From: Brook Hinton (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Aug 01 2007 - 15:39:51 PDT
The time limits make it possible for police to arrest more than two people
documenting, say, a protest, let alone police actions at a protest. You can
imagine how that's going to play out in NYC.
The time limits pretty much eliminate experimental or guerilla filmmaking
involving, say, a filmmaker and an assistant, or a filmmaker documenting
anything involving a person as the subject.
The law basically divides image-making into tourist/hobbyist photography and
commercial production. Art? Documentation of the actual world? Activist
photography? *The unrehearsed spontaneous world as subject matter*? Gone.
Unless you operate not only solo, but without daring to talk to anyone in
the process.(or unless you are a significant enough part of the marketplace
to deal with insurance/permits, and happen to make the sort of work where
shoots happen at predictable locations and predictable times).
LA's horrifying laws are another matter, and it is an extreme example borne
of a culture that sees filmmaking strictly in terms of commerce. Most
cities do not have laws this drastic. Yes, here in SF, you technically need
a permit and insurance if you're going to pull out the boom mic while your
AD yells into the walkie talkie about the missing actor - and an argument
can be made that that's not a bad thing. But the streets are chalk full of
people making art and small scale documentaries and experimental films and
photo essays and even zero-budget no- (or tiny-) crew narratives without
disrupting anyone and without permits and insurance.
Brook
_______________________________________________________
Brook Hinton
film/video/audio art
www.brookhinton.com
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.