16 ms·

That time when I accidentally social engineered myself to a film set

152 points by rossvor 4y ago

noah_buddy 4y ago
Perhaps there really was a part of the script that it had just rained. Oftentimes, they will wet the street in production because you get better light off the street. Once you know this fact, you will see wet streets everywhere in TV/Film/Commercials.
h2odragon 4y ago
A good way to get into things like that is to pitch in and help carry stuff: Don't ask, just find the people moving things and join the line. You may have to ask "where does this go?" when the person in front of you drops their object. You can go far by simply asking to watch and learn, too. Sneakery is only really required where there's "security" that hasn't got enough to do already.
- wrd 4y ago
  Definitely don't do this. Film sets are very controlled / precise environments and an innocuous piece of equipment can be INCREDIBLY expensive ($200k+). The chance of messing something up as a rando is very high and you'll just end up making the crew work longer and harder than they need to.
- jason-phillips 4y ago
  Or carry a clipboard.
  - krallja 4y ago
    In most situations, a high-viz vest also helps. Probably not on a film set, though!
    - mod 4y ago
      I hear this repeated a lot. Have you ever tried it out? I don't think it would work in most situations. Construction site? Sure. Sporting event? Probably. But in most of the places a person might try to go, I personally would avoid a high-vis vest at all costs.
      - pc86 4y ago
        It varies. The more you can look like "the help" the more likely people are to ignore you outright. And the hi-viz + clipboard is a pretty generic "you don't know me, but I'm the help" outfit.
      - cwillu 4y ago
        Depends: in many places the high-vis hits the “I'm wearing this because the rules say I have to and I'm not important enough to flout them even though they clearly don't matter here” note very well.
      - myself248 4y ago
        Oh yeah. Walking around a manufacturing plant. Brand-new hi-viz vest over a dress shirt, walk purposefully. "Must be management." I wasn't management, I was just new on site and had come from a planning meeting, and I was pretty sure the next guy I needed to meet was in the belly of the plant in a location I only had the vaguest idea of, but I knew it was gonna be a long walk. I ended up walking the length of the place twice (almost a mile) before I decided I'd had enough sightseeing (but what sightseeing it was!) and and actually asked someone, who made a wisecrack about how he helps so many visiting managers in this joint they should make him a manager himself! I decided against correcting him. Over the coming weeks at that plant, I wore a T-shirt and older hi-viz if I wanted to blend in as a worker, or a button-down shirt and the crisp hi-viz if I wanted to wander. As long as I kept abreast of my assigned duties, nobody sweated the details, and it was better than any museum of science and industry I've ever paid to get into. Had a few more folks make gentle cracks about how I must be a manager of some other group over to see what this group does, I'd ask a few questions and be on my way. Likewise for jobsites and urbex, I have a hard-hat covered in stickers, and one that's so pristine I keep it in a pillowcase. Perceived wear is an important component of The Look™.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    and a walkie with a surveilence earphone. hell, get an actual radio, and you can probably find what channel each department is using. (typically, each group is on their own channel so that people not in that department don't have to pay attention. camera crew asking for new lenses/filters/etc doesn't concern wardrobe. however, camera crew asking grip for additional stands would flip over to grip's channel)
- deebosong 4y ago
  Maybe I'm being overly cautious. But just some risks to consider if you're gonna try this for the purposes of getting a look behind the scenes: Some film sets with union folks can get very particular about who touches what. But maybe the things you'd help carry wouldn't fall under the responsibility of said union folks. Also, if a film set has had a robbery or theft, and the crew has worked with each other long enough to know who the regular day players are, you'd stick out like a sore thumb. But all these types of chicanery will come with such risks, I suppose.
  - sdflhasjd 4y ago
    God forbid you damage something expensive... Best play it safe and pretend to be handing out coffees and snacks (or actually do it you're feeling kind)
    - bragr 4y ago
      Why, you want to be caught by the catering crew? They're probably union too.
- ancientworldnow 4y ago
  Departments are small enough on a film set with strict union rules that if you're carrying something and ask the wrong person you will immediately be caught and asked to leave. It's much better to just lurk confidently like this poster. You can always say you're a guest of an executive producer or something and people won't push - they're isn't enough time to usually. If you want to really fit in, have an old walkie talkie on your belt and an ear piece (surveillance).
- eCa 4y ago
  > Don't ask I’m in team ask-before-picking-up-other-peoples-stuff, but maybe that works for some.
- dylan604 4y ago
  Yeah, that doesn't go over well with the union
- dennisnedry 4y ago
  Actually, just ask to be an extra. You will get paid, fed, and get to hang out all day on set.
MontagFTB 4y ago
> there were tens of people who walked by and asked the security people what they were filming. They got one of two answers. The first one was a name for a series that was different than the one I was told. The second answer was "this is a new series with a largely unknown cast". This answer sounded very specific and very rehearsed. I believe this is standard procedure on sets to keep from gathering a crowd, or leaking information about the film prior to marketing release. I’m sure there are other good reasons.
- mattlondon 4y ago
  Around here in London they always say "it's an independent film" when actually it is Mission Impossible or After Life or Downton etc.
- neilv 4y ago
  For one shoot in Boston, the crew said "mayonnaise commercial". I don't approve of dishonesty, but I thought that was clever.
  - egypturnash 4y ago
    This is one of the stock answers, according to some folks I know who do a lot of this kind of work.
    - j5r5myk 4y ago
      Yes mayonnaise commercial is the go-to industry wide cheeky answer going back decades
- djtriptych 4y ago
  Interesting. In NYC they invariably post the name of the show on the parking permits they have to publicly post to shut down streets (which I'm guessing 100% of shoot need to do out here). Crowds generally just don't form in NYC though. We see shoots all the time. Coolest one was for The Knick, a turn-of-the-century period piece about a storied hospital, which was filmed on my block the year I moved to NYC (early 2013). There's a beautiful building on the block, the Boys High School in Brooklyn [0], which was used for the hospital exteriors. The Knick is a turn-of-the-century period setting; they covered the entire street in gravel (for weeks), erected gas lamps, etc. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_High_School_(Brooklyn) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_High_School_(Brooklyn)
JetSetWilly 4y ago
A friend of mine was on holiday in Toronto and somehow walked accidentally into a film set. He and his other half wound up "pretending" to be extras. So now the film "Kick Ass" opens with a panning shot down a skyscraper to a foyer where my friend and his wife can be seen having an animated argument.
- unnouinceput 4y ago
  Is your friend and wife credited in the film? Something along the lines "couple arguing at beginning"?
- gaws 4y ago
  > So now the film "Kick Ass" opens with a panning shot down a skyscraper to a foyer where my friend and his wife can be seen having an animated argument. I don't see them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEsNvObIwQg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEsNvObIwQg
throw__away7391 4y ago
Film crews are truly the scum of the earth.They only pay a couple hundred dollars for a filming permit (at least in NYC) and then proceed to attempt to monopolize entire blocks as if they're doing some "official" important business, attempting to block people from passing, as if anyone at all cares what shitty movie they're filming. They leave trash everywhere, not just accidentally, but they literally just throw empty water bottles and such on the street and leave piles of food on the street for rats.
- noah_buddy 4y ago
  Like all things, some crews probably mostly suck and others don’t. Most film employees are blue collar workers making not that much per hour and doing 16 hour days to pay the bills / get medical care for their families.
  - throw__away7391 4y ago
    Many police are also not getting paid that much and working long hours, so I guess whatever impact they have on their community is just fine as well.
  - lmm 4y ago
    > Most film employees are blue collar workers making not that much per hour and doing 16 hour days to pay the bills / get medical care for their families. So are most telemarketers (maybe not the "blue collar" part I guess). Doesn't make them not scum.
msarrel 4y ago
I also have a funny story about a film set. When I lived in New York they were filming an episode of Blue Bloods. I had a 12-year-old French bulldog. When the guy with the walkie-talkie told the crowd it was okay to walk down the block, we started walking. 5 minutes later everyone else was gone and the scene was clear except for me and Elvis. Security started hassling me to make him walk faster and I told them that they were idiots. And then Tom Selleck stuck his head out of his trailer and said what's the holdup. I yelled they're trying to make me rush my elderly dog. And he yelled guys leave that old dog alone we can film in another 2 minutes and went back into his trailer. So I have it on pretty good authority that you can social engineer any situation with an elderly dog.
- kaczordon 4y ago
  Technically they have no legal right to tell you to move/stop somewhere on a public sidewalk in New York. You could’ve just strolled straight onto set if you wanted to.
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    Technically they can say whatever they want, but you can also just ignore them.
  - vitno 4y ago
    I live on a street in New York that's pretty popular with filming. I generally try to be respectful of their work, but I work from home and sometimes I need to go get a coffee. I'll usually ask if when I come back in 5 minutes or so if they'll be filming so that I don't disrupt them. Even if I'm super respectful, they usually wind up trying to stop me from getting back to my apartment when I return. It took me a while to figure out that I can just ignore them and keep walking. Still, it was cool to see Oscar the grouch on my street.
  - Kon-Peki 4y ago
    You might want to look into the details about that. Most likely there is an ordinance (or maybe a state law) about interfering when they are actually filming (like, the equipment is active and recording). I've walked through a lot of sets, and they really only care about keeping random people out when the cameras are actually rolling. The logistics of filming in a city simply don't work otherwise. Is the author on HN? He mentions that they only managed to film 2 scenes. Is that right, or was it 2 scenes over and over and over and over and... I guess most action scenes are CGI these days, but when some gunfire+explosion scene is filming outside your office, where they do the same 20 second sequence 100 times, man that gets old real quick.
AdamJacobMuller 4y ago
> It is a better "making of" experience than any professionally produced featurette or documentary. The main reason being that it is about the actual making of instead of of millionaires lying through their teeth on how all other millionaires on set were so professional, super awesome and how the whole experience was the best thing ever because that is what they are contractually obligated to say. Highly recommend _Under Pressure: Making 'the Abyss'_ it does not do this. It's definitely still rich people talking to really rich people who are now crazy rich people, but, it does not sugar coat things. Very good watch.
mtalantikite 4y ago
I once was leaving my work studio space in north Brooklyn and there was a pretty large shoot happening a block away. I had my headphones on and was going to a bodega on the corner before heading home, not really paying attention to the shoot itself because you sort of get desensitized to it living in NYC. As I'm walking all of a sudden I notice that J Lo was a few feet from me with cameras on her, clearly in the middle of a scene they were actively filming. I play it cool and walk into the bodega, where the film monitors were setup and people were watching the live feed. Some guy -- I read him as the DP -- goes "hey nice work, you're background?" to which I respond "oh, no man, I'm just buying something". They shut the whole scene down, because clearly I had no contract and ruined the shot, and as I walk out of the bodega J Lo is just looking at me smiling. Some PA totally got fired that day.
- thinkingkong 4y ago
  Moments like that make me wonder what would have happened if you’d just answered “yes”.
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    Everything would have just kept going along? If he wasn't just a random guy and was actually supposed to be there, there wouldn't have been anything to worry about.
  - mabbo 4y ago
    One of the Star Trek films included a moment where they asked a bunch of extras some question. She wasn't supposed to answer, but nobody told her that, so she replied totally normally. I mean, they were back in time in the "present day" (for when it was filmed) so her answer made sense for the scene. They loved it and kept the shot, but then realized- whoever this was, she now had a spoken part in the film! They had to find her, get her to join the actors guild, and then pay her some minimum amount for having a line in the film. I'm sure someone will reply now with the correct version of this story, the woman's name, which Star Trek film it was, and a link to proof of this all.
    - 4y ago
wrd 4y ago
If you're thinking about doing like this guy did, please don't. Film crews are incredibly overworked, underpaid and work in absolutely terrible conditions. Film production is an intricate machine that requires everything to be perfectly in place in order to get a shot and things very frequently go wrong even without random people walking on set and gumming up the works. Distracting people or touching / moving things can absolutely hold up a shot and bring the entire set to a halt. The result of that is you'll end up keep a very tired crew out for much longer than they need to be. It can also easily cost a production assistant their job. Film production isn't a secret. You can watch a documentary on it, read about it in forums or even get permission to observe a film shoot where they'll place you safely out of the way. There are much better ways to satisfy this curiosity than just walking onto a set.
- reachableceo 4y ago
  - jjulius 4y ago
    >Oh please. Stop trying to be a hero. It's pathetic. This isn't much better.
  - flanbiscuit 4y ago
    disregard my comment, I took the parent comment too seriously and didn't get the joke/sarcasm. big whoosh over my head. d'oh! > I even chilled in the command center of a multi agency response to a bank robbery with hostages. Met the head of FBI LA SWAT and senior leadership of FBI LA office. wow. That's some real lack of security. What if the bank robbers had someone on the outside who did this and was sending text messages back to the robbers of everything they heard in the command center. That would be really smart of the robbers actually. So the fact that they allowed a stranger to wander into the command center and 'chill' with them is concerning.
    - JTbane 4y ago
      That would make a great heist film: the accomplice gaining access to the local PD and ensuring the team doesn't get caught.
ggambetta 4y ago
They do this kind of thing more than you'd think :) Due to my double life as an aspiring actor [0], I was an extra in a series [1] set in futuristic New York, but filmed in Madrid. They had a fake hotdog cart, a fake bus stop sign, and even a fake NY police car! You can see me for a second, somewhat blurry, having a heated argument in Italian, while Betsy Brandt [2] (best known as Marie of "they're minerals, Marie!" fame) walked past. Very cool experience :) Photos here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZmT11SFV3xWe5gft7 https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZmT11SFV3xWe5gft7 Also in Madrid, I was an extra in The Vault [3]. Near the beginning, the main characters meet at a London pub on a rainy evening - filmed in sunny Madrid in summer! I had never seen fake rain on set. I also was within a meter of Liam Cunningham [4] whose Ser Davos was one of my favorite GoT characters :) [0] http://gabrielgambetta.biz http://gabrielgambetta.biz [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11695350/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11695350/ [2] https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1336827 https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1336827 [3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9742794 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9742794 [4] https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0192377/ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0192377/
zw123456 4y ago
That brought back memories for me, it was 1981 or 82, the company that I worked for at the time flew us to New Jersey for some meeting. But three of us "younger engineers" (I was about 22 at the time) wanted to go into New York City. Our boss let us use the rental car to drive into the city. He told us not to do anything he wouldn't do. In that case why go? We all joked later. We got into CBGB's on a weeknight, by the time we got out of there it was maybe 2 or 3 AM and we were pretty high and we were walking back to the garage where we parked the car when we came upon a filming in the streets. One of the security guys told us they were shooting Hill Street Blues, but who knows, we were told later they lie about that stuff to looky loos. But it was fun to watch so we stood there for a couple hours. We got back to our Hotel in Newark at around 6AM just in time to pack and head to the airport. Luckily it was a direct 5 hour flight back home. I slept like a baby.
KaiserPro 4y ago
Its fairly common to have a codename for the show that you are working on. For example "the dark knight" was Rory's first kiss(rfk) because the director's son had his first kiss (or so I've been told, I've not actually verified that) Prince Caspian was TOASTIE (or something like that) I think that casino royal was saville row, but that might have been an internal name
- dylan604 4y ago
  Working Title
- jedberg 4y ago
  Return of the Jedi use Blue Harvest when they were shooting Endor near San Francisco.
Kye 4y ago
Spielberg liked to tell a story about doing this. It was made up and constantly evolving, but still entertaining. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/spielberg-universal/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/spielberg-universal/
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
We had a movie (In and Out) filmed in the town I lived in, at the time. It was a North Shore Long Island town, but the movie was supposed to take place in Indiana (I think). When I watched the movie (somewhat forgettable, IMO), I kept looking for seagulls. They actually made a façade on most of the buildings downtown. Lotta work.
shrx 4y ago
Just curious: what law allows the movie crews to close off public property like streets and sidewalks?
- colechristensen 4y ago
  There's a whole permitting process with the city. In LA obviously it's a streamlined process: https://www.filmla.com/for-filmmakers/permits/ https://www.filmla.com/for-filmmakers/permits/
nathanvanfleet 4y ago
He did what? Stood around?
causi 4y ago
The area did not seem to be closed off so obviously I went in to take a closer look. I was probably there for around 30 minutes or so until someone finally asked me if I was part of the crew and then kindly asked me to leave which I did. How is this "social engineering"? If I try to beat a yellow light and almost hit another car I wasn't "accidentally stunt driving".
- raunak 4y ago
  "clickbait"
- allenu 4y ago
  I was confused when I got to the end of the article and it didn't mention what social engineering was used. Was it just chatting up someone who worked there and then just standing around after?
- threads2 4y ago
  "That time I stood in a film set for 30 mins then someone kindly asked me to leave which I did" 007 over here... hahaha
bitcurious 4y ago
I happened to be in New Orleans when LBJ was filming and they were about to shoot JFK being shot, we’re lining up extras, etc. I just asked a PA if I could be an extra in the scene and she said yes, so it doesn’t always take social engineering.
irrational 4y ago
Not exactly the same, but years ago my brothers and I were driving around the ring road in Iceland. As we pulled into Myvatn in the afternoon a blizzard was starting. We got to our hotel without incident and after putting our stuff in our rooms we went out to the front of the hotel to watch the blizzard from under cover. While standing their we started noticing in between breaks in the storm various vehicles parked across the road. There were all these military vehicles with large Soviet/Russian red stars on the side as well as very high end luxury vehicles. What in the world? As we are standing there a guy comes out and starts yelling into his phone about how the person on the line didn’t understand that there was a blizzard and the timeline was getting all messed up. What? Well, we go back inside and chat up some guys hanging around in the lobby. Turns out we had booked the same hotel as the Fast and the Furious film crew (no idea which movie since I’ve never seen any of them) and the actors were all staying at the hotel across the street where the luxury vehicles were parked. We talked about walking across the street to the other hotel’s lobby to see if we could see anyone famous, but we had started to notice burly security people wandering around the cars, so decided against it.
smm11 4y ago
Not totally related, but I suffered an injury as a kid, the "we have the technology" fix employed wound up in medical journals and textbooks, and I've found at least one video where an x-ray of my insides is shown.
gwbas1c 4y ago
> However the most important things you need to stage New York are actually smoke generators. Lots and lost of smoke generators. There were several big ones on the street, the garbage cans had ones, even the aforementioned ATM had its very own smoke machine. Don't really know if that is relevant to the plot or whether ATMs in New York run on steam. Steam is a utility in NYC, from co-generation. It's used to provide heat. At least when I was younger, steam was also a utility in Boston. I used to see it escape from "Boston Steam" manholes. Not sure if it's still a utility there or not, though.
- HillRat 4y ago
  Also, in cinematography, haze and fog is frequently used to manipulate light for shots, not intended as a practical effect as such. If they were shooting a scene taking place after a rainstorm, using fog to flatten contrast would make sense for the shot.
120photo 4y ago
I'll one up this one. Years ago I worked IT at a film lab that also did onsite digital capture. There was a photo shoot going on and I needed to go onsite to troubleshoot a computer. The onsite Tech told me the stage number and streets. I said I know where that is and drove off. The location of the studio they were shooting at was across the street from Paramount Studios in Hollywood. I pulled up to the gate and explained to the guard that there was a shoot going on and I needed to get there ASAP to fix a issue that was holding up the shoot. The guard did not question much and let me through. I parked and made my way to sound stage 2 and found the set empty (giant hanger style set). I quickly realized something was off and called the on site Tech where he told me no their location was at a studio across the street. When I finally got to my location I fixed the issue then I got to sit next to the former Miss Israel. I was surprised how easy it was for me to get onto the Paramount Set and how much potential access I would have had.
prmoustache 4y ago
I am still waiting where he social engineered?
colinwilyb 4y ago
Fwiw all the carts in the photo are only the Lighting and Grip departments. That doesn't include Costume, Hair, Makeup, Special Effects, Sound, Stunts, Props, Camera, and other departments I'm probably missing that work on-set. And of course it doesn't include all the off-set work like Art Department, Production Office, Construction. And that still doesn't include all the post-production work like Sound, Editing, VFX, and more. Source: I work in film.
mewse-hn 4y ago
I love that the comments on this story range from "film sets are sacred, please don't direct your eyes at a crew member or a production assistant will be viciously fired" to "film crews can burn in hell forever and if they tell you not to walk on a sidewalk tell them to go fuck themselves"
- rascul 4y ago
  If they don't want people to walk by they should get proper approval and close off the area.
  - jeffrallen 4y ago
    Or film on a back lot.
stevage 4y ago
This has absolutely nothing to do with social engineering.
secretsatan 4y ago
I’m not sure what “social engineering” means in this context, i think i would just call it “talking to people” I’m not the most extrovert of people, but give me a beer or four, i start talking to people, sometimes i end up in places i don’t expect to be, but i call that being social
Hnaomyiph 4y ago
I walked past a film set in my city and I happened to be wearing mostly black and a black ball cap and I was asked where a piece of equipment was when I was just walking by. Film crews are large, typically not one continuous unit, ie there’s always new people on set so seeing a new face isn’t uncommon. They’re also extremely busy and overworked so it doesn’t take much at all to blend in. Even if you just happen to be walking by with no intentions of trying to work your way onto a set.
bernf 4y ago
TLDR: This guy doesn't know what social engineering is. Guy probably thinks the bartender winking at him also is hitting on him.
mattlondon 4y ago
In the UK they put up distinctive colored direction signs for the cast and crew to follow to get to location (e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=filming+location+signs+uk&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi2yMmEwJz5AhV2g84BHdbDAO0Q2-cCegQIABAB&oq=filming+location+signs+uk&gs_lcp=ChJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWcQAzIFCAAQogQyBQgAEKIEOgUIABCABDoECAAQHlCYB1jnDGCpD2gAcAB4AIABVogBpQKSAQE0mAEAoAEBwAEB&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=7PviYraiMvaGur4P1oeD6A4 https://www.google.com/search?q=filming+location+signs+uk&tb...) They are always cryptically labelled so that they don't attract fans etc I guess. These signs appear frequently around where I live in London. Occasionally when I am out for a run along one of my usual routes and I see a new set of signs I follow them and end up at the set. I don't make conversation or even actually stop running - I sometimes look over to try to see if there is someone famous I recognise but otherwise I'm not interested in what it is. I did a bit of background artist/extra work many years ago and know that really the process is deadly dull, but it is nice to add a bit of variety and distraction to my running route.

152 points by rossvor 4y ago

Perhaps there really was a part of the script that it had just rained. Oftentimes, they will wet the street in production because you get better light off the street. Once you know this fact, you will see wet streets everywhere in TV/Film/Commercials.

h2odragon 4y ago

A good way to get into things like that is to pitch in and help carry stuff: Don't ask, just find the people moving things and join the line. You may have to ask "where does this go?" when the person in front of you drops their object. You can go far by simply asking to watch and learn, too. Sneakery is only really required where there's "security" that hasn't got enough to do already.

wrd 4y ago
Definitely don't do this. Film sets are very controlled / precise environments and an innocuous piece of equipment can be INCREDIBLY expensive ($200k+). The chance of messing something up as a rando is very high and you'll just end up making the crew work longer and harder than they need to.
jason-phillips 4y ago
Or carry a clipboard.
- krallja 4y ago
  In most situations, a high-viz vest also helps. Probably not on a film set, though!
  - mod 4y ago
    I hear this repeated a lot. Have you ever tried it out? I don't think it would work in most situations. Construction site? Sure. Sporting event? Probably. But in most of the places a person might try to go, I personally would avoid a high-vis vest at all costs.
    - pc86 4y ago
      It varies. The more you can look like "the help" the more likely people are to ignore you outright. And the hi-viz + clipboard is a pretty generic "you don't know me, but I'm the help" outfit.
    - cwillu 4y ago
      Depends: in many places the high-vis hits the “I'm wearing this because the rules say I have to and I'm not important enough to flout them even though they clearly don't matter here” note very well.
    - myself248 4y ago
      Oh yeah. Walking around a manufacturing plant. Brand-new hi-viz vest over a dress shirt, walk purposefully. "Must be management." I wasn't management, I was just new on site and had come from a planning meeting, and I was pretty sure the next guy I needed to meet was in the belly of the plant in a location I only had the vaguest idea of, but I knew it was gonna be a long walk. I ended up walking the length of the place twice (almost a mile) before I decided I'd had enough sightseeing (but what sightseeing it was!) and and actually asked someone, who made a wisecrack about how he helps so many visiting managers in this joint they should make him a manager himself! I decided against correcting him. Over the coming weeks at that plant, I wore a T-shirt and older hi-viz if I wanted to blend in as a worker, or a button-down shirt and the crisp hi-viz if I wanted to wander. As long as I kept abreast of my assigned duties, nobody sweated the details, and it was better than any museum of science and industry I've ever paid to get into. Had a few more folks make gentle cracks about how I must be a manager of some other group over to see what this group does, I'd ask a few questions and be on my way. Likewise for jobsites and urbex, I have a hard-hat covered in stickers, and one that's so pristine I keep it in a pillowcase. Perceived wear is an important component of The Look™.
- dylan604 4y ago
  and a walkie with a surveilence earphone. hell, get an actual radio, and you can probably find what channel each department is using. (typically, each group is on their own channel so that people not in that department don't have to pay attention. camera crew asking for new lenses/filters/etc doesn't concern wardrobe. however, camera crew asking grip for additional stands would flip over to grip's channel)
deebosong 4y ago
Maybe I'm being overly cautious. But just some risks to consider if you're gonna try this for the purposes of getting a look behind the scenes: Some film sets with union folks can get very particular about who touches what. But maybe the things you'd help carry wouldn't fall under the responsibility of said union folks. Also, if a film set has had a robbery or theft, and the crew has worked with each other long enough to know who the regular day players are, you'd stick out like a sore thumb. But all these types of chicanery will come with such risks, I suppose.
- sdflhasjd 4y ago
  God forbid you damage something expensive... Best play it safe and pretend to be handing out coffees and snacks (or actually do it you're feeling kind)
  - bragr 4y ago
    Why, you want to be caught by the catering crew? They're probably union too.
ancientworldnow 4y ago
Departments are small enough on a film set with strict union rules that if you're carrying something and ask the wrong person you will immediately be caught and asked to leave. It's much better to just lurk confidently like this poster. You can always say you're a guest of an executive producer or something and people won't push - they're isn't enough time to usually. If you want to really fit in, have an old walkie talkie on your belt and an ear piece (surveillance).
eCa 4y ago
> Don't ask I’m in team ask-before-picking-up-other-peoples-stuff, but maybe that works for some.
dylan604 4y ago
Yeah, that doesn't go over well with the union
dennisnedry 4y ago
Actually, just ask to be an extra. You will get paid, fed, and get to hang out all day on set.

MontagFTB 4y ago

> there were tens of people who walked by and asked the security people what they were filming. They got one of two answers. The first one was a name for a series that was different than the one I was told. The second answer was "this is a new series with a largely unknown cast". This answer sounded very specific and very rehearsed. I believe this is standard procedure on sets to keep from gathering a crowd, or leaking information about the film prior to marketing release. I’m sure there are other good reasons.

mattlondon 4y ago
Around here in London they always say "it's an independent film" when actually it is Mission Impossible or After Life or Downton etc.
neilv 4y ago
For one shoot in Boston, the crew said "mayonnaise commercial". I don't approve of dishonesty, but I thought that was clever.
- egypturnash 4y ago
  This is one of the stock answers, according to some folks I know who do a lot of this kind of work.
  - j5r5myk 4y ago
    Yes mayonnaise commercial is the go-to industry wide cheeky answer going back decades
djtriptych 4y ago
Interesting. In NYC they invariably post the name of the show on the parking permits they have to publicly post to shut down streets (which I'm guessing 100% of shoot need to do out here). Crowds generally just don't form in NYC though. We see shoots all the time. Coolest one was for The Knick, a turn-of-the-century period piece about a storied hospital, which was filmed on my block the year I moved to NYC (early 2013). There's a beautiful building on the block, the Boys High School in Brooklyn [0], which was used for the hospital exteriors. The Knick is a turn-of-the-century period setting; they covered the entire street in gravel (for weeks), erected gas lamps, etc. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_High_School_(Brooklyn) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_High_School_(Brooklyn)

JetSetWilly 4y ago

A friend of mine was on holiday in Toronto and somehow walked accidentally into a film set. He and his other half wound up "pretending" to be extras. So now the film "Kick Ass" opens with a panning shot down a skyscraper to a foyer where my friend and his wife can be seen having an animated argument.

unnouinceput 4y ago
Is your friend and wife credited in the film? Something along the lines "couple arguing at beginning"?
gaws 4y ago
> So now the film "Kick Ass" opens with a panning shot down a skyscraper to a foyer where my friend and his wife can be seen having an animated argument. I don't see them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEsNvObIwQg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEsNvObIwQg

throw__away7391 4y ago

Film crews are truly the scum of the earth.They only pay a couple hundred dollars for a filming permit (at least in NYC) and then proceed to attempt to monopolize entire blocks as if they're doing some "official" important business, attempting to block people from passing, as if anyone at all cares what shitty movie they're filming. They leave trash everywhere, not just accidentally, but they literally just throw empty water bottles and such on the street and leave piles of food on the street for rats.

noah_buddy 4y ago
Like all things, some crews probably mostly suck and others don’t. Most film employees are blue collar workers making not that much per hour and doing 16 hour days to pay the bills / get medical care for their families.
- throw__away7391 4y ago
  Many police are also not getting paid that much and working long hours, so I guess whatever impact they have on their community is just fine as well.
- lmm 4y ago
  > Most film employees are blue collar workers making not that much per hour and doing 16 hour days to pay the bills / get medical care for their families. So are most telemarketers (maybe not the "blue collar" part I guess). Doesn't make them not scum.

msarrel 4y ago

I also have a funny story about a film set. When I lived in New York they were filming an episode of Blue Bloods. I had a 12-year-old French bulldog. When the guy with the walkie-talkie told the crowd it was okay to walk down the block, we started walking. 5 minutes later everyone else was gone and the scene was clear except for me and Elvis. Security started hassling me to make him walk faster and I told them that they were idiots. And then Tom Selleck stuck his head out of his trailer and said what's the holdup. I yelled they're trying to make me rush my elderly dog. And he yelled guys leave that old dog alone we can film in another 2 minutes and went back into his trailer. So I have it on pretty good authority that you can social engineer any situation with an elderly dog.

kaczordon 4y ago
Technically they have no legal right to tell you to move/stop somewhere on a public sidewalk in New York. You could’ve just strolled straight onto set if you wanted to.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  Technically they can say whatever they want, but you can also just ignore them.
- vitno 4y ago
  I live on a street in New York that's pretty popular with filming. I generally try to be respectful of their work, but I work from home and sometimes I need to go get a coffee. I'll usually ask if when I come back in 5 minutes or so if they'll be filming so that I don't disrupt them. Even if I'm super respectful, they usually wind up trying to stop me from getting back to my apartment when I return. It took me a while to figure out that I can just ignore them and keep walking. Still, it was cool to see Oscar the grouch on my street.
- Kon-Peki 4y ago
  You might want to look into the details about that. Most likely there is an ordinance (or maybe a state law) about interfering when they are actually filming (like, the equipment is active and recording). I've walked through a lot of sets, and they really only care about keeping random people out when the cameras are actually rolling. The logistics of filming in a city simply don't work otherwise. Is the author on HN? He mentions that they only managed to film 2 scenes. Is that right, or was it 2 scenes over and over and over and over and... I guess most action scenes are CGI these days, but when some gunfire+explosion scene is filming outside your office, where they do the same 20 second sequence 100 times, man that gets old real quick.

AdamJacobMuller 4y ago

> It is a better "making of" experience than any professionally produced featurette or documentary. The main reason being that it is about the actual making of instead of of millionaires lying through their teeth on how all other millionaires on set were so professional, super awesome and how the whole experience was the best thing ever because that is what they are contractually obligated to say. Highly recommend _Under Pressure: Making 'the Abyss'_ it does not do this. It's definitely still rich people talking to really rich people who are now crazy rich people, but, it does not sugar coat things. Very good watch.

mtalantikite 4y ago

I once was leaving my work studio space in north Brooklyn and there was a pretty large shoot happening a block away. I had my headphones on and was going to a bodega on the corner before heading home, not really paying attention to the shoot itself because you sort of get desensitized to it living in NYC. As I'm walking all of a sudden I notice that J Lo was a few feet from me with cameras on her, clearly in the middle of a scene they were actively filming. I play it cool and walk into the bodega, where the film monitors were setup and people were watching the live feed. Some guy -- I read him as the DP -- goes "hey nice work, you're background?" to which I respond "oh, no man, I'm just buying something". They shut the whole scene down, because clearly I had no contract and ruined the shot, and as I walk out of the bodega J Lo is just looking at me smiling. Some PA totally got fired that day.

thinkingkong 4y ago
Moments like that make me wonder what would have happened if you’d just answered “yes”.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  Everything would have just kept going along? If he wasn't just a random guy and was actually supposed to be there, there wouldn't have been anything to worry about.
- mabbo 4y ago
  One of the Star Trek films included a moment where they asked a bunch of extras some question. She wasn't supposed to answer, but nobody told her that, so she replied totally normally. I mean, they were back in time in the "present day" (for when it was filmed) so her answer made sense for the scene. They loved it and kept the shot, but then realized- whoever this was, she now had a spoken part in the film! They had to find her, get her to join the actors guild, and then pay her some minimum amount for having a line in the film. I'm sure someone will reply now with the correct version of this story, the woman's name, which Star Trek film it was, and a link to proof of this all.
  - 4y ago

wrd 4y ago

If you're thinking about doing like this guy did, please don't. Film crews are incredibly overworked, underpaid and work in absolutely terrible conditions. Film production is an intricate machine that requires everything to be perfectly in place in order to get a shot and things very frequently go wrong even without random people walking on set and gumming up the works. Distracting people or touching / moving things can absolutely hold up a shot and bring the entire set to a halt. The result of that is you'll end up keep a very tired crew out for much longer than they need to be. It can also easily cost a production assistant their job. Film production isn't a secret. You can watch a documentary on it, read about it in forums or even get permission to observe a film shoot where they'll place you safely out of the way. There are much better ways to satisfy this curiosity than just walking onto a set.

reachableceo 4y ago
- jjulius 4y ago
  >Oh please. Stop trying to be a hero. It's pathetic. This isn't much better.
- flanbiscuit 4y ago
  disregard my comment, I took the parent comment too seriously and didn't get the joke/sarcasm. big whoosh over my head. d'oh! > I even chilled in the command center of a multi agency response to a bank robbery with hostages. Met the head of FBI LA SWAT and senior leadership of FBI LA office. wow. That's some real lack of security. What if the bank robbers had someone on the outside who did this and was sending text messages back to the robbers of everything they heard in the command center. That would be really smart of the robbers actually. So the fact that they allowed a stranger to wander into the command center and 'chill' with them is concerning.
  - JTbane 4y ago
    That would make a great heist film: the accomplice gaining access to the local PD and ensuring the team doesn't get caught.

ggambetta 4y ago

They do this kind of thing more than you'd think :) Due to my double life as an aspiring actor [0], I was an extra in a series [1] set in futuristic New York, but filmed in Madrid. They had a fake hotdog cart, a fake bus stop sign, and even a fake NY police car! You can see me for a second, somewhat blurry, having a heated argument in Italian, while Betsy Brandt [2] (best known as Marie of "they're minerals, Marie!" fame) walked past. Very cool experience :) Photos here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZmT11SFV3xWe5gft7 https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZmT11SFV3xWe5gft7 Also in Madrid, I was an extra in The Vault [3]. Near the beginning, the main characters meet at a London pub on a rainy evening - filmed in sunny Madrid in summer! I had never seen fake rain on set. I also was within a meter of Liam Cunningham [4] whose Ser Davos was one of my favorite GoT characters :) [0] http://gabrielgambetta.biz http://gabrielgambetta.biz [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11695350/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11695350/ [2] https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1336827 https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1336827 [3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9742794 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9742794 [4] https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0192377/ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0192377/

zw123456 4y ago

That brought back memories for me, it was 1981 or 82, the company that I worked for at the time flew us to New Jersey for some meeting. But three of us "younger engineers" (I was about 22 at the time) wanted to go into New York City. Our boss let us use the rental car to drive into the city. He told us not to do anything he wouldn't do. In that case why go? We all joked later. We got into CBGB's on a weeknight, by the time we got out of there it was maybe 2 or 3 AM and we were pretty high and we were walking back to the garage where we parked the car when we came upon a filming in the streets. One of the security guys told us they were shooting Hill Street Blues, but who knows, we were told later they lie about that stuff to looky loos. But it was fun to watch so we stood there for a couple hours. We got back to our Hotel in Newark at around 6AM just in time to pack and head to the airport. Luckily it was a direct 5 hour flight back home. I slept like a baby.

KaiserPro 4y ago

Its fairly common to have a codename for the show that you are working on. For example "the dark knight" was Rory's first kiss(rfk) because the director's son had his first kiss (or so I've been told, I've not actually verified that) Prince Caspian was TOASTIE (or something like that) I think that casino royal was saville row, but that might have been an internal name

dylan604 4y ago
Working Title
jedberg 4y ago
Return of the Jedi use Blue Harvest when they were shooting Endor near San Francisco.

Kye 4y ago

Spielberg liked to tell a story about doing this. It was made up and constantly evolving, but still entertaining. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/spielberg-universal/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/spielberg-universal/

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

We had a movie (In and Out) filmed in the town I lived in, at the time. It was a North Shore Long Island town, but the movie was supposed to take place in Indiana (I think). When I watched the movie (somewhat forgettable, IMO), I kept looking for seagulls. They actually made a façade on most of the buildings downtown. Lotta work.

shrx 4y ago

Just curious: what law allows the movie crews to close off public property like streets and sidewalks?

colechristensen 4y ago
There's a whole permitting process with the city. In LA obviously it's a streamlined process: https://www.filmla.com/for-filmmakers/permits/ https://www.filmla.com/for-filmmakers/permits/

nathanvanfleet 4y ago

He did what? Stood around?

causi 4y ago

The area did not seem to be closed off so obviously I went in to take a closer look. I was probably there for around 30 minutes or so until someone finally asked me if I was part of the crew and then kindly asked me to leave which I did. How is this "social engineering"? If I try to beat a yellow light and almost hit another car I wasn't "accidentally stunt driving".

raunak 4y ago
"clickbait"
allenu 4y ago
I was confused when I got to the end of the article and it didn't mention what social engineering was used. Was it just chatting up someone who worked there and then just standing around after?
threads2 4y ago
"That time I stood in a film set for 30 mins then someone kindly asked me to leave which I did" 007 over here... hahaha

bitcurious 4y ago

I happened to be in New Orleans when LBJ was filming and they were about to shoot JFK being shot, we’re lining up extras, etc. I just asked a PA if I could be an extra in the scene and she said yes, so it doesn’t always take social engineering.

irrational 4y ago

Not exactly the same, but years ago my brothers and I were driving around the ring road in Iceland. As we pulled into Myvatn in the afternoon a blizzard was starting. We got to our hotel without incident and after putting our stuff in our rooms we went out to the front of the hotel to watch the blizzard from under cover. While standing their we started noticing in between breaks in the storm various vehicles parked across the road. There were all these military vehicles with large Soviet/Russian red stars on the side as well as very high end luxury vehicles. What in the world? As we are standing there a guy comes out and starts yelling into his phone about how the person on the line didn’t understand that there was a blizzard and the timeline was getting all messed up. What? Well, we go back inside and chat up some guys hanging around in the lobby. Turns out we had booked the same hotel as the Fast and the Furious film crew (no idea which movie since I’ve never seen any of them) and the actors were all staying at the hotel across the street where the luxury vehicles were parked. We talked about walking across the street to the other hotel’s lobby to see if we could see anyone famous, but we had started to notice burly security people wandering around the cars, so decided against it.

smm11 4y ago

Not totally related, but I suffered an injury as a kid, the "we have the technology" fix employed wound up in medical journals and textbooks, and I've found at least one video where an x-ray of my insides is shown.

gwbas1c 4y ago

> However the most important things you need to stage New York are actually smoke generators. Lots and lost of smoke generators. There were several big ones on the street, the garbage cans had ones, even the aforementioned ATM had its very own smoke machine. Don't really know if that is relevant to the plot or whether ATMs in New York run on steam. Steam is a utility in NYC, from co-generation. It's used to provide heat. At least when I was younger, steam was also a utility in Boston. I used to see it escape from "Boston Steam" manholes. Not sure if it's still a utility there or not, though.

HillRat 4y ago
Also, in cinematography, haze and fog is frequently used to manipulate light for shots, not intended as a practical effect as such. If they were shooting a scene taking place after a rainstorm, using fog to flatten contrast would make sense for the shot.

120photo 4y ago

I'll one up this one. Years ago I worked IT at a film lab that also did onsite digital capture. There was a photo shoot going on and I needed to go onsite to troubleshoot a computer. The onsite Tech told me the stage number and streets. I said I know where that is and drove off. The location of the studio they were shooting at was across the street from Paramount Studios in Hollywood. I pulled up to the gate and explained to the guard that there was a shoot going on and I needed to get there ASAP to fix a issue that was holding up the shoot. The guard did not question much and let me through. I parked and made my way to sound stage 2 and found the set empty (giant hanger style set). I quickly realized something was off and called the on site Tech where he told me no their location was at a studio across the street. When I finally got to my location I fixed the issue then I got to sit next to the former Miss Israel. I was surprised how easy it was for me to get onto the Paramount Set and how much potential access I would have had.

prmoustache 4y ago

I am still waiting where he social engineered?

colinwilyb 4y ago

Fwiw all the carts in the photo are only the Lighting and Grip departments. That doesn't include Costume, Hair, Makeup, Special Effects, Sound, Stunts, Props, Camera, and other departments I'm probably missing that work on-set. And of course it doesn't include all the off-set work like Art Department, Production Office, Construction. And that still doesn't include all the post-production work like Sound, Editing, VFX, and more. Source: I work in film.

mewse-hn 4y ago

I love that the comments on this story range from "film sets are sacred, please don't direct your eyes at a crew member or a production assistant will be viciously fired" to "film crews can burn in hell forever and if they tell you not to walk on a sidewalk tell them to go fuck themselves"

rascul 4y ago
If they don't want people to walk by they should get proper approval and close off the area.
- jeffrallen 4y ago
  Or film on a back lot.

stevage 4y ago

This has absolutely nothing to do with social engineering.

secretsatan 4y ago

I’m not sure what “social engineering” means in this context, i think i would just call it “talking to people” I’m not the most extrovert of people, but give me a beer or four, i start talking to people, sometimes i end up in places i don’t expect to be, but i call that being social

Hnaomyiph 4y ago

I walked past a film set in my city and I happened to be wearing mostly black and a black ball cap and I was asked where a piece of equipment was when I was just walking by. Film crews are large, typically not one continuous unit, ie there’s always new people on set so seeing a new face isn’t uncommon. They’re also extremely busy and overworked so it doesn’t take much at all to blend in. Even if you just happen to be walking by with no intentions of trying to work your way onto a set.

bernf 4y ago

TLDR: This guy doesn't know what social engineering is. Guy probably thinks the bartender winking at him also is hitting on him.

mattlondon 4y ago

In the UK they put up distinctive colored direction signs for the cast and crew to follow to get to location (e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=filming+location+signs+uk&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi2yMmEwJz5AhV2g84BHdbDAO0Q2-cCegQIABAB&oq=filming+location+signs+uk&gs_lcp=ChJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWcQAzIFCAAQogQyBQgAEKIEOgUIABCABDoECAAQHlCYB1jnDGCpD2gAcAB4AIABVogBpQKSAQE0mAEAoAEBwAEB&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=7PviYraiMvaGur4P1oeD6A4 https://www.google.com/search?q=filming+location+signs+uk&tb...) They are always cryptically labelled so that they don't attract fans etc I guess. These signs appear frequently around where I live in London. Occasionally when I am out for a run along one of my usual routes and I see a new set of signs I follow them and end up at the set. I don't make conversation or even actually stop running - I sometimes look over to try to see if there is someone famous I recognise but otherwise I'm not interested in what it is. I did a bit of background artist/extra work many years ago and know that really the process is deadly dull, but it is nice to add a bit of variety and distraction to my running route.