God grew tired of us
 

Just watched the documentary about the lost boys of Sudan coming to America. Fantastic video. Had my 12 year old watch it too. One thing I was curious about. There were shots in the Brussels airport, the NYC airport, the Nairobi airport, on the planes as well as some shots on public streets in NYC and in supermarkets.

It looked like a fairly small scale production and I wondered if they really got permission to film all of those places and people or did they go guerilla style and hope for the best.

My recollection is that it was guerilla style, run and gun in the airports.

filmed in airports before, if you do it officially you need permission and in our case in scotland there is a $600 fee (which we got out of) presumably to pay for the PR person they give you to take you arround.

Otherwise you could use a regular civi cam and just look like a tourist

By the way a bit of advice if your ever filming in an airport , do it at the check in desks behind the crowds cause there all looking forward to the checkin desk which means you drasticly reduce the amont of people looking at the camera.

Andy

Didn't work for me, Andy - I tried to take a still photo of relatives at the check in at Glasgow Airport (you know, folks - the one with the drive through) and had hardly taken my Canon EOS 40D out the case when a nice gentleman with a badge suggested politely but firmly that I put it away again.

If it was shot guerilla style what's the risk of the airports and various pedestrians suing them etc.,? I'm very curious about this.

I think if the film has any real distribution agreements they (the producers/or production company/or distributor) MUST have Errors & Omissions Insurance (E&O), so they probably won’t worry about such things. E&O insurance provides protection against any future litigation.

In this case someone might raise an invasion of privacy issue.
TV & Film Producers E&O

A Boy Named Sue
 

Couple of points here. Anyone can sue for anything at any time. Courts dismiss suits as frivolous all the time. In my experience, the generally held view is that people appearing in public have no reasonable expectation of privacy, so crowd shots are ok, even from the front, so long as you do not isolate or feature an individual, or linger on one. If they talk and can be heard on camera, you absolutely must have a release.

On the second point, it used to be ok to film at airports, municipal buildings etc, but they all require permits now, since the film industry made them realize they could profit, and that film crews are huge and disruptive. They have no way to know that your little enterprise is not on the same scale. Even Mall's have adopted the policy. I was stopped from shooting at a mall in Tennessee with a point and shoot! (Location scout).

If you can do it guerilla style, no tripod, maybe cradling the camera or shooting from inside concealment, you might consider that. The scene from the Bourne film where Matt Damon was in a european railroad station, was shot with camera concealed and from under the DP's clothing, to prevent people recognizing the star and gathering to watch. They probably had a permit to shoot from the railroad management, but no crew visible. Bon chance!

iPaul

Paul, is there a source article where we can read about the concealed shooting?

Andrew