Greenpoint Residents Want Hollywood Out

i understand the frustration..But all the people i know who have been residents of the area their entire lives just push back, and deal with it. We give the people filming respect..but we don't take any crap either. People started taking over williamsburg/greenpoint what 5 or 6 years ago? And so now It's all hip and popular and everyone thinks it's trendy to live here in a studio apartment for $2200 a month.... and you expect the industry not to follow along? you think not being able to park is annoying? That's always been a problem.. but i think not being able to drive down bedford avenue because we need to have a pedestrian walk is annoying. I find people who ride their bikes against traffic and run red lights almost causing an accident annoying. Or people who just walk in front of your car and making you stop short because they don't feel the need to look up and be aware of anything around them annoying. I think it's crazy that suddenly people want to shut the feast down.. something that has been going on longer than some of us have even been on this earth because it's too noisy..but yet people lived there for years and looked forward to it because it's tradition!!!!!! You don't like it.. don't live there! I find it odd that everyone wants peace and quiet but all the people who moved here in recent yrs are starving artists of some sort who play their banjos til 2am on a Monday when your neighbors are trying to sleep for work or turn great local hang outs into overpriced smoothie shops!!! I was happy to see the neighborhood coming up years back.. but now it seems to be more trouble than it's worth. People can complain about a lot of things besides just filming...but at least when the film crews go home you get you're block back. The neighborhood on the other hand will never be the same, at least the movie industry gets something out of that!!!

The Film Office's FAQ for residents:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/film/html/locations/resident_faqs.shtml

This is a great link!

Even worse is NYU film students. They think they are going to be the next Spielberg. You really have to push back with them. (Got a film permit asswipe? Didn't think so.) Why should I be inconvenienced? Nobody is going to see your crappy movie anyway.

That's not true. There's always Mom and Dad in the "screening room" of their Shaker Heights McMansion. They spent $200,000 so little Junior could learn how to shake the camera during the "street scene" and now, wait for it, he needs another 200K to get into Sundance. And that's just for blow...

Law and Order once towed my [work] car and I had to walk directly into the shot before the director finally radioed some guy to tell me it was in a bus stop four blocks away. Another time an obnoxious NYPD Blue PA tried to keep me from going back into my office after lunch.

I've also worked with lots of film crews and can confirm that they will shit all over you unless you firmly push back. Feel free to mess with them all you want.

I am so sick and tired of the filming in my area. If they aren't filming on my block, they're lining the streets with trailers and yesterday they were filming gossip girl and there were frickin PAPS there taking pictures! Hey people, I did not sign up to live in Hollywood. I can name most of the culprits: GOSSIP GIRL, and chicks who have slept with Brad Pitt, namely Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie.

It really is a massive inconvenience to have your whole block unavailable for your use every other week. What I can't figure out is what is so damn special about my block? There are some laundries, a bunch of residential buildings and a couple restaurants. Just like 98% of the rest of the blocks in Manhattan.

You should complain to the Mayors Office of Film & Television and encourage your neighbors to do the same. If enough people do, they will declare it off limits for a while.

Step Up-3D?

NOICE!

I heard a very funny story once. I don't remember what film it was (possibly Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil), but a person's house was being filmed and they didn't want all the film crew around. So they hung a confederate flag in the front window which stopped filming and created a big controversy. There was not much the film crew could do because it was private property and they would have had to get a court order to make the person take the flag down.

Canadian flags are always good as are barking dogs.

My mom was once bullied by a crew filming on her street, and her house was definitely in the shot. I told her how to fuck up their continuity by making subtle changes in her windows throughout the duration of the shoot.

I knew some young artists that had a film crew shining a bright light from the street into their window at night (the building was in the shot). They complained but nothing was done. They ended up cutting a Batman bat out of cardboard, putting it on the end of a broom and sticking it out the window so the side of the building looked like the Bat Signal was shining on it. THAT got everyone's attention and they sent some crew with black fabric to black out their windows so they could sleep. Hilarious, effective, and no yelling and screaming required.

These days, barely an obstacle for a big budget film. You just remove it in post-production with CGI.

This might be the case, but it still results in inconvenience and additional budget allocation to fix.

Anyone see the block long line of livery cabs blocking off a whole stretch of road a few weekends ago. They had film crew guys out blocking the street. They kept moving them around and messing up traffic getting onto Kent.

I lived on the block where Fringe pretty much set up shop all of last year. People got annoyed and so the Fringe crew had a ice cream giveaway. People were still mad about their lost parking spots, so they gave away $100 target gift cards and people still getting annoyed. Point of the story: get free stuff from film crews.

Or just treat them to some of that good, old-fashioned New York grit by firing at them. "Print!"

Hollywood film crews, particularly the little twerps with the walkie-talkies in charge off mouthing off to the locals, are among the most obnoxious people I've seen. They might not get such a hostile reaction if they didn't act like such snotty pricks.

Hollywood Film crews? With a few exceptions, the entire crew are local employees. Some of them are families that have been working on films here for generations. That's part of the reason it's so good for the economy right now. It means people are working instead of all of us supporting them on unemployment.

Unfortunately, because their is so much production right now, there are not enough experienced people to work all the jobs. That means some "little twerps with walkie-talkies" get hired instead of people who know how to treat their neighbors. If any one of them treat you badly, walk right into the shot and complain about them. Only a cop can stop you, the kids can only ask for your help by waiting. If the polite kids get people to wait and the schmucks get a shot ruined, it will weed out the twerps.

That seriously is part of the problem. If (most) of the crews were a little less arrogant, aggressive and treated residents with respect as well as the neighborhood, less people would have a problem. Gossip Girl and The Unusuals (with their blatant disregard for the southside blocks which they took over) were the main culprits which led to the no-film zone over here on the southside.

well, i'm guessing by the tone of this comment, you ain't so pleasant to deal with...

Film in NYC employs over 100,000 NYC residents and brings in over $5 Billion annually. It has been a part of NYC longer than most of us have been alive. Creates jobs, brings in money, and creates a rich history for the city; that's more important to me than parking in a pedestrian friendly city.

I've been on both sides of the production and resident POV, and know filming is good for the economy. However, when a resident is tired after a long day at work and just wants to get home, they don't particularly appreciate some kid with a headset demanding they use the other side of the street, or try to prevent them from accessing their building until after the shot. Residents are entitled to an immediate and tangible incentive for their patience.

wah stop filming in the city you punks so i can sit in my house and watch television for hours in peace.

and yes, manahattan is about as exciting a location as a suburban wal-mart these days.

"Manhattan is losing its eclecticism and diversity."

i can totally agree with that: Mallhattan.

Agreed.

ultimately, residents can piss and moan all they want but until it becomes a political point, you lose.

That is true. Politicians don't care that people actually have to live in the city. As long as they can brag that "NY is great for filming" citizens are screwed.

What I would like to see is the benefit that the city gets from film crews. Is there a website or some type of information that says "Greenpoint got X amount of dollars for this film and we are using it for ____."

That website would be useful, if only to see if Greenpoint is benefiting or if it's going to all of NYC - so our inconvenience is everyone else's benefit. And would it kill them to suspend alternate side parking when these movies take over 6 or 8 blocks?

If enough people care enough to contact the Mayor's Office of Film & Television Production and complain, you can get a neighborhood declared off limits for film permits for a time.

Figuring out how much money from a production goes to a neighborhood is not easy. Besides tax revenue that is collected, there are location fees paid to residents and businesses, money spent at coffee shops, restaurants and hardware stores by the crews, and what the crews themselves get paid and pay tax on. Almost all the crews live in the area so they are all paying their taxes. That's big money for our city and state.

Suspending Alternate Side when they give out permits for a neighborhood is a great idea! We should all start writing to the Mayors Office about that!

When I walked down Manhattan while it was closed for filming, there were kids running around and actually playing sports in the street. Entire families had taken to the sidewalk to enjoy the open space. It was pretty neat. The real pinch is with the businesses. Not much you can do there.

As for Boardwalk Empire, it looks like they're shooting most of that on private property and aren't taking up public parking space for that. So quit yer bitchin.

"The real pinch is with the businesses. Not much you can do there."

All of the businesses on those blocks on Manhattan Ave. are paid each day of filming. Some started griping and asking for more as it dragged on longer than the original contracts specified and with the location budget being totally blown already the production wanted to low-ball them.

"As for Boardwalk Empire, it looks like they're shooting most of that on private property and aren't taking up public parking space for that."

While the blocks being used are fairly out of the way, they are using on-street parking. They're areas that aren't causing inconvenience for businesses but are used by residents for parking.

Someone from Boardwalk Empire *just*rang my bell asking if we could remove our AC next week. Looks like the ban is over in WB and Boardwalk Empire is def. not confined to the end of Franklin.

"Someone from Boardwalk Empire *just*rang my bell asking if we could remove our AC next week."

Drive a hard bargain. The location budget for any particular shoot in a film like that will be in the hundreds of thousands, they can afford to cut you in.

Agreed. I was once paid about a month's rent to let the actors have access to my bathroom for the day (they were shooting in the apartment upstairs).