WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 4, 2000

CALLING ALL CARS... WE'VE GOT A 1013 IN PROGESS AT...

Ah the police. Cops… the fuzz…. Johnny Law…. Pigs…. Donut munchers. Always there to keep us safe and protect us from others, and also always there to ruin a good time. Does all involvement with the police have to be negative involvement?

As much as we amateur movie makers don’t want to admit it, we DO have a responsibility to let people know wherever we may be shooting that we are doing a movie if there may be ANY outside chance that our actions may be misunderstood. If you’re doing a simple dialog scene between a bunch of friends on an outside patio, or at a bench in a park where nothing out of the normal will be happening, then you could probably just let it slide by. But if the conversation on the patio heats up, and you plan to have guns start blazing, then why are you surprised when those boys (and girls) in blue show up if you haven’t let anyone know? Look at it another way. We’re doing movies, and we’re striving for 100% realism. And looking around the amateur world, there’s some pretty realistic stuff happening, and some pretty realistic props being used (any glance at an Infiniti production with their Airsoft guns will be a testament to that). Sure WE know that we’re just shooting a movie, and WE know that if we see a group with guns AND a movie camera, that just MAYBE a movie is being shot, but think about what the general public would think. You see a group of people (especially teenage and early 20s with us) running around with guns, yelling and shouting…..well, what do you expect someone to think? They get worried and call the cops. They’re worried about their safety, and the safety of people around them. They’re not trying to be dicks and ruin your shoot.

So what SHOULD you do? Well, if you plan to have gunplay ANYWHERE… even simulated gunplay with really fake, watergun looking guns, you HAVE to inform the local constabulary. Why? Because when Old Lady Wilkens looks out her kitchen window and sees a bunch of people in black running around with guns, and freaks and calls the cops, the dispatchers can talk her down and inform her that it’s just a movie shoot and not to worry. It also lets police know that if they ARE called to the scene, the dispatchers can let the officers arriving know that there IS a movie being shot in the area, and that they SHOULD keep in mind that the people with the guns MIGHT be them. Also look at it this way. Every time a police officer goes on a call they are potentially risking their life. They don’t know if the simple domestic dispute between a married couple will involve a firearm. So they’re called to a scene where they hear of multiple people with guns, so how do you expect them to act? Of course they’re going to act quite serious until they know what the situation is.

What else can you do? Informing the neighbors in the area might also be a good idea. You don’t need to go knocking on every door talking to every person. A simple flyer in their mailbox is often enough. Heck, it can only benefit your production. TEWS put out flyers to about 200 homes in the area where we were shooting the war scene in "For All Time" and got about 20-30 neighbors who are going to buy the movie when it’s ready. All because they saw what we were doing and liked what they saw. So there’s one benefit. Another way it can benefit is that maybe someone, when seeing the gunplay happening in the park across the street will think, "oh, maybe that’s those nice boys (or girls) shooting that movie I got the flyer about." Heck, if you’re really lazy, you don’t even need to put a flyer in every mailbox, just tape ‘em to poles and put them at bus stops. You can put a plug in for your other movies, your webpage, whatever else. That sort of thing also doubles as advertising.

So why write this long article? Well, it just pisses me off when I see people write things with the whole attitude of "Screw the cops! They’re a bunch of dicks, and I’m going to continue just shooting what I have to shoot, and let them come and make me stop!" Or even the comment that one made in the discussion forums of pointing the gun at the cops next time! Okay, so I know (I hope) that you were joking, but what if someone who is reading that doesn’t? They point a gun (even a fake one) at the police and they shoot, thinking it’s real, and gun down an innocent kid that’s just making a movie. Who looks like the bad guy here? The police, who are just doing what they are trained to do when being threatened by a weapon, or the innocent kid, who was pointing a toy gun at the police and should have KNOWN better than to point the gun.

Sure there are cops that are real jerks… I know A LOT of them. But I also know a lot of police officers that are on the job because they really want to help people, and feel a need to protect society. When Erik and I were talking to the police about "For All Time" they were nothing but supportive, and actually INTERESTED in what we were doing. They weren’t jerks, and I can support what others have said…. The police don’t have the time, manpower or resources to post an officer at your movie shoot just because you call. It costs a movie $500 a day here in Hamilton to do that, so I can tell you the police aren’t going to do that for you for free.

Bottom line is that if we want to be taken seriously, and want to be professional in the way we shoot our movies, we have to be professional in ALL aspects of our move, not just in how they are shot and edited, but in how they are produced and run as well.

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