Internets Celebrities

You’re not allowed to shoot video on the subway

You’re not allowed to shoot video in Whole Foods or at the Time Warner Center (or urinate in phone booths)

You’re not allowed to shoot video at 2007’s biggest hiphop concert

And basically, if you asked a lot of places (supermarkets, banks, MSG, etc) they’d say you’re not allowed to shoot there either.

So should you?

Absolutely.

Get the shot. Get what you need to make a good, rich movie.

Just don’t be a jerk about it.

If you need a shot of Brooklyn from a subway car, then go get one. Just don’t be a jerk about it. Don’t film a lot of commuters just trying to go home after their crappy job. Don’t film people in the supermarket just trying to buy some groceries. Don’t film people at your local Commerce just trying to cash in their change. Don’t film people at the Knicks game spilling beer on the seat in front of them (apologies to the people I spilled beer on while trying to film Lebron go off for 50 points at the Garden last week).

If you are a jerk about it, you become a paparazzi. Photographers and videographers who don’t give a fuck who they film and are actually hoping that their subjects look like chumps on camera are paparazzi. Putting someone on camera against their will is a bad look.

But there are exceptions

Filming a woman who carries around her dog in a baby bjorn while she casually leafs through CDs is not being a jerk. She’s the jerk. And her jerkitude trumps whatever jerkitude you enact by filming a person against his or her will.

So run your potential guerilla shoot through the Jerk Matrix (the Jerk Matrix presupposes that you are an essentially decent person). Who is a bigger one? The subject or the shooter?

If you are confident you’re not being a jerk about it, you can feel comfortable filming anywhere or anyone you think will provide good information for your movie.

Why can’t you film at Whole Foods?
Why can’t you film on the subway?
Why can’t you film at the Hip Hop Honors?

THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT ANSWER: Establishments create rules about recording devices because they don’t want you bothering their customers, interrupting their business flow or fucking up their money.

When we were in Whole Foods, we just wanted to film the bathroom and film us sitting around enjoying an organic parfait. We weren’t trying to get in a customer’s way. So if you go back to the Jerk Matrix you don’t have to worry about the benefit of the doubt answer.

THE CYNICAL ANSWER: Establishments create rules about recording devices because they don’t want to be caught doing embarrassing or shady things.

More institutions that do shady things or take advantage of their customer should be put on camera. We’re about to make a documentary about an institution that serves various communities in useful ways but certainly makes a decent amount of their money through semi-nefarious methods. If you are making a non-fiction film that exposes a double-standard or sketchy situation, you definitely don’t have to worry about the cynical answer

THE WHO GIVES A FUCK ANSWER: Establishments create rules about recording devices because they don’t want you making money off the live event they’re going to make a huge amount of money off of.

Hmmmm. I don’t have an ethically defensible position here. I just don’t feel bad filming something when I paid 100 bucks to come see it. I don’t feel bad filming an event when the company behind the event is disgustingly rich. This is the office supplies stealing justification. The truth of the matter is whatever video I make at a live event isn’t being sold or licensed for any money (unless I’ve been contracted to do so). It’s going up on youtube and probably making me more of a pr person than a bootlegger. So you could argue that a Jerk Matrix can be created based on how your recording is going to be used. If you went to a concert and recorded it and sold that recording, you are starting to tip the jerk scale.

In this day and age, you have the ability to shoot video anywhere you like. With small high-quality cameras, patience, a crew/cast that are good sports and a quickness, you can orchestrate documentaries and some narratives in locations where the official word is No Recording. Guerilla filmmaking creates the possibility for more great art.

Life happens quickly and our memories aren’t trustworthy. If you see something that is awesome, that demands being recorded and improves the world by being shown, you may not have enough time to ask whether you can film it. You just have to dive right in, focus your lens with a little help from your moral code and record the transcendent but fleeting moment you’re witnessing (or contriving) at the Apple Store.

Just don’t be a jerk about it.