I got news of this from PICTURE NEW YORK. It’s nuts. Save Hepcat’s right to take pictures!
You can make a movie on a cell phone, but what if you want to use a tripod, or stay in the same spot for more than 30 minutes? New regulations from the Mayor’s Office on Film set absurd restrictions that would require even casual photographers and filmmakers to have a permit, and a million dollar insurance policy. No doubt it would be selectively enforced, AND who needs that kind of law on the books in the first place?
Not you, not us, not anyone that wants to take some pictures at any random time they have a few hours. We bet not even the Mayor’s Film Office actually wants to process thousands of requests from shutterbug tourists, wedding photographers, and school groups.
Yes, the rules are written THAT broadly. A film school grad standing on a corner with a camcorder, four friends and a dream will now have to pay as much as HBO or Fox to make anything that takes more than two people and lasts half an hour. The new Bernice Abbott or Diane Arbus or WeeGee might not ‘get the shot’, because they were forced to move along, or were arrested for refusing to leave until the light was just right.
That’s nuts. A love affair with New York City happens in pictures. The history of the city – its summer hydrants, its rainbow children, its aching splendor – is etched in our minds by images so vivid we no longer know whether they’re photographs or our own memories – or perhaps they’re our own memories of photographs.
The Daily News and The NY Sun have both written editorials ridiculing the new regulations. You can read the eleven page brick of regulations here.
We need to fight back. With enough public outcry we can stop these regulations from becoming law. There’s a recent precedent: a ban on photography in the subways was successfully fought off in 2004-2005.
The all-too-brief period for public comment ends Aug 3. Please make your voice heard now:
1) Click here to sign our petition.
3) Make a Video or Photo Public Comment.
Post videos or photos commenting on this issue to YouTube or Flickr.
+ Tag the video or stills “”PictureNewYork”” and “”CameraWars””.
+ Send the links to jcho@film.nyc.gov and to us at info@picturenewyork.org
Spoken word artist Juliana Luecking has already posted her response to the proposed rules.
Picture New York is an ad hoc group of working artists, photographers and filmmakers joined together to fight these dumb rules.
http://www.picturenewyork.org