From: Jim Carlile (email suppressed)
Date: Sun Oct 28 2007 - 20:38:06 PDT
I think it's great NYC made the permits free and loosened the insurance
requirement, but why did they drop the freebie 30 minute time period for groups?
That makes no sense-- they've actually made the rules more restrictive.
If there's any kind of obstruction, the permits might be free, but they're
going to require insurance-- no matter the time period. The economic waiver
will last until the first injury and lawsuit...and cops will still be able to
harass if that's their choice---they'll shut down shoots by claiming they s
hould have gotten free police assistance ahead of time, etc.-- or will claim that
the free permit without insurance isn't adequate for the extent of the
filming.
I agree the old "no rules" policy was arbitrary and bad, but I think the
proposed rules in July were pretty good, especially for smaller film shoots that
could run fast and loose. They actually have more rules now.
In a message dated 10/28/2007 8:26:24 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
email suppressed writes:
I disagree completely, Jim. Now if one is harassed, or concerned about being
harassed, one can acquire--free of charge-- that optional permit, whip it
out and say, "here's the rules, bub, so back off" rather than arguing about
something that hadn't been codified and arbitrarily being detained or having
your equipment confiscated because an uninformed officer or building security
guard is making up their own rules on the spot.
In the face of the rampant paranoia that underlay the "no photography
permitted here" mantra, this is a great win.
Only time will tell which of us is correct of course. But I bet Clayton
Patterson, documentarian of the Tompkins Square Park police riot (and receiver of
police death threats for releasing his footage to the news bureaus) is more
in my camp than yours.
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.