A strange welcome

This is a lifeboat. If you got here on purpose (and not just by some kind of freaky web accident) you are probably desperate. What can I tell you? Not a lot, but probably as much as anyone else can. My greatest hope is that you can tell me something. There's a comment section below. The first thing that's worth knowing, is that the image of a hacker as some kind of nerd in his (yes, it's usually his) bedroom is a complete fallacy. Nerds do exist and they even have conferences and exhibitions where they strut their stuff, at least as much as nerds ever do anything like that. But nerds get no browny points for accessing your home computer. They don't care about you. You are not a target. Nerds want to hack into the computers of defence organisations or corporations. Not you. Most hacking. Probably almost all hacking is practised by governments. Of course, there are criminals out there who may try to plant ransomware on your computer. But if you have enough money to be a target you probably don't need this blog. You can pay for your own IT department or consultancy. Here, of course, it's worth mentioning the criminals who want to get some money out of ordinary people by threatening to expose them wanking while watching internet porn. Most of such threats are nonsense. If you get such a threat and think it is credible go to the police. They will take it seriously. But the best advice is don't watch internet porn and don't whatever you do, do anything in front of your computer screen that you wouldn't want your mother to see. The all seeing computer camera is dangerous and hard to turn off. The good news is that even if the hacker has got video of you doing something horrible, it's extremely unlikely this will ever be spread about because to do so would leave the hacker vulnerable to discovery. First don't do it. Second if you do do it, don't pay. So what is this blog about? It's about governments and government agencies. There's nothing you can do to stop surveillance. Every time you pay a bill with a card or have your teeth x-rayed, the state has dibs on you. Ask Edward Snowden. Google him if you don't know who he is. This blog is about those who are being harassed or abused by the state. Computers today are utterly vital for a normal lifestyle. They are not just desktop boxes; they are TVs, phones and pretty much every kind of domestic equipment you have. All of them can be hacked. Any state allowed to pursue its objectives without any form of public scrutiny, is out of control. There is no effective monitoring of the intelligence services. Only those who have been vetted and are deemed to be insiders, are ever allowed even a glimpse at what is going on. If you think your computer is against you, you may be paranoid, or maybe you have been targetted by this out of control state or most likely both things are true: you are paranoid and they really are out to get you. This is your lifeboat. Hop aboard and together we might be able to find a way to escape the clutches of an over mighty state.

Borderlands

When I went to The Gambia getting off the plane was like stepping into a warm shower. The humidity was tangible. The air was about as liquid as it was a gas. A little old man came up to us and offered to carry our luggage. I didn't really need his help and didn't like the idea of imposing on him, but we had read the guide book which said it was a good idea. And so it proved. We waltzed through customs while everyone else had their bags and property tossed about in a haphazard fashion. Borderlands can be hazardous to the unwary. When I was a kid I lived in Bow, a bike ride from the docks. At the time, the unions ran the docks and even, some years later, forced the government to release some prisoners they held for union activities http://www.aworldtowin.net/resources/Pentonville5.html . But all was not benign on the docks where there were many corrupt practices. I was reminded of this while watching an HBO/BBC production called Rome, in which the massive Rome docks is brought to a standstill as a result of a war between the various criminal gangs gouging a piece of the action out of the shipping trade. It was instantly recognisable even though it was 2,000 years ago and even though no-one said 'I could have been a contender'.

Vixen

It looks like the vixen who lives in my garden is on heat. Her Cubs, I think there are three of them, now seem to be full grown, and a dog fox has taken up residence in the garden. Oddly, the dog fox doesn't use the fox holes the vixen has tunneled, even though these are now a veritable warren. The vixen has three entrances to a huge cavern under my compost bin. Clearly vixens don't mind a smelly neighbourhood. Surprisingly, the dog fox just lays in wait in the garden. Probably he knows he would not be welcome if he poked his nose into the fox holes. Do dog foxes have fox holes?

Summer rain

This summer is beginning to remind me of the summers of my youth. My dad used to be a professional snake catcher for London Zoo in his youth, so he had done a lot of camping, especially in the New Forest. The snakes he caught were the commoner types: grass snakes and adders. The zoo valued them not because it could exhibit them, but because they formed an important part of the diet of several animals they did display to the public. Spending most of his weekends under canvas for several years made my dad think of himself as something of an expert camper and he was very proud of the army surplus tent we had, which he said was so big it was technically a marquee. But size was not the main issue. The point about this tent was that it could, and did on occasion, withstand hurricanes so he would pitch on a full camp site at night and find we were the only ones left in the morning, the other tents having presumably blown away. We were all weather campers. That meant I frequently got to hear the intoxicating sound of heavy rain beating down on the canvas. Each year we would head off to some distant part of the realm, usually managing to go via the Lake District. For some reason we always stayed a night or two at a tiny but magical camp site hidden from view by surrounding hills. I once asked my dad where this was, hoping to re-visit it. But he said he didn't know. Somehow the car always found it. And when we got there of course it rained. There is nothing that makes you feel safer and sounder than being inside a watertight tent listening to the drumming of a heavy storm. And here it is again. The constant sound of summer rain. Takes me back.

The thrill of the chaise

Well that was a close one. I came across a chaise longue someone had thrown out, as you do in Chatham. Since I am a dedicated freecycler, my running club, the Medway Rebel Runners, calls us scavengers, I simply couldn't pass it by. There I was sitting on it, thinking would this improve my life style enough to make up for the space it would take up, oblivious to the pressing feeling in my left buttock. I was sitting on my keys. Eventually I decided it was too much effort and reluctantly parted from it. But when I got home I was shocked to find my key had been bent out of shape and would not fit the lock. I was stuck outside wearing a sweaty t shirt and shorts. I had been running. So I set about finding a blunt instrument to hit the key to bend it back into shape. Success came eventually when I found a lump of concrete; but it is surprisingly difficult to straighten a key with concrete. If you see a chaise my advice is run on by. Note: with thanks to Tony Coll who wrote the title.

The dark arts

What is the purpose of public relations? Is it to make a company and its employees feel good about themselves and what they are doing? Maybe.

Or is it part of marketing, creating a climate in which people will buy?

The best PR probably serves both functions and many more (like making shareholders feel good)but sometimes you just can't have the best. Some companies are so incredibly unpopular that no PR on Earth is going to make them look good. The bank shortly after one or other financial scandal has come to light, the oil company that has polluted the bay of Mexico... No amount of glowing words is going to make these companies popular.

So what do you do? A public display of heads rolling probably helps. But when the old bosses are counting their millions in golden handshakes and the new bosses are imprinting their own individual bottom designs into the leather furniture, what do you do next?

Well, here's an idea! How about negative PR?

Sometimes you have to just listen to your customers and go with the flow.

It works.

Here's a video that has had ten million views:



FedEx Fundamentals - Annual Income Statement

---

31/May/2013 ...31/May/2012 ... 31/May/2011

---

$44,287m ......... $42,680m ......... $39,304m

---

The company actually seems to have done rather well since the video was posted in December 2011, though of course the financial returns have to be read with caution especially in the context of a diverse group like FedEx. One thing is clear though: FedEx customers may have enjoyed sneering at the bad practice (and the subsequent humiliating apologies issued by the company) but they did not stop using its services. And given the huge amount of publicity FedEx got there is little doubt that far more people now the name and the sort of service the company provides.

And this is odd. For the most part people don't like big corporations and will say nasty things about them but all the same they prefer to do business with them largely because they know the name.

It's the Homer Simpson effect. There's a cartoon of Homer sitting in front of a tv showing an airplane bursting into flames. Pretty much all you can see is the logo of the airline on the tailfin. The rest is flames. Homer's on the phone ordering a plane ticket. When he's asked which airline he wants to use, he quotes the name he can see on the tailfin. It's a name he knows.

Leave it to Max

Take the example of the gay footballer who's terrified of being outed and having his career destroyed. He's squeaky clean. No-one could say anything about him. So what happens when he goes to a PR man who knows about the power of the dark side?

He gets photographed coming out of a nightclub with a half naked girl on each arm, possibly getting involved in a punch up.

You think the News of the Screws used to exploit and humiliate? Well, sometimes it did. But sometimes it was used and abused itself.

Small shopkeepers are not always beautiful

Then there's the Ronnie Barker strategy in Open All Hours. He deliberately makes spelling mistakes when he writes on his shop window. His idea is that when clever dicks are drawn into the shop to tell him he's got his spelling wrong, he gets the chance to sell them something.

Barker's intention (or the object of his fictional character) is to make money. It's not about achieving the high regard of his community or convincing people that he has a fantastic knowledge of the English language. He simply wants customers in his shop so he can sell them something.

You don't have to have a positive image to be a star. Villains have always made a living out of the dark side of life, but there's also a different kind of dark star. Consider the case of the late Jeremy Beadle. He was so 'unpopular' or had such a dark image, that people started creating Jeremy Beadle jokes:

What was Jeremy Beadle's favourite kitchen appliance?
A microwave.

But he exploited his image, even calling himself Beedlebum at one stage in his career. There are may similar artistes, quite few like Beadle former or present disk jockeys, but they all share one thing in common. You may laugh at them, possibly even despise them; but you respect or admire them for their professionalism.

Whatever you thought of Beadle, you also knew he was rather good at his job.

The Economist recently (October 12, 2013) reported on the phenomena of humour in public announcements. It quoted the example of funny videos created by Australian and American Airlines to make customers pay attention to the safety drills.

In fact it may be that some dark subjects can only be handled with humour. Ashesh Mukherjee and Laurette Dube of McGill Unniversity

Don't give up the day job

He told it as if it was a joke, but clearly Will Massa, British Council film advisor, had a serious purpose. He said: "Why does everyone want to be a film maker. Stop it. Put the cameras down."

He was probably trying to be provocative (it was at the Mud Wrestling session, devoted to trenchant comments and inflammatory exchanges). "That traditional route of making two or three shorts and then making a feature doesn't seem to be working any more," he continued. As a result, he opined, film makers need to have a second string to their bows. Don't give up the day job.

But Jason Sondhi, co-founder of the rather remarkable Short of the Week web site (devoted to films rather than alcoholic beverages or items of sports clothing), claimed he knew of 14 or 15 Hollywood projects that had started with short films.

Probably true, but the fact that the films made it is no guarantee that the film makers also jumped up a league!

After that it could have been either Will or Jason who said: "This is an incredibly competitive business and even the people with talent, 99% of them are not going to have the sort of stellar careers that they want."

Maybe I had a jaundiced view. The day started badly for me when I arrived at BAFTA (just a few yards away from London's Piccadilly Circus) and the receptionist seemed to be asking if I was there because I was short sighted.

I hadn't stumbled up the stairs so I was curious as to why there was a feeling that my eyesight might be less than perfect. But I'd really been asked if I was there to attend the Short Sighted event, a full day of seminars devoted to the art of making movies that last considerably less than 90 minutes.

Despite the pessimism and the fact that you didn't have to read between the lines to work out that for almost everyone short film making is a labour of love rather than a business, there was a heck of a lot of useful advice and information.

For example, I intend to join two Facebook groups: Cinematic Drifters and BAFTA Shorts (if they will have me). I was also astonished to learn that Shorts International has to obtain 3,500 short films a year to broadcast on its channel. That means that if you can't get one into its programme it is officially the 3,501st worst film issued that year.

Of course, broadcasting achieves recognition and the nice warm glow of realising that someone out there cares about the film you've just sweated blood to complete. What it does not get you is the money to pay the rent, or to allow you to make the next film.

To bring in the cash you need that second income stream, that day job.

Soap On A Phone

The World's longest running soap opera is The Archers, broadcast on BBC Radio 4. According to Wikipedia this was originally produced in 1950 in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture. "The Archers was conceived as a means of disseminating information to farmers and smallholders to help increase productivity in the post-World War II years of rationing and food shortages," Wikipedia adds.
The British pioneered the use of soap as a tool of social policy but this practice is now more or less global. In countries that lack almost any other way to combat the Aids epidemic people have turned to soaps to drive home the message that safe sexual practices save lives, for example.
In South Africa in 2006 script writers announced that one of the lead characters in the country's most watched tv soap Isidingo, was going to struck down by Aids.
The soap, shown by public broadcaster SABC, had an audience of a million. The storyline was designed to strike a chord in a country where something like 16% of adults have HIV or Aids.
Population Media Center (PMC), an American not for profit organisation based in Vermont, has been responsible for radio soaps in America, Africa, Oceania and Asia.
The soaps contain an educational message on subjects as diverse as women's rights, green issues, so called female circumcision, reproductive and children's health, HIV/Aids and rape.
Katie Elmore, director of communications at PMC told the Vermont Woman newspaper: "We start with a feasibility study and identify key stakeholders. We identify if mass media will work in that area. We simultaneously identify funding. We study policies and laws of the country, as well as UN policy on that topic. We gather qualitative information from villagers on a wide range of issues that are important to them. We will find out about the food people have for breakfast, so the soap operas will be realistic."
In Britain, yet another revolution is brewing in the world of Soaps with the world's first soap on a phone, Persona. Right now it has quite a small audience, tens of thousands rather than the millions claimed by Coronation Street or East Enders, but Persona is growing fast.
It has the potential to be a model that will allow almost anyone to set up a tv station. When this baby starts to walk no-one knows where it will go. See http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/persona-drama/id417940950?mt=8 for further information.

Voice in a Million

I got a great job, part of a large team videoing an event at Wembley Arena called Voice In A Million. It's a huge inspirational event and it was fun just being there.
It's also always great to work with a large creative team. There were lots of video makers, all with interesting stories to tell. For example, there was the Italian who when sent to video the Pope's Secretary, ducked the offer to kiss his ring (a sign of great favour amongst Catholics). She'd been brought up a Catholic but even so she couldn't bring herself to kiss the old man's ring.
Clearly the Pope's secretary took it as a snub, because that was her last news assignment. After that she was moved to sport.
Videoing in Wembley Arena is a challenge because the lighting during an event like this is extremely uneven: it's often difficult to see what's going on, let alone capture it on tape.
My approach was to concentrate on the interesting cut aways: a study of an individual child performing amongst a large group on a stage can be fascinating.
The kids had been taught to make a series of hand movements to emphasise the words they were singing and I managed to get several shots of groups of arms in profile. This was not the way the performance had been designed (I was at the side of the stage, not at the front with the audience), but I found the sight quite moving. It was like those speeded up views of plants growing, stretching out, you sometimes see. I can't show you those images (I had to hand in the tapes), but this video shows the set up.
We saw a lot of set up. I got there at 2.30pm and we started work after 7pm!



http://www.baa.me.uk/

Vibe: It's art Jim, but not as we know it

There's a new(ish) gallery in Bermondsey called Vibe and it wants to attract video makers. Vibe has the ambition to create talent forums and ultimately even produce new artistic videos.
I'm not at all convinced that the world needs more artistic videos (in an abstract sense anyway). That may sound like a daft thing for a video maker to say, but stick with me for a while. I'll try to develop the argument.
Videos are essentially ephemeral. Art is eternal, or at least some of it is. Hence (at least to a certain extent) there's a conflict between the two.
The videos I'm interested in have a purpose: they're selling something, describing an event or highlighting an evil. Of course some of them, rather like audio history, should be archived since they capture real characters and tell real tales. But is this art? If it is, it's probably the Star Trek version of art: "It's art Jim, but not as we know it."
I showed my promo video about Blake Fielder Civil (former husband of Amy Winehouse) http://shepherdvideos.blogspot.com/2011/12/getting-close-to-amy-winehouse.html but I didn't feel happy about it. There was some stuff in some of the other videos that was genuinely extremely good. The standard that has to be achieved seems to have been lifted. You just have to be about 10% better than five years years ago in order to be adequate.
I'm currently working on my first reasonably serious video using the Canon 7D and a surprisingly wonderful 50mmm lens. This combination and the latest iteration of the editing suite FCP (issued about three weeks ago) offers stunning possibilities.
But it also imposes limitations. You can't really have a one person 7D camera team in the way you could have a single shooter using a Sony Z1. It's also harder, perhaps even impossible, to shoot stuff as it happens. You really need to set up your shot.
It's not the greatest combination if you want to cover a fast moving news event, like a riot, for example. But the quality is simply stunning. Once you've seen what can be achieved, can you ever go back to the Z1?

The Sound of Facebook

Chris Jones, author of The Guerilla Filmmakers Handbook, and a fine video director himself, organised a Guerilla Film Makers Masterclass, at the rather wonderful Regents College, just behind London's Baker Street tube station.

Jones is a great motivational coach and inspirational speaker, but there wasn't much in his presentation about finding an audience or making a real profit out of video making. He taught us how to raise finance, but he didn't offer a clear route to actually making a return on any finance a video maker might get. His rather chilling message was make your life sustainable, presumably get a job on a Tesco check out to pay the rent!

His personal experience has been utterly awful, when it comes to getting returns. Yes he's made quite a few films and his recent stuff is wonderful, but the angels who gave him the money to make those films, or at least the early ones, did not fare well.

From what we heard Chris Jones' experience of dealing with sales agents has been utterly dire. They have almost invariably gone bust, disappeared with all the money or both.

Well, no doubt, if he looked at my track record he'd have some pretty awful things to say about me!

Jones came up with a constant stream of good ideas, including the rather excellent thought that a new video maker wanting to create a break through video (one that would get noticed) could do worse than form a limited company and re-make Jesus Christ, Superstar. Since there would be no intention to make money, the fact that it would have been a flagrant breach of copyright would be of no significance. If the copyright owner decided to sue, this would simply force the company to go bust and there would be a lot more publicity for the project.

Good thinking, though I doubt if anyone would be silly enough to sue.

I was there with Tony Coll, a Bristol based video maker I work with sometimes, and met Richard Woodburn, one of the Rose & Crown (Walthamstow) group of video makers.

Tony suggested that the hubbub of the huge audience when Chris Jones invited them to do some networking by talking to their neighbours, was the sound of Facebook, a great idea I think. Richard got a good laugh when he suggested the principle of crowd funding should be applied to attempting to raise enough money to get a round of drinks for everyone.

Finding the real Amy

A French tv group wants to make a documentary about Amy Winehouse. They got in touch with me because I started to make a video about Blake Fielder Civil, Amy's former husband, see my blog http://shepherdvideos.blogspot.com/2011/12/getting-close-to-amy-winehouse.html

I met a researcher called Emilie Helmbacher, who works for a production company called Ligne de Mire (apparently it's the French version of test card), at the National Film Theatre, on the Southbank.

Apparently they have a deal to broadcast on M6 (the third biggest French channel) some time in the summer, but the video may also go on to be shown in Belgium and Canada.

The idea is to reveal the real Amy, apparently.

I never met Amy, so I may not be the best judge, but from my limited knowledge I'm not altogether sure that even Amy knew who the real Amy was. After all she was only 26 when she died from alcohol poisoning.

Copyright

For all sorts of reasons copyright is really the domain of corporations not artists. Taken to extremes it can also make the world mind manglingly complex. Some architects have, for example, been known to say they own the copyright of buildings. What about the telephone box in your shot. That was designed. Shouldn't you pay a fee?

One fascinating example is Woody Guthrie's unofficial American anthem This Land Is Your Land. Guthrie wrote:
"This song is copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."

Guthrie published the song in 1945 and it had been around for several years before that (the music was probably written by somebody else and published earlier anyway). 59 years later JibJab, a studio based in Los Angeles, achieved international acclaim during the 2004 US presidential election when its video of George W. Bush and John Kerry singing "This Land is Your Land" became one of the biggest viral video hits in history up to that time.

What happened next was that a company claiming to own the copyright on Guthrie's song said it was going to take legal action, despite the fact that the cartoon contained a parody of the song. This legal action didn't get far but most companies will reach for their solicitors as soon as there is any mention of possible legal action. Lawyers, unlike many people in the film industry, expect to get paid and paid a lot, so this makes even a threat tiresomely expensive.

As the excellent Steal This Film points out copying in a digital age is frighteningly easy. Just to put something online is to copy it. The only way to preserve traditional copyright is to have an increasingly draconian police state, with snooping on all highways of communication in order to stamp out illegal thought.

Those with business models based on achieving copyright for all displays of their material should ask (a) is this practical? (b) is it moral? The answers to these questions seem obvious to me.

Getting close to Amy Winehouse

I never met Amy Winehouse but I did spend a lot of time with her former husband Blake Fielder Civil, a tabloid villain and a self confessed drug addict.

If you believe everything you read in the Sun you ought to have your head examined. But more seriously, if you believe some of it must be true, after all there's no smoke without fire, Blake is a demon, the very worst type of human being anyone is likely to encounter.

In fact, he's a clever, witty, softly spoken, polite young man. He's mostly good company though on occasion he can present moral dilemmas.

Blake wants to work in the film industry. He has talent and experience. He used to work on film sets before he met Amy. He was even hob nobbing with the stars before he got into films. When he was working in a flower shop he got to know one of the Rolling Stones.

Despite all this he is more or less unemployable: everyone knows (or thinks they know) he had a hard drug problem and he made life more difficult for Amy.

Well maybe. He was certainly very important to Amy. Some of her songs clearly reveal she had Blake in mind. Press reports suggested that much of her posthumous album would be about her relationship with Blake.

Clearly Amy and Blake lived in an environment where hard drugs and fast living were every day realities. Who was the leader and whether there ever was a victim are probably meaningless questions.

Amy died while Blake was in prison. Alcohol rather than hard drugs got the blame.

Blake was in jail because he couldn't get a job in the film industry, probably. His girlfriend (yes Blake's moved on since his divorce from Amy) says Blake might want to speak to me when he gets out.

There was a time when I thought Blake was just about the hottest celebrity around; that his name was capable of opening any door. He's hot alright: but too hot to handle. His name closes doors, it doesn't open them. Or at least that's my experience.

But maybe I'll go and buy Blake a coffee when he gets out (if he lets me). It could be interesting.

Illegal to photograph?

In France, I've been told, it is is illegal to photograph someone in the street without getting their permission. I've been told that but I've seen several examples of people who didn't want to be photographed being videoed in Paris and there is no legal or ethical difference between photography and video except video is more intrusive because it includes sound recording (and is regulated a little bit more stringently in some places).

In Britain I've had the police quote anti terrorism legislation at me as a reason for not videoing them and once a couple of likely lads in police uniform actually said I was banned under the Data Protection Act because video is stored electronically. The Data Protection Act might give the police the right to inspect my data, it doesn't stop me videoing them.

Of course, there is legislation designed to stop Paparazzi from poking their lenses into the lives of celebrities and others. Here the basic rule is if somebody asks you to stop you better have a pretty good reason not to. But this legislation is really designed to prevent repeated intrusions, the photographic equivalent of stalking.

Many years ago a guy called Lord Robert Peel formed a national police force because the nightwatchmen and security guards who made up the bulk of the thin blue line at the time, were thought to be ill equipped to police a modern society. But that was in the relatively enlightened mid Victorian era. In the 21st century we have a huge proliferation of poorly trained and ill equipped policing groups. Some call them the Noddy Police.

Given half a chance most of these people (the one in the video above is from the Lea Valley Regional Park Authority police) will tell you to stop videoing them and pretty much anything else as well. Yet the authorities these Noddy Police work for are often quite happy to point CCTV cameras at anyone doing anything.

In America a number of unflattering images of police treatment of protestors have been broadcast recently. There was the campus police officer (a US equivalent of a Noddy?) who casually pepper sprayed apparently peaceful people sitting on the pavement and the New York women pepper sprayed by a cop even when they were trapped.

The police may believe they can use the might of the law to stop their actions being scrutinised, but the truth is the genie is not going to go back in the bottle.

In America two out of three people have digital cameras and something like one in three have a phone that can record and transmit digital images. Anyone can put these images on Facebook or Youtube and there are other more specialist services such as the Copwatch web site.



In most parts of America (as in Britain) there is little doubt that you have a right to photograph people in public places, even police officers.

But it becomes more complex if you are videoing. There are 12 states of America in which it is illegal to make sound recordings unless all parties agree, though they usually have to prove they had reasonable grounds for believing that what they said was private. Even in these states it's hard to believe the police could prevent you videoing them at work since not much policing is carried out privately, or at least not much of the sort anyone is likely to video.

In one case brought under the Illinois Eavesdropping Act a judge ventured the opinion that a police officer might expect conversations with a confidential informant to be kept secret.

A recent documentary about Syria considered thousands of online videos showing anti regime activity or street violence. If such a huge amount of material could emerge from Syria there is no way of stopping the videoing of police (Noddy or otherwise) in Europe or America.

*Some of the facts (though none of the mistakes) in this blog originated from an article headed "Don't shoot" on page 47 of The Economist of December 10, 2011. http://www.economist.com/node/21541467

This is a post from Shooting People on the subject:

From: Benetta Adamson

"Waivers" or "consent forms" (which is what UK broadcasters would call them)
exist for a couple of reasons, and those are really to guide a documentary
maker in ensuring that they're treating their contributors fairly and within the
law of the land.

There's no secret about Ofcom guidelines: it's all there on their website
under the heading "Broadcasting Code". The BBC and Channel 4 make theirs
accessible to anyone (search "Editorial Guidelines" or "Compliance"); they're
closely based on the Ofcom Code and the procedures for referring up the
editorial chain are all set out. So the rules on "secret filming" are very clear,
for instance: you have to seek senior editorial consent before embarking on
such filming, or as soon as possible afterwards if it wasn't anticipated.

The presence of a signed consent form is an indication that a contributor has
agreed to take part in a programme and that the nature of his or her part in
the finished piece has been explained to him or her. If a legal dispute were
to arise then the consent form would be introduced as evidence that proper
informed consent was given; it's not a legal document in the sense that a
contract of sale might be, but it's a vital piece of evidence.

I feel that rather than regarding consent forms as some sort of bureaucratic
hazard put there to trip you up, it's much better to think of them as the
ultimate expression of the contract of trust that you have with a contributor.
If that's honest and open then you're unlikely to get into trouble. And if
you're doing something which involves misleading a contributor, such as in
secret filming, then you're very well advised to check on what the law *and*
the ethical code says before you embark on it.

Maybe this seems irrelevant if your film isn't being made for broadcast or
theatrical release, but I'd say that treating your contributors fairly should be a
habit anyway. And if your private ugly duckling suddenly turns into a swan,
wouldn't you like to be able to offer it to a wider audience?

By the way, anyone who has worked with Discovery or other US networks
knows that they are far far more exigent about compliance than anyone in
the UK. It isn't just us...


This is the relevant section of the OFCOM code. It does not require consent forms:

Guidance Notes
Issue Four: 16 December 2009
Guidance Notes
Section 8: Privacy
Guidance Notes
Issue Four: 16 December 2009
Section Eight
Privacy
Guidance
This guidance is provided to assist broadcasters in interpreting and applying the Broadcasting Code. Research which is relevant to this section of the Broadcasting Code is indicated below.
Every complaint or case will be dealt with on a case by case basis according to the individual facts of the case.
We draw broadcasters’ attention to the legislative background of the Code which explains that:
“Broadcasters are reminded of the legislative background that has informed the rules, of the principles that apply to each section, the meanings given by Ofcom and of the guidance issued by Ofcom, all of which may be relevant in interpreting and applying the Code. No rule should be read in isolation but within the context of the whole Code including the headings, cross references and other linking text.”
Practice to follow 8.1 An infringement of privacy in connection with obtaining material
Ofcom may only consider an infringement of privacy in the making of a programme if the programme is broadcast.
Private lives, public places and legitimate expectation of privacy
Privacy is least likely to be infringed in a public place. Property that is privately owned, as are, for example, railway stations and shops, can be a public place if readily accessible to the public. However, there may be circumstances where people can reasonably expect a degree of privacy even in a public place. The degree will always be dependent on the circumstances.
Some activities and conditions may be of such a private nature that filming, even in a public place where there was normally no reasonable expectation of privacy, could involve an infringement of privacy. For example, a child in state of undress, someone with disfiguring medical condition or CCTV footage of suicide attempt.
Guidance Notes
Issue Four: 16 December 2009
Practice to follow 8.11 Doorstepping
Doorstepping may be used (depending on the circumstances) where there has been repeated refusal to grant an interview (or a history of such refusals) or the risk exists that a protagonist might disappear. In such circumstances, broadcaster may themselves require programme-makers to refer to the responsible editor first.
Doorstepping in public places is most frequently and in most circumstances acceptably used in news programmes, where journalists often film and record those in the news without having pre-arranged the interview.
Practice to follow 8.12 Telephone calls
It is acceptable to record telephone calls for note taking purposes.
Practice to follow 8.13 Surreptitious filming or recording
Broadcasters normally have their own procedures in place to authorise such filming or recording. In such circumstances, broadcaster may themselves require programme-makers to refer to the responsible editor first.
Practice to follow 8.14 The broadcast of material gained by surreptitious filming and recording
When broadcasting material is obtained surreptitiously, whether in a public or private place, broadcasters should take care not to infringe the privacy of bystanders who may be caught inadvertently in the recording e.g. by obscuring the identity of those recorded incidentally.
Broadcasters should be aware that ‘innocent’ bystanders can be inadvertently caught (potentially causing an unwarranted infringement of privacy) with the transmission of material gained through surreptitious filming or recording.
Broadcasters should apply the same practice to follow to material shot surreptitiously by others (including CCTV footage) as they do to their own recordings in taking the decision whether to broadcast the material.
Practice to follow 8.16 People caught up in emergencies, victims of accidents, or those suffering a personal tragedy
As has been explained in the foreword to Section Eight: “there may be a strong public interest in reporting on an emergency situation as it occurs and ...there may be pressures on broadcasters at the scene of a disaster or emergency that may make it difficult to judge at the time whether filming or recording is an unwarrantable infringement of privacy. These are factors Ofcom will take into account when adjudicating on complaints.” For instance, when news crews arrive at the scene of emergencies etc, they often film and record as much
Guidance Notes
Issue Four: 16 December 2009
information as possible (which could result in infringements of privacy). However, it is then later, when the broadcaster actually transmits the footage that appropriate decisions can be made in an edit suite in the ’cold light of day’. Ofcom has a statutory duty to consider unwarranted invasions of privacy irrespective of the circumstances and genre of programmes. Nevertheless, in the light of a complaint, Ofcom will always take the full circumstances into account as well as the context in which the original footage was obtained.
At funerals, programme-makers should respect requests that they should withdraw.
Broadcasters should also respect any reasonable arrangements made by the emergency services to supervise media access to victims of crime or accident or disaster, or their relatives, in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy.
Practice to follow 8.17 People in a state of distress
Even if grieving people have been named or suggested for interview by the police or other authorities broadcasters and programme makers will need to make their own judgements as to whether an approach to such people to ask them to participate in a programme or provide interviews may infringe their privacy.
Practice to follow 8.22 Persons under the age of sixteen and vulnerable people
A child of five has a very different view and understanding of the world around it than a 15 year old teenager has. Questions need to be appropriate to both age and development whether the child or young person is taking part in a factual programme or an entertainment programme.
Care must be taken to not to prompt children and that they should be allowed to speak for themselves. Questioning that is likely to cause distress should be kept to a minimum.

Dubai City Lights

I went to Dubai to video a conference. It was a steep learning curve. The job was all about shooting interviews. I was recording sound and shooting video at the same time (never a great thing to do). The room we used was fairly dim (by studio standards anyway) and had a noisy photocopier. Yet some of the video was OK. Didn't get too much praise from the client (that's normal) but he didn't complain either, so a result.

Dubai has an impossible climate and feels like a frontier town: more Wild West than Middle East! But the people are friendly and it felt safer shooting on the streets there (even during the so called Arab Spring) than it does in Central London. Of course, you don't have the uniformed armed guards on every platform of the London tube in the same way that you do on the rather wonderful Dubai Metro, but you can't have everything!

I shot the video you can see on this blog in my spare time but I'm not sure I could recommend spending an enormous amount of time wandering the streets of Dubai. As I say it felt safe but the sun is ferocious and takes quite some getting used to.

Street shots

Videoing in the street is always challenging. Almost anywhere that you put down a professional looking camera someone (usually wearing a uniform) will come up to you and tell you not to do it.

So when a Middle East tv company asked me to do a couple of outside broadcasts with its correspondents reporting on the riots I was filled with trepidation.

For one thing the video I'd seen on tv showing the looting was truly hair raising. Camerapeople were taking risks that I thought were unacceptable. Don't get me wrong. I've been in a few riots


But these guys (and yes it was blokes) were running with the looters and videoing them as they emerged from shops with stolen plunder, a crazy risk to take. People tend not to like it if they see you doing that!!!

Fortunately I didn't have to do anything like that. We were strictly videoing the clear up operation. Some of the buildings were still smouldering but that was it.

Then there's the problem of language. It's very difficult to select the best take when you are videoing in a language you don't understand. And when you are sending out stuff at the ridiculously slow speeds offered by Virgin broadband in North East London right now, and the news programme is going to be on in a couple of hours time, you have to get it right first time.

What surprised me was that despite the extremely heavy police presence no-one told us to stop. They didn't even look askance at us.

The only official who talked to us (Croydon Council's press officer) seemed positively friendly.

It's the same at demonstrations. Despite enormous police numbers no-one ever stops you videoing anywhere in London. This even applies to Trafalgar Square which is a legendarily difficult place to video in.

Is there one set of rules covering street videoing most of the time and another when there are large numbers of police officers on the streets?