Whenever there’s a reality show with Robert Irvine or Jon Taffer, I have to wonder… can a bar or restaurant owner just put his employees on TV, or does he need their permission?
I know I wouldn’t ever agree to be yelled at or criticized on national television. So, if my principal tried to put my school on a rescue show, would I have to agree to keep my job? Or could I say “No way I’m going on camera, and nothing in my contract says I have to”?
The employees must sign a release, same as in cop shows. If they don’t sign a release, they get blurred.
Barring a state law or terms of an existing contract your employer could make signing the release a condition of continued employment. And possibly refusing to sign could be considered terminated with cause, making you ineligible for unemployment. Maybe one of our resident legal types could chime in.
Schools are a different animal. I’ve worked in public schools for the last 12 years, and in my state you can’t put cameras in most classrooms except in special circumstances, and even then the video usually can’t be made public.
Some of them are completely staged. One bar around the corner from me got “rescued” and all the staff for the episode were hired actors.
Not all of them are staged though. Another bar I go to a lot also got rescued and they used the regular staff for that episode.
How is it legal to secretly film people not in public?
I don’t know if you’re right, but I’ve often wondered. There is no job I’ve ever needed so badly that I’d let someone scream in my face and call me names on national TV.
Bartending jobs can’t be THAT hard to come by!
They film them secretly, and then go back afterwards and get them to give permission. If they don’t give permission, then they are either blurred out, or you just never see them.
All hidden camera shows have a guy with a clipboard following along behind getting people to sign permission slips. Yes, even Cops. Ever notice how on Cops sometimes people have their faces blurred? Those are guys they didn’t get signatures from.
I can’t speak for Bar Rescue but a friend of a friend of mine worked at a place that was on Restaurant Stakeout and they told me that they had to sign a release but they also hired actors to appear as waitresses and bartenders to help “stir the pot” as it were. The person I knew ended up not being on camera.
“We need more drama in this scene, so let your boss scream at you and pretend to fire you. There a few hundred in it for you, plus you get to be on TV.”
There’s no chance the bar rescue ones are reality. A whole bunch of new cameras in the rafters, not to mention how clear the audio is – implying there are new microphones everywhere, or more cynically, boom operators – and the staff has to know what’s going on.
Oh, let’s not forget that they also close the bar down to the public while filming. They might take a few of the regulars and pay them as extras, but they will also fill the place out with obvious extras who have never been ther before.
They’re not filmed secretly. A bar I used to go to, a lot, in Burbank was featured. It was a disaster for everybody. The publicity for the owner couldn’t have made up for the ill-will among the regular customers. But to address the question: We’re filming this week. Sign here or lose your shift. That is very legal. I was there the night they did the reveal, as it were. Had to sign or get the fuck out. Private party, don’t you know.
Well if the bar already has camera’s then there shouldn’t be a problem.
I would think you would have a limited to non-existent expectation of privacy at work. Sort of like how your boss can watch everything you do on their computer.