Friday night my friends and I were filming scenes for a horror movie. It’s a short film expected to be about 30-45 minutes long after it’s complete. We wrote it over the course of 3 days whenever we had time, 2 of my friends have DVD camera’s and others have movie editing software so it seemed like a good idea to actually make a movie.
In one critical scene there is a police chase in which after the officer pulls over the car he too becomes a victim of the killer’s wrath.
At special auto parts stores you can buy strobe lights to put on your car in alot of different colors including red and blue. So we bought the red one and the blue one and hooked it up to my friends truck in the window. We drove our cars to a quiet street and started filming the scene.
Everything was going really good because it all looked so realistic.
Now the back of the truck has these speakers that normally can blast music but there is an interlude on a CD that we have that is 10 seconds of a siren going off so we put that on repeat and blasted it. Now everything is really going well because not only do we look real but we also sound real.
Real enough that one lady came out of her house and thought we were actually the police but we told her that we were just making a movie as a “project” for school, that lady was nice but I know she snitched on us.
A few minutes later the real police show up and the one cool thing was that I am almost 100 per cent positive that the younger cop thought we were the real deal but his older, “wiser” partner wasn’t having it and long story short we are lucky not to be in jail right now according to the officer with no sense of humor.
My friend got away with a ticket or tickets, I’m not sure.
We actually have no plans to stop filming the movie or even the one other scene that involves a police car because the show must go on.
Oh and I forgot to mention that the police made a girl cry… 
START… you are so cool!!! 
I used to sit in the front seat of a police car all the time
/BONK
Why didnt you bother asking the police department for a bit of help, the public affairs office arranges stuff like this as an opportunity for good publicity…you would have had a real cop car and everything…[I have a friend in virginia beach PD that did this for some film students a few times over about 5 years…typically it is done on a relatively slow day, and they try to keep the car out of service as short a time as possible, like trying to stay under 1 hour…]
Then you wouldn’t have had any problems :smack:
That’s cool that they cut you a break. I would try and see what kind of permit you would need from the city to do more police scenes.
Never thought of that…although now we will probably have to try a different city PD since we pissed off the local police.
[hijack]
Just a note about using DVD cameras. From my understanding, the DVD cameras record to the DVD using standard MPEG, meaning that once you start editing it, you will start to lose quality. You should ideally stick to MiniDV, or something similar if you are planning any editing.
[/hijack]
cool stuff, START. We shot a music video involving satanic rituals in our high school drama room. Accidentally set some polypropylene rope on fire. Got in a little trouble for that, after the smoke cleared.
What a frickin’ coincidence! On Saturday, me and two of my compatriots were busy filming a surreal crime drama titled Fox Buys Drugs From Turkey, a gripping drama in which Fox buys drugs from Turkey. In one pivotal scene, Turkey wallops good on the local dealer, Dust Mite (played by moi), with his shotgun, and takes Dust Mite’s stash of pure Nicarlombian stuf. Fox, a stuf addict, seeks revenge to get his fix.
Well, one scene we did out-of-the-way got noticed, and we had the Rangers there investigating a potential “rifle possesion” report. We stood around, 'splained the situation, got an understandable “we gotta treat it like it’s real” lecture (we also had a rookie/seasoned guy setup… the rookie seemed to think our movie idea was pretty amusing).
Anyway, we’re standing around, my two other buddies with a stuffed fox and a stuffed turkey safety-pinned to their shirts. The rookie asks, “So, uh, what’s with the animals?” They probably thought we were in some weird cult or something.
Ah well. At least they showed up AFTER we got the footage we need. For a guerrila filmmaker, that’s all that matters. 
Maybe yes, maybe no, give them a call and explain what happened and that you would like to see if it was possible to get some PD assistance now you see the error of your ways, and got /bonked by someone on the SDMB… 
I sat in the back of a police car once following an accident. It was just a wooden plank, no cushion. The police officer said they had to take out the cushion because drunks kept peeing on it.
There are so many reasons to stay on the good side of the law.
Unfortunately urine is the least of it.
I got a ride home in a Jefferson Parish cruiser once. I decided to try walking home from summer school and the cop happened by when I was resting on an overpass, he thought I was going to pass out and fall onto the railyard below.