January 11, 2006
Filmmaker Sues City Over Right to Film on Streets
The NYCLU is suing the city on behalf of Indian filmmaker Rakesh Sharma, who was detained for filming around the MetLife building last year. Sharma was working on his documentary about the "lives of ordinary people, including taxi drivers," after September 11 when police detained him and interrogated him for hours. Hmm, maybe the documentary can be about how the city doesn't like foreigners filming the city. According to the lawsuit, the NYPD told him Sharma needed a permit from the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting, but when he applied for one, he was denied (possibly because he didn't have the $1 million in required insurance?). There must be a thousand run-and-gun film productions on the streets now that aren't using permits - and will tourists be persecuted next?
Here's a PDF of the NYCLU's lawsuit and here is Sharma's website. And remember the threat of photography bans on and in the mass transit system?
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This is why, when shooting your film on the streets of any city (nyc included), if someone asks what you are doing, you tell them "I'm on holiday taking video for my grandmother." Say this. Nothing else. Just say this, smile widely, and keep shooting.
Unless you've got a director's chair and a bank of power generators sitting off to the side, they can't prove you 'are not' a tourist. Having a hi-end camera isn't even a dead give-away anymore now that there are so many tourists plunking down big bucks for cameras that are way too powerful for their simple uses. Yes, you can stand there with your brand new Panasonic DVX100a and say, "I'm just fascinated by this city! It's all so new to me! I can't wait to show grammy where I've been!"
All issues of racial profiling aside (and it's pretty obvious that those were in play here), the MOFTB has rules about permits and production insurance for a reason. People shooting films in New York is great. Giving official permission for anyone with a video camera to run rampant shooting around the city is a terrible idea. There have to be some controls in place to keep the city from being overrun with small to mid-sized amateur or semi-pro productions that don't know how to safely and efficiently shoot in NYC.
Just picture him with an AK47, he meets all the telltale signs of a grade A terrorist!
Demitri Martin looks terrible.
"There have to be some controls in place to keep the city from being overrun with small to mid-sized amateur or semi-pro productions that don't know how to safely and efficiently shoot in NYC."
Yeah, the city being overrun with people with cameras is definitely a huge issue and we should all be concerned about it.
This gets the Lame award today.
It seems to me going after filmmakers while encouraging tourists is exactly the opposite of what you'd like to see happen.
(Yeah, yeah, I know, we have to be nice to the tourists so we can take their money. I'm too old school... as Letterman said, "Welcome to NY, now go home.")