My co-workers and I were filming outside the Apple Store on 5th Avenue yesterday. It was a fake news bit — filming tightly on our actors, though with the Apple Store in the background. About five minutes in, a security guard came over and (politely) asked us to stop filming. Then he corrected himself and said “Well, please don’t film the building.”
We acquiesced, but I was infuriated. The building is outside in a public space. Really public actually: Fifth Avenue and 59th Street of New York Fucking City. They didn’t build it there to be hidden or demure. They WANT it noticed. We weren’t being rude, we weren’t bothering (or even filming) their customers, and we were tucked tightly in one spot to avoid being in any one’s way. We were on the public sidewalk and not on its property. Am I allowed to walk out onto my city block and ask people to not look at my apartment building? I would argue that by demanding my unsolicited attention as I walk down the street, they are surrendering their right to control my unsolicited use of their appearance.
I don’t know the law, and my beef is not really one of civil legality. It’s one of innate rights to tell a story and form one’s own opinion.
I argue that a corporation’s main desire is to control everything around it. Its ability to make money is secondary. When we film a corporation’s headquarters, we threaten to seize the power to use its appearance as a symbol in a story, and who knows what the story will be? And corporations fear the power of stories and want to control them. If they could, they would control the use of their corporate symbols in all news stories, conversations and even thoughts.
What I love is that the guard, and by proxy, his corporate employee — had NO IDEA what our goal was or who we are. But they must reach out and squash any uncontrolled representation of itself as an entity.
I remember in 1987, my high school friends and I went into the Danbury Fair Mall one week after it opened with a VHS camera. We were filming each other on a bench in the community area, and a security guard asked us to leave. What possible damage could we have inflicted?
It’s what I loved about the short-lived science-fiction show Max Headroom. In that story, which takes place in the future, you need a license to own a camera, and people treat cameras with the same reverence and fear that people normally have towards guns. That show got it right!
I call upon all storytellers, writers, comedians, actors and conversationalists to willfully use all corporate symbols to their own ends regardless of law or even the point of what you’re saying! Just push back on the forces that want to tell you what to think. Start the precedent today that we own our thoughts and stories no matter what a privately-owned entity tries to tell us. Scorch the Earth! Stop the monsters!
Not that I did anything.
On my iTunes now:
Company Calls Epilogue by Death Cab For Cutie from "We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes"
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Jun 21st, 2007 at 3:04 pm
This is why I don’t own an ipod.
Mike Pfeiffer and I took random photos in the mall and were approached by an employee from Record Town. When he realized our agenda was just being weird, he was cool. Confused, but cool.
Jun 21st, 2007 at 4:14 pm
As long as you are handheld, it’s perfectly legal to shoot anywhere outside in NYC now. You can’t go inside, and you can’t set up a tripod, but besides that you’re fine.
Jun 21st, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Isn’t there something about 1 tripod leg or something? Can’t remember the deets.
Jun 21st, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Here’s you go Will: http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf. Print it out and take it with you next time you shoot. You were completely in your rights and could tell the man to fuck off.
Damn the man!
Jun 21st, 2007 at 11:37 pm
I agree that corporate symbols, logos, and names should be used more freely. You’re really only going to run afoul of trademark law if it could be reasonably construed that e.g. Apple is supporting whatever it is you’re creating. But we’ve seen in recent decades this awful chilling effect, where everyone’s afraid to use any corporate logo for any purpose, even as backdrop where no one could reasonably believe there is sponsorship, etc. And that bugs me. The line should be more jealously guarded from the non-trademark owner’s side as well. Bravo!
Jun 21st, 2007 at 11:48 pm
I just hope you’re willing to make things right and share with Apple some of the pecuniary gain you reap from posting that unflattering picture of its store on this blog.
Jun 22nd, 2007 at 12:24 am
it is graffitti that is legal- I am tired of the berating state of brands – but as it goes, they pay the bills and are the bills. as for security anywhere on this city they are paranoid m’fers- also i have heard you can’t be allowed to take photos on or near the subway and you could be fined or your camera taken away.
Jun 22nd, 2007 at 12:24 am
apologies for the horrible grammer.
Jun 22nd, 2007 at 1:22 am
You left before Matt DeCoster, Bill Buckendorf and I were asked to leave the courtyard of the building that we pay rent to live in while filming a video for your sketch show… was this the inspiration?
Jun 22nd, 2007 at 11:24 am
it is perfectly legal to take photos on the subway right now (although there were attempts to curtail the legality of it post 9/11), although i am sure it is also possible you will be hassled about it.
Jun 22nd, 2007 at 11:39 am
i think i will write a short story whose villian will be the ingenious, cunningly named devil “Apple Corporation”, whose ability to cloud the minds of regular mortals minds leads him down the path of horror and ultimate evil. Apple Corporation will eventually transform into a pedophilic, canabalistic horror freak-show, the like of which has not been seen in our lifetime, dabbling in evil and black magics that should never have been re-awakened. Apple Corporation shall be the most terrible man-transformed-into-living-demon to ever roam the sweet land of mother earth. he shall rape innocents and poison the wells of orphanages. he shall transform safe, wonderful things into creeping horrors that steal you from your bed and consume your soul in hellfire. the heroine, Euphenia, will curse him, ‘EVIL APPLE CORPORAAATION!!!!’, repeatedly throughout the novella.
too far? or not far enough?
Jun 22nd, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Was the security guard the same guy that stole your iPod last year? Maybe it’s an overarching conspiracy by the Apple corporation against you. I’ve seen The Net; those bigwigs will stop at nothing to damn the little guy.
Jun 22nd, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Keep up the fight Will, you’ve stuck it to the man before!
http://willhines.net/spitemag/bile/bank.html
For those wanting to stick it to the man now:
http://willhines.net/spitemag/tricks/stick.html
Jun 25th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Eddie Murphy was filming a movie out front of the Apple store on Sunday. I tried talking to a security guard about their policies on filming the Apple store from the sidewalk, but I couldn’t figure out how to ask it without alienating him (I work at 767 Fifth Avenue so…you know, I don’t want to piss off the security guards). I almost got some info, but I blew it.
I was all, “Hey man, what movie are they filming out there? Oh really? Eddie Murphy. Yeah, he IS hilarious. So what does a man like Eddie Murphy need to do to film a movie out there? A permit from the city AND the OK from the building? Cool. So you could just toss them if they didn’t get the OK from you guys then, right? That makes sense. So you could just toss some guy with a camera if they were on the plaza, right? Oh yeah, that’s right you did close it down completely during the Puerto Rican day parade, I remember that. So…like…what if somebody were filming on the sidewalk? Yeah, I know you don’t control the sidewalk. But what if…what’s that, oh you have a phone call? OK, I’ll see you later man, nice talking to you.”
True story.