Is Venice Beach one of those places in LA where the police strictly enforce film permits?
Thanks
Greg

it all depends on what you are doing and how many persons ! also weekend there are more police out then during the week ..
if you are out with a hand size camera and one- two other person should be no problem ... if you are out with crew, boom pole , actors you'll need a permit ..

the less persons and the more you look /act like tourist the least likely you'll be stopped ...

there are area's of venice beach where there are few people during the week but if you want all the venice activity -people , skaters, bikini's, basketball, weight lifters then stay low key & small ...shoulder size camera's are hard to hide ..

Greg, I shot there with my sony 570, "bigger camera" and had no problems at all. We we're shooting b-roll and M.O.S interviews for a documentary we were doing. We did not have a permit, and we shot there for about an hour or so. Granted it was during the week, but it was later in the day and there we police present, and a lot of people. No one bothered us. It also was just me and a producer. Not a big crew, that would draw attention. I do know that you do need a permit to shoot in a lot of places around LA. The Santa Monica Pier for example.

Greg, I shot there with my sony 570, "bigger camera" and had no problems at all. We we're shooting b-roll and M.O.S interviews for a documentary we were doing. We did not have a permit, and we shot there for about an hour or so. Granted it was during the week, but it was later in the day and there we police present, and a lot of people. No one bothered us. It also was just me and a producer. Not a big crew, that would draw attention. I do know that you do need a permit to shoot in a lot of places around LA. The Santa Monica Pier for example.

I gotta ask, how do you shoot an interview MOS since MOS means "Mit Out Sound." Isn't getting sound the whole point of an interview <grin>.

Steve M.O.S is short for "man on the street" interviews.

Thanks Don and Mark, this makes me feel more comfortable about the shoot - it's just me with a V1U, no other crew and it's reality - I have a HC10 which I use if pushed to look like a tourist, but prefer the V1U of course.

Mark, my first thought, like Steve, when you wrote about shooting an interview MOS was that you were shooting sans sound - shows how green I am.

Off topic Mark, but Steve's right, that's a badddd acronym. I looked at the "MOS" too and thought "doesn't that mean without sound?".

If you've ever worked at any news station, local or national they all use that acronym. it is very common place.