People seem to have a pretty weird and contradictory relationship with cameras. They’re really interesting—until there’s one pointed at you. People act differently when there’s a camera around, putting on their camera-face and making everything dramatic, or just getting really uncomfortable and clamming up.
Carrying around, setting up, and using video equipment often makes you automatically more interesting to other people. It doesn’t matter how unimportant you actually are to the production, if you’re carrying a tripod and a lighting kit (although carrying both of those things at the same time is not exactly an ideal situation), people think you must be Stephen Spielberg or something.
I’ll tell you one thing—Stephen Spielberg is not carrying around tripods and lighting kits.
Anyway, I know you’ve all seen this: You’re watching the news. They’re live on location somewhere. Somebody walks by in the background. They see the camera. They stare at it, directly into the lens. Then, one of several things happens:
- They wave, or say, “Hi mom!” or dance, or something equally flashy.
- They continue staring for a while, clearly unsure what to do.
- They duck while speed-walking awkwardly out of frame.
- Or, they never notice the camera at all, and just walk right through everything.
You know what I’m talking about, right? It’s hilarious. Because, like I said before, cameras have a way of making people uncomfortable like very few other things.
Passers-by can make life difficult for other kinds of productions, though. It’s okay in news, because it’s live or live-to-tape and the footage isn’t going to be used for anything else. But for other productions, seeing some random guy in the background waving at the camera really spoils the mood. Basically, if someone’s hamming it up in the background, that shot is unusable, and the time it took to set it up and shoot it was wasted. Which is a huge bummer and possibly costs somebody a lot of money.
Best case scenario, you have someone on hand whose job it is to redirect people away from the camera’s field of view. This was the case on a huge film shoot I came across one day in Philly; there was a tall guy and a loud girl stationed at the corner stopping anyone from walking through the set while cameras were rolling. It made some Philadelphians pretty angry, but it was probably worth it for the movie to not have a bunch of random people walking through every shot.
So what do you do if you see someone shooting video? Whether it’s a massive, big-budget film or one person with a camera, here’s how to be respectful about it.
- If at all possible, wait until they finish the shot, walk behind the camera, or even go a different way, and watch out for any cables that may be in the area.
- If you have to walk through the shot, do not look at the camera, or if you look, don’t stare. It’s very unsettling to watch something where all the people in the background are staring at you. Remember that scene in Inception where the dream people were all staring at Ellen Page? That’s what you’ll look like.
- Don’t wave or dance or anything like that. If you really want to be in this video, the way to do it is to just continue what you were doing. I know it’s boring, but it’s more than likely that your “Hi mom!” will get you cut out of the video.
- If you’re walking and suddenly notice that you’re in a shot, don’t freak out! Just keep walking like a normal person. Don’t mouth “Oh, sorry!” and run out. Don’t duck. Don’t awkwardly speed-walk out of frame, especially when you don’t know exactly where the frame ends. You can speed up to get out of the shot faster, but people tend to get this weird “oh my God the camera saw me” kind of walk that looks really awkward and is not helpful to the people behind the camera. It’s possible that they’re not even recording at that moment, so you looked silly for no reason.
- If you notice there’s a camera nearby, try to be quiet. I don’t mean tiptoe, but keep your voice down, and maybe pause your conversation until you get farther away. I was shooting an interview at a build site once and had a guy walk right behind me shouting at someone in the street, which basically ruined a great sound bite I was getting from my interviewee.
In general, just keep your eyes open for things that might be happening. I mean, that’s just kind of a life tip, but with so many people making videos, it’s something to keep in mind. Obviously, for the most part, production people understand that the world goes on while we’re making things, but we will love you forever if you know how to approach a shoot considerately.