Sorry if this has been asked and answered before, but I always wondered about crowded street scenes (particularly scenes set in New York City) without a lot of action; basically, just focusing on the protagonist as a single individual in a sea of people.
Are such scenes always done with extras, or do they sometimes just capture random bystanders that happen to be around the day of filming? If the latter is possible, do they have to obtain releases of the people there to use the film? Also, what’s the “critical threshold” of recognizability necessary for such a release? (i.e., if someone is in the far background and has few distinguishing features visible, is their permission required to use the film?) Even if this question isn’t apropos for scripted TV and movies, it seems like it would be for reality TV…
I was an extra for several TV series - including various Law & Order shows and the short-lived Prime Suspect. And yes, everybody in the background is supposed to be a paid extra. An assistant director would direct us on where to walk and what to do. A production assistant would be standing just out of camera view to hold back traffic so that nobody but extras would wander into the shot.
It being NYC though, pedestrians would invariably stroll into the shot. Some folks would belligerently push their way by the P.A.'s, angry at the idea of being asked to wait. Sometimes the PA’s wouldn’t be able to stop everybody, or just asked them politely to not look at the cameras. Of course, some of them would stop and stare directly at the scene being shot. I remember one time while shooting L&O: SVU, a gaggle of girls saw Chris Meloni and started screaming “I love you” at him for like ten minutes.
So basically, nobody but paid extras ought to be in a shot, but occasionally an actual pedestrian wandered into view.
Wow, from my intuition the AD’s job in these cases seems especially hard to do: coordinating that many people such that they looked natural and uncoordinated. Did you get a sense from talking to people how much of a headache it was to do this, and do you know if it’s more of an art or a science to do it well?
I was a pedestrian in something small - I think a reality TV or true-crime show perhaps? Shot in Charleston, SC, in 2000… I was a homeschooler, so I didn’t know tv shows at the time, and I didn’t know enough or think to ask for the name of the show to look up later.
I was walking down towards the park itself when some woman with a clipboard stopped me, and initially said the park was restricted because they were filming, but she then said they needed more people in the park, and would I be ok with being in the background? I said sure, signed a thingie on her clipboard, and she told me to walk around the perimeter of the park like I was powerwalking. They were shooting where the cannonball stacks are, and I honestly don’t know if I ever made it into camera range or not, but I powerwalked around the park like 3 times before they started packing back up. I tried really hard to only stare openly when I was on the far side of the park from them, but it was really hard - I was fascinated by the cameras and all the people with various stuff roaming around purposefully.
I do sometimes wish I had been a little quicker on the uptake and asked for something with the name of the show written down on it.
Well, if you don’t coordinate them, you get a bunch of people gawking at the cameras and/or celebrity actors.
Going back a bit, one of my favorite pieces of trivia is that when he was shooting North by Northwest, Hitchcock couldn’t get permission to shoot at the UN. They made a mock up of the lobby for the interior shots, but for the scenes where Gregory Peck was going in and out, they just hid the camera in a van parked across the street. So those people were definitely just people on the street.
In the scene - extras. Background - anybody. I’ve spotted myself in the background of several TV shows that filmed in the Valley. I’ve walked through a scene from Hunter, for example. They weren’t shooting at the time, but I hung around across the street. Sure enough, the wide shots caught me a few times.
The AD’s mostly seemed like kids fresh out of film school who were eager to work (in no matter what thankless capacity) on a production. Most of them did the best they could in what was a very difficult job. Once or twice, the AD gave off an attitude like “I am TOO GOOD to be be working in this crap job!” There never seemed to be an art to it, they just coped as best they could.
Yes, but I could see there being a difference in the two cases which might explain things: in the Hitchcock case, pedestrians are not being directed but are simply walking through a shot without knowing it, and in your case, you actually being directed by someone to do something specific and have that captured on film. Possibly the latter requires something signed but the former does not.
I was an extra in the not-very-good Zack Braff movie The Last Kiss; parts of it were shot in Madison, WI when I was in grad school there. One of my scenes (opening scene of the movie) took place on a street near the Capitol. The street was closed for the shoot and everyone walking around was a paid extra.
If the scene has dialog, they usually control who’s in it (though there are exceptions); if it’s just an establishing shot, then they just shoot what’s happening on the street.
There’s no need to get a release if you’re shooting film of people in a public area.
While it is disputed if the taxi in the “Hey, we’re walkin’ here!” scene in Midnight Cowboy was a random cab or a stunt driver, the rest of the crowd were regular NYers. They were just filming from a van a regular NYC street scene.
Lost in Translation also had many crowd shots that were done on the fly.
It’s a lot easier/cheaper to shoot without permits and the like for small films. It helps if you hide the camera so that the regular folks don’t stare at it.
In The French Connection, one of the great car chase scenes of all time was filmed without obtaining the necessary permits, so they couldn’t clear the streets. Many of the people running for their lives were bystanders, including a lady pushing an (occupied) baby stroller across the streets. In one shot, you can see somebody on the film crew running towards a crowd of people, waving a clipboard and yelling; in another, a car gets wrecked that’s being driven by some guy who was on his way to work and ended up in the shot.
Sure, in general that is true. But when the footage is being used for a commercial purpose with identifiable people, wouldn’t a release be required? As a still photographer, I need a model release for identifiable people in public places if I am selling the photograph for trade or advertising, but not if it’s an editorial shot. How does it work with film/video? It’s not quite trade or advertising as part of a TV show or movie, but it’s not strictly editorial.
