Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 17:46:22 -0400
From: "Hobey Ford" <hobeyone-AT-gmail.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] War story


Just another thought.  I have foound it useful to offer a free couple of
shows to a local school with the understanding that I will be videoing the
show and that it won't be the usual experience.  I get permissions and all
and then everybody knows that it will be a shoot, with camera men running
around.  They generally enjoy the context of the performance and have fun
with it.

On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 5:42 PM, Hobey Ford <hobeyone-AT-gmail.com> wrote:

> I hate that and understand the frustration.  The videographer who wants to
> be part of the show.  Photographers can be just as bad.  But I almost always
> agree to any videoing and photography but ask them not to jump into the show
> with me.  Often I will allow a vidoegrapher to shoot a little back stage.
> They have been positive experiences on the whole and I have gotten amazing
> footage and shots for the portfolio and positive press buzz..  It is the guy
> who shows up unannounced and just jumps in there who get in the way and
> irritate the audience and myself.  On the whole I don't complain and take it
> in stride along with the parent who allows their child to be aweful or the
> load in from hell or the nazi school secretary who refuses to let me in to
> the space till the last second even though its in the contract.  I smile and
> take their money and hope they have me back.  It just not worth being
> negative if you can help it, as work is hard enough to find.  There are
> places that I won't return to though, but I like to have the option.  I
> don't judge anyone who gets sore and lets them know it, I have just found
> for myself that they usually take it wrong so why bother trying to educate
> them and then not get invited back.  I have made a deal with myself not to
> take things personally either way because one day its roses and the next day
> its #%*!#-AT-!  Its work and more fun than most peoples' work and I want to
> like it.
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 2:41 PM, The Independent Eye <
> eye-AT-independenteye.org> wrote:
>
>> >Have you
>> >ever had a videographer shoot over your shoulder while you are doing
>> >your show? I mean come right up on the stage, in the middle of the
>> >show, to get shots?
>>
>> Ah yes.  In this case a news crew from a local tv station when we
>> were touring a very intense, harrowing short play about family
>> dysfunction & child abuse.  Crew came in mid-show, walked all over
>> the stage, and as soon as we started into an immediate discussion
>> with the audience - an integral part of the show - poked at me to ask
>> for an interview (no thank you, you sonofabitch).  I decided
>> mid-performance to continue without interruption, for the sake of the
>> sponsor (a social agency) to have news footage.  But it was an
>> ulcerating experience.
>>
>> The only solution, when video is at all an issue, is to have a
>> rock-solid understanding with everyone involved and some means of
>> enforcement.  A good videographer *sometimes* is aware of the
>> strictures of a live performance, but above all they're wanting to do
>> their job, and the better they are, the more likely they are to see
>> that one fabulous shot they have to stand on your shoulders to get.
>> We hired a videographer to do multiple performance shootings of a
>> recent show, and every night I had to go through the same long
>> dialogue about how it wasn't possible for her to walk back and forth
>> between stage and audience.  She was from a different world.
>>
>> Cheers-
>> Conrad
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>
>
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