aren't allowed to wander into the middle of active construction, bumping shoulders with the workers. Staying off to the side is fine – as is also normal when watching a set in action! It's just the folks that get in the middle of a site who have no business being there (or worse, try to pretend to be an authorized background extra and ruin a shot because they have no idea where they're supposed to stand) that disrupt things.
Its a bit different for someone "thinking of doing this" and seeking it out.
"They didn't say no"
Is not by itself justification to do a thing.
It's not justification not to do a thing either.
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.
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.
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.
Thank you for your comment. I had no idea, and appreciate the correction and lesson.
My old neighborhood in Brooklyn always had filming, and my current town is on its third movie shot on main st so far this year - I wonder if those are usually subsidized too.
> The idea is that this would promote more use of local businesses. It does not usually work out that way though.
Great Youtube video on this topic, especially since you're likely talking about Vancouver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojm74VGsZBU
isn't another reason tourism? see cool place in a movie and people want to come?
That definitely wasn't the case.
> 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.
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?
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
We get it. You already made this comment: 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.
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.
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.
I also have a funny story about a film set. When I lived in New York they were filming an episode of Blue Bloods. I had a 12-year-old French bulldog. When the guy with the walkie-talkie told the crowd it was okay to walk down the block, we started walking. 5 minutes later everyone else was gone and the scene was clear except for me and Elvis. Security started hassling me to make him walk faster and I told them that they were idiots. And then Tom Selleck stuck his head out of his trailer and said what's the holdup. I yelled they're trying to make me rush my elderly dog. And he yelled guys leave that old dog alone we can film in another 2 minutes and went back into his trailer.
So I have it on pretty good authority that you can social engineer any situation with an elderly dog.
Technically they have no legal right to tell you to move/stop somewhere on a public sidewalk in New York. You could’ve just strolled straight onto set if you wanted to.
I live on a street in New York that's pretty popular with filming. I generally try to be respectful of their work, but I work from home and sometimes I need to go get a coffee.
I'll usually ask if when I come back in 5 minutes or so if they'll be filming so that I don't disrupt them. Even if I'm super respectful, they usually wind up trying to stop me from getting back to my apartment when I return. It took me a while to figure out that I can just ignore them and keep walking.
Still, it was cool to see Oscar the grouch on my street.
You might want to look into the details about that. Most likely there is an ordinance (or maybe a state law) about interfering when they are actually filming (like, the equipment is active and recording).
I've walked through a lot of sets, and they really only care about keeping random people out when the cameras are actually rolling. The logistics of filming in a city simply don't work otherwise.
Is the author on HN? He mentions that they only managed to film 2 scenes. Is that right, or was it 2 scenes over and over and over and over and... I guess most action scenes are CGI these days, but when some gunfire+explosion scene is filming outside your office, where they do the same 20 second sequence 100 times, man that gets old real quick.
Technically they can say whatever they want, but you can also just ignore them.
I love that the comments on this story range from "film sets are sacred, please don't direct your eyes at a crew member or a production assistant will be viciously fired" to "film crews can burn in hell forever and if they tell you not to walk on a sidewalk tell them to go fuck themselves"
If they don't want people to walk by they should get proper approval and close off the area.
Or film on a back lot.
I'll one up this one.
Years ago I worked IT at a film lab that also did onsite digital capture. There was a photo shoot going on and I needed to go onsite to troubleshoot a computer. The onsite Tech told me the stage number and streets. I said I know where that is and drove off. The location of the studio they were shooting at was across the street from Paramount Studios in Hollywood. I pulled up to the gate and explained to the guard that there was a shoot going on and I needed to get there ASAP to fix a issue that was holding up the shoot. The guard did not question much and let me through. I parked and made my way to sound stage 2 and found the set empty (giant hanger style set). I quickly realized something was off and called the on site Tech where he told me no their location was at a studio across the street. When I finally got to my location I fixed the issue then I got to sit next to the former Miss Israel. I was surprised how easy it was for me to get onto the Paramount Set and how much potential access I would have had.
In the UK they put up distinctive colored direction signs for the cast and crew to follow to get to location (e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=filming+location+signs+uk&tb...) They are always cryptically labelled so that they don't attract fans etc I guess.
These signs appear frequently around where I live in London. Occasionally when I am out for a run along one of my usual routes and I see a new set of signs I follow them and end up at the set. I don't make conversation or even actually stop running - I sometimes look over to try to see if there is someone famous I recognise but otherwise I'm not interested in what it is.
I did a bit of background artist/extra work many years ago and know that really the process is deadly dull, but it is nice to add a bit of variety and distraction to my running route.
A friend of mine was on holiday in Toronto and somehow walked accidentally into a film set. He and his other half wound up "pretending" to be extras. So now the film "Kick Ass" opens with a panning shot down a skyscraper to a foyer where my friend and his wife can be seen having an animated argument.
Is your friend and wife credited in the film? Something along the lines "couple arguing at beginning"?
> So now the film "Kick Ass" opens with a panning shot down a skyscraper to a foyer where my friend and his wife can be seen having an animated argument.
I don't see them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEsNvObIwQg
> there were tens of people who walked by and asked the security people what they were filming. They got one of two answers. The first one was a name for a series that was different than the one I was told. The second answer was "this is a new series with a largely unknown cast". This answer sounded very specific and very rehearsed.
I believe this is standard procedure on sets to keep from gathering a crowd, or leaking information about the film prior to marketing release. I’m sure there are other good reasons.
Interesting. In NYC they invariably post the name of the show on the parking permits they have to publicly post to shut down streets (which I'm guessing 100% of shoot need to do out here).
Crowds generally just don't form in NYC though. We see shoots all the time.
Coolest one was for The Knick, a turn-of-the-century period piece about a storied hospital, which was filmed on my block the year I moved to NYC (early 2013). There's a beautiful building on the block, the Boys High School in Brooklyn [0], which was used for the hospital exteriors. The Knick is a turn-of-the-century period setting; they covered the entire street in gravel (for weeks), erected gas lamps, etc.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_High_School_(Brooklyn)
They often use code names on those parking permit signs
I've seen abbreviations but never code names as far as I know. The times I didn't recognize a name I was able to google and see a story about it.
Now I'll be on the lookout =)
For one shoot in Boston, the crew said "mayonnaise commercial".
I don't approve of dishonesty, but I thought that was clever.
This is one of the stock answers, according to some folks I know who do a lot of this kind of work.
Yes mayonnaise commercial is the go-to industry wide cheeky answer going back decades
Around here in London they always say "it's an independent film" when actually it is Mission Impossible or After Life or Downton etc.
They do this kind of thing more than you'd think :) Due to my double life as an aspiring actor [0], I was an extra in a series [1] set in futuristic New York, but filmed in Madrid. They had a fake hotdog cart, a fake bus stop sign, and even a fake NY police car! You can see me for a second, somewhat blurry, having a heated argument in Italian, while Betsy Brandt [2] (best known as Marie of "they're minerals, Marie!" fame) walked past. Very cool experience :) Photos here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZmT11SFV3xWe5gft7
Also in Madrid, I was an extra in The Vault [3]. Near the beginning, the main characters meet at a London pub on a rainy evening - filmed in sunny Madrid in summer! I had never seen fake rain on set. I also was within a meter of Liam Cunningham [4] whose Ser Davos was one of my favorite GoT characters :)
[0] http://gabrielgambetta.biz
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11695350/
[2] https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1336827
A good way to get into things like that is to pitch in and help carry stuff: Don't ask, just find the people moving things and join the line. You may have to ask "where does this go?" when the person in front of you drops their object.
You can go far by simply asking to watch and learn, too. Sneakery is only really required where there's "security" that hasn't got enough to do already.
Departments are small enough on a film set with strict union rules that if you're carrying something and ask the wrong person you will immediately be caught and asked to leave. It's much better to just lurk confidently like this poster. You can always say you're a guest of an executive producer or something and people won't push - they're isn't enough time to usually.
If you want to really fit in, have an old walkie talkie on your belt and an ear piece (surveillance).
Definitely don't do this. Film sets are very controlled / precise environments and an innocuous piece of equipment can be INCREDIBLY expensive ($200k+). The chance of messing something up as a rando is very high and you'll just end up making the crew work longer and harder than they need to.
Maybe I'm being overly cautious. But just some risks to consider if you're gonna try this for the purposes of getting a look behind the scenes:
Some film sets with union folks can get very particular about who touches what. But maybe the things you'd help carry wouldn't fall under the responsibility of said union folks.
Also, if a film set has had a robbery or theft, and the crew has worked with each other long enough to know who the regular day players are, you'd stick out like a sore thumb.
But all these types of chicanery will come with such risks, I suppose.
God forbid you damage something expensive...
Best play it safe and pretend to be handing out coffees and snacks (or actually do it you're feeling kind)
Why, you want to be caught by the catering crew? They're probably union too.
> Don't ask
I’m in team ask-before-picking-up-other-peoples-stuff, but maybe that works for some.
Actually, just ask to be an extra. You will get paid, fed, and get to hang out all day on set.
Or carry a clipboard.
and a walkie with a surveilence earphone. hell, get an actual radio, and you can probably find what channel each department is using. (typically, each group is on their own channel so that people not in that department don't have to pay attention. camera crew asking for new lenses/filters/etc doesn't concern wardrobe. however, camera crew asking grip for additional stands would flip over to grip's channel)
In most situations, a high-viz vest also helps. Probably not on a film set, though!
I hear this repeated a lot. Have you ever tried it out?
I don't think it would work in most situations. Construction site? Sure. Sporting event? Probably.
But in most of the places a person might try to go, I personally would avoid a high-vis vest at all costs.
Oh yeah. Walking around a manufacturing plant. Brand-new hi-viz vest over a dress shirt, walk purposefully. "Must be management."
I wasn't management, I was just new on site and had come from a planning meeting, and I was pretty sure the next guy I needed to meet was in the belly of the plant in a location I only had the vaguest idea of, but I knew it was gonna be a long walk.
I ended up walking the length of the place twice (almost a mile) before I decided I'd had enough sightseeing (but what sightseeing it was!) and and actually asked someone, who made a wisecrack about how he helps so many visiting managers in this joint they should make him a manager himself! I decided against correcting him.
Over the coming weeks at that plant, I wore a T-shirt and older hi-viz if I wanted to blend in as a worker, or a button-down shirt and the crisp hi-viz if I wanted to wander. As long as I kept abreast of my assigned duties, nobody sweated the details, and it was better than any museum of science and industry I've ever paid to get into. Had a few more folks make gentle cracks about how I must be a manager of some other group over to see what this group does, I'd ask a few questions and be on my way.
Likewise for jobsites and urbex, I have a hard-hat covered in stickers, and one that's so pristine I keep it in a pillowcase. Perceived wear is an important component of The Look™.
it was better than any museum of science and industry I've ever paid to get into
some time ago i couchsurfed with the owner or manager of a steel processing plant. he gave me a tour. one of the most memorable experiences.
It varies. The more you can look like "the help" the more likely people are to ignore you outright. And the hi-viz + clipboard is a pretty generic "you don't know me, but I'm the help" outfit.
A few years ago I was once briefly directed into the cockpit of a plane to check on its maintenance status while I was boarding a normal coach flight. I was wearing my only clean jacket, a waterproof high viz coat that must be popular with people who work on rainy roads.
Depends: in many places the high-vis hits the “I'm wearing this because the rules say I have to and I'm not important enough to flout them even though they clearly don't matter here” note very well.
Yeah, that doesn't go over well with the union
The area did not seem to be closed off so obviously I went in to take a closer look. 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.
How is this "social engineering"? If I try to beat a yellow light and almost hit another car I wasn't "accidentally stunt driving".
"That time I stood in a film set for 30 mins then someone kindly asked me to leave which I did"
007 over here... hahaha
I was confused when I got to the end of the article and it didn't mention what social engineering was used. Was it just chatting up someone who worked there and then just standing around after?
"clickbait"
Fwiw all the carts in the photo are only the Lighting and Grip departments. That doesn't include Costume, Hair, Makeup, Special Effects, Sound, Stunts, Props, Camera, and other departments I'm probably missing that work on-set.
And of course it doesn't include all the off-set work like Art Department, Production Office, Construction.
And that still doesn't include all the post-production work like Sound, Editing, VFX, and more.
Source: I work in film.
That brought back memories for me, it was 1981 or 82, the company that I worked for at the time flew us to New Jersey for some meeting. But three of us "younger engineers" (I was about 22 at the time) wanted to go into New York City. Our boss let us use the rental car to drive into the city. He told us not to do anything he wouldn't do. In that case why go? We all joked later. We got into CBGB's on a weeknight, by the time we got out of there it was maybe 2 or 3 AM and we were pretty high and we were walking back to the garage where we parked the car when we came upon a filming in the streets. One of the security guys told us they were shooting Hill Street Blues, but who knows, we were told later they lie about that stuff to looky loos. But it was fun to watch so we stood there for a couple hours. We got back to our Hotel in Newark at around 6AM just in time to pack and head to the airport. Luckily it was a direct 5 hour flight back home. I slept like a baby.
I’m not sure what “social engineering” means in this context, i think i would just call it “talking to people” I’m not the most extrovert of people, but give me a beer or four, i start talking to people, sometimes i end up in places i don’t expect to be, but i call that being social
I happened to be in New Orleans when LBJ was filming and they were about to shoot JFK being shot, we’re lining up extras, etc. I just asked a PA if I could be an extra in the scene and she said yes, so it doesn’t always take social engineering.
> It is a better "making of" experience than any professionally produced featurette or documentary. The main reason being that it is about the actual making of instead of of millionaires lying through their teeth on how all other millionaires on set were so professional, super awesome and how the whole experience was the best thing ever because that is what they are contractually obligated to say.
Highly recommend _Under Pressure: Making 'the Abyss'_ it does not do this. It's definitely still rich people talking to really rich people who are now crazy rich people, but, it does not sugar coat things. Very good watch.
> However the most important things you need to stage New York are actually smoke generators. Lots and lost of smoke generators. There were several big ones on the street, the garbage cans had ones, even the aforementioned ATM had its very own smoke machine. Don't really know if that is relevant to the plot or whether ATMs in New York run on steam.
Steam is a utility in NYC, from co-generation. It's used to provide heat.
At least when I was younger, steam was also a utility in Boston. I used to see it escape from "Boston Steam" manholes. Not sure if it's still a utility there or not, though.
Also, in cinematography, haze and fog is frequently used to manipulate light for shots, not intended as a practical effect as such. If they were shooting a scene taking place after a rainstorm, using fog to flatten contrast would make sense for the shot.
Not exactly the same, but years ago my brothers and I were driving around the ring road in Iceland. As we pulled into Myvatn in the afternoon a blizzard was starting. We got to our hotel without incident and after putting our stuff in our rooms we went out to the front of the hotel to watch the blizzard from under cover. While standing their we started noticing in between breaks in the storm various vehicles parked across the road. There were all these military vehicles with large Soviet/Russian red stars on the side as well as very high end luxury vehicles. What in the world? As we are standing there a guy comes out and starts yelling into his phone about how the person on the line didn’t understand that there was a blizzard and the timeline was getting all messed up. What? Well, we go back inside and chat up some guys hanging around in the lobby. Turns out we had booked the same hotel as the Fast and the Furious film crew (no idea which movie since I’ve never seen any of them) and the actors were all staying at the hotel across the street where the luxury vehicles were parked. We talked about walking across the street to the other hotel’s lobby to see if we could see anyone famous, but we had started to notice burly security people wandering around the cars, so decided against it.
Its fairly common to have a codename for the show that you are working on.
For example "the dark knight" was Rory's first kiss(rfk) because the director's son had his first kiss (or so I've been told, I've not actually verified that)
Prince Caspian was TOASTIE (or something like that)
I think that casino royal was saville row, but that might have been an internal name
Working Title
Return of the Jedi use Blue Harvest when they were shooting Endor near San Francisco.
Not totally related, but I suffered an injury as a kid, the "we have the technology" fix employed wound up in medical journals and textbooks, and I've found at least one video where an x-ray of my insides is shown.
I walked past a film set in my city and I happened to be wearing mostly black and a black ball cap and I was asked where a piece of equipment was when I was just walking by.
Film crews are large, typically not one continuous unit, ie there’s always new people on set so seeing a new face isn’t uncommon. They’re also extremely busy and overworked so it doesn’t take much at all to blend in. Even if you just happen to be walking by with no intentions of trying to work your way onto a set.
He did what? Stood around?
I am still waiting where he social engineered?
We had a movie (In and Out) filmed in the town I lived in, at the time.
It was a North Shore Long Island town, but the movie was supposed to take place in Indiana (I think). When I watched the movie (somewhat forgettable, IMO), I kept looking for seagulls.
They actually made a façade on most of the buildings downtown. Lotta work.
Spielberg liked to tell a story about doing this. It was made up and constantly evolving, but still entertaining.
Perhaps there really was a part of the script that it had just rained. Oftentimes, they will wet the street in production because you get better light off the street. Once you know this fact, you will see wet streets everywhere in TV/Film/Commercials.
Film crews are truly the scum of the earth.They only pay a couple hundred dollars for a filming permit (at least in NYC) and then proceed to attempt to monopolize entire blocks as if they're doing some "official" important business, attempting to block people from passing, as if anyone at all cares what shitty movie they're filming. They leave trash everywhere, not just accidentally, but they literally just throw empty water bottles and such on the street and leave piles of food on the street for rats.
Like all things, some crews probably mostly suck and others don’t. Most film employees are blue collar workers making not that much per hour and doing 16 hour days to pay the bills / get medical care for their families.
> Most film employees are blue collar workers making not that much per hour and doing 16 hour days to pay the bills / get medical care for their families.
So are most telemarketers (maybe not the "blue collar" part I guess). Doesn't make them not scum.
Many police are also not getting paid that much and working long hours, so I guess whatever impact they have on their community is just fine as well.
Just curious: what law allows the movie crews to close off public property like streets and sidewalks?
There's a whole permitting process with the city.
In LA obviously it's a streamlined process: https://www.filmla.com/for-filmmakers/permits/
This has absolutely nothing to do with social engineering.
TLDR: This guy doesn't know what social engineering is. Guy probably thinks the bartender winking at him also is hitting on him.