[HN Gopher] That time when I accidentally social engineered myse...
___________________________________________________________________
That time when I accidentally social engineered myself to a film
set
Author : rossvor
Score : 67 points
Date : 2022-07-28 13:09 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nibblestew.blogspot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nibblestew.blogspot.com)
| causi wrote:
| _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".
| mtalantikite wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Moments like that make me wonder what would have happened if
| you'd just answered "yes".
| jaywalk wrote:
| 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.
| em-bee wrote:
| could they have offered you a contract at that point to save
| the shot?
| technofiend wrote:
| Accidentally walked through the set of The Devil Wears Prada
| who were set up to film on around 5th Avenue and West 55th,
| fortunately they weren't filming. They had a really nice craft
| services table. Hopefully no one got fired.
| [deleted]
| h2odragon wrote:
| 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.
| deebosong wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Why, you want to be caught by the catering crew? They're
| probably union too.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Yeah, that doesn't go over well with the union
| ancientworldnow wrote:
| 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).
| jason-phillips wrote:
| Or carry a clipboard.
| krallja wrote:
| In most situations, a high-viz vest also helps. Probably not
| on a film set, though!
| mod wrote:
| 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.
| galdosdi wrote:
| A few years ago I was once briefly directed into the
| cockpit of a plane to check on its maintenance status
| while I was boarding a normal coach flight. I was wearing
| my only clean jacket, a waterproof high viz coat that
| must be popular with people who work on rainy roads.
| pc86 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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(tm).
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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)
| dennisnedry wrote:
| Actually, just ask to be an extra. You will get paid, fed, and
| get to hang out all day on set.
| eCa wrote:
| > Don't ask
|
| I'm in team ask-before-picking-up-other-peoples-stuff, but
| maybe that works for some.
| wrd wrote:
| 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.
| zw123456 wrote:
| 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.
| wrd wrote:
| 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.
| krisoft wrote:
| > If you're thinking about doing like this guy did, please
| don't.
|
| idk. Obviously don't be in other people's way, don't climb
| fences, don't lie to security, don't "social engineer" your way
| in, and if someone asks you politely to leave leave. This is in
| fact what has happened. Once they figured out that he doesn't
| belong they asked him to leave and he left.
|
| But if it is true what he writes the set was just a public
| street and he just walked up to them unimpeded. I don't see a
| problem with that. If it is a problem for the crew they should
| get fences and security to block people's way.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I've lived in Toronto and more than once accidentally found
| myself on a badly demarcated set near the Carpet Factory (which
| is used every other week for a shoot it seems because filming
| in Canada is cheaper than in the USA and it is large enough
| that you can pan a camera without immediately having a couple
| of modern buildings in view).
|
| The degree to which this inconvenienced the locals was quite
| high, we didn't get any compensation at all for this use of the
| space that we were already paying for and more than once were
| unable to leave or enter the building because some hotshot
| director wanted to do things all over again.
|
| Whether film crews are underpaid and overworked or not is
| really none of my concern, it is up to them to stand up for
| their rights and whether they work in terrible conditions or
| not I can't verify but I can tell you that what they spent on
| catering in a day probably dwarfs the budget of some African
| countries to feed thousands of times more people (and don't get
| me started on the amount of stuff they threw away afterwards).
|
| So if someone accidentally walks on to a set then that's just
| too bad. Some people have a life and/or a job and that counts
| as well.
| garyfirestorm wrote:
| I don't understand what exactly did this guy do wrong. He
| simply observed and chatted with someone and reported what he
| saw. When someone asked to leave, he left. What's the problem
| here exactly?
| [deleted]
| wrd wrote:
| Walking onto a set without permission is inconsiderate and
| disruptive because the crew is working very, very hard to
| make something happen and his presence isn't helpful. He
| effectively got lucky that he didn't mess something up and
| accidentally force the crew to work longer and harder than
| they have to. There's a reason the entire job of some
| production assistants is just to keep random people off set.
| rhoeft wrote:
| The title kinda makes it sound like he tricked someone to
| let him on a set, but if you read the story he was watching
| from a distance and then they started setting up where he
| was standing. He just stood still until he was asked to
| move. He employed the same "social engineering" tactics as
| a frightened hare.
| reachableceo wrote:
| Oh please. Stop trying to be a hero. It's pathetic. He wasn't
| in anyones way and wasn't interrupting anything. He was
| unobtrusive and simply observing.
|
| I encourage everyone todo exactly what the article author did !
| I do it all the time and have learned so much and made great
| connections. 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.
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| That would make a great heist film: the accomplice gaining
| access to the local PD and ensuring the team doesn't get
| caught.
| dennisnedry wrote:
| I believe the parent is being sarcastic.
| [deleted]
| jjulius wrote:
| >Oh please. Stop trying to be a hero. It's pathetic.
|
| This isn't much better.
| SkipperCat wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| I don't know why but for some reason, more people feel like
| they need to be the main character in an adventure. Maybe it's
| TikTok or who knows what. Either way, I'm sure if some rando
| walked into their life and started messing with their work,
| they'd be quite miffed.
|
| I live in NYC and I see film crews all the time. I love the
| fact that it happens here because it's one of those things that
| makes NYC so neat. But it's like the zoo. You're encouraged to
| watch from a distance but please don't jump into the animal's
| enclosure.
| 627467 wrote:
| How is this topmost comment?
|
| > If you're thinking about doing like this guy did, please
| don't.
|
| The author starts by stating:
|
| > The area did not seem to be closed off so obviously I went in
| to take a closer look.
|
| And
|
| > 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.
|
| Does one need to go through life like they are stepping on
| eggshells?
| jjulius wrote:
| >How is this topmost comment?
|
| My guess would be that you're interpreting the comment as,
| "Please don't accidentally wander onto a film set out of
| ignorance," whereas my interpretation (and perhaps that of
| those who have voted for it) of the comment was, "Please
| don't be inspired by this to seek out and actively trespass
| on a closed film set."
|
| They're two slightly different things.
| EUROCARE wrote:
| Are you a machine? This is how machines act. "NO BOUNDARY
| DETECTED - PROCEEDING!" without any context awareness.
|
| Why not instead be considerate and respectful for others'
| work by not ruining it? Road workers don't always have
| perfect boundaries and yet I hope you don't just go step into
| their paint while reciting your constitutional rights. This
| is the same thing without the paint.
| mrob wrote:
| The work was not ruined. The film crew were working in a
| public space that the blog's author apparently had every
| right to be in. If they wanted to avoid any possibility of
| interaction with the public then they could have built a
| private set, but filming on a public street was presumably
| cheaper. I don't see why an uninvolved third party should
| have their rights curtailed just to save some corporation
| money.
| EUROCARE wrote:
| Public areas can be very easily closed off if you ask the
| local government, most have a form ready for it, it's
| very usual - and at that point you have _absolutely zero_
| rights to be there, it 's trespassing. It's most likely
| this was the case there as well, they wouldn't be able to
| setup the whole shop there otherwise. And it's not
| cheaper, it's actually much more expensive - but the
| result is better.
|
| Corporations aren't the only ones making movies, btw. And
| the whole "but my rights" talk when it's about a person
| who could've just taken a different street makes me
| laugh, nothing else. Is that really how you think about
| your day to day life, or is it just a post-facto
| rationalization?
| mrob wrote:
| If they really had the legal right to exclude the blog
| author, then they also had the obligation to put up signs
| or barriers to exclude them.
| EUROCARE wrote:
| And that's the point where contextual awareness and
| respect for others come into play.
| 627467 wrote:
| It's funny how the robot argument can apply to anything and
| the contrary: are all filming crews overworked robots
| unable to willingly decide to engaging in casual
| conversation with a stranger who happened to be in a public
| area before it was cordoned off?
| EUROCARE wrote:
| It's not about the film crew being overworked robots who
| can't talk, it's about accidentally ruining their work
| without even realizing it by walking into the middle of
| filming. This dude got lucky that he didn't ruin
| anything. The next 1000 dudes who will try based on his
| blogpost won't be so lucky - and I bet the film crews
| won't be as happy talking to them.
| Kalium wrote:
| I've accidentally wandered onto a film set before. When
| it's in a public space it's not always obvious what's going
| on or that you shouldn't be there. I had no idea why a
| generally quite busy part of town was almost entirely
| devoid of traffic that day. There were no clear signs or
| ways for me to know what was going on until I talked to a
| random guy and he told me.
|
| Perhaps your ability to detect and understand context is
| simply vastly superior to mine.
| EUROCARE wrote:
| Accidents happen, and I am not perfect too. I live in a
| city where film sets in public spaces are an (almost)
| everyday thing, so I also wandered into a film set few
| times. But I'd never do it on purpose - when you meet
| them at a bar you'll see they really do work hard, and
| that random strangers at the set are a really big problem
| they face daily.
| tmp_anon_22 wrote:
| "They didn't say no"
|
| Is not by itself justification to do a thing.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Its a bit different for someone "thinking of doing this" and
| seeking it out.
| polartx wrote:
| I would say the title is disingenuous the same way clickbait
| is. A suggested alternate could be, "the time I wandered
| around somebody's worksite until the inconvenience of my
| presence outweighed the crews' Canadian-level non-
| confrontational demeanor". But that's not as grabby.
| ggambetta wrote:
| 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
|
| 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
|
| [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11695350/
|
| [2] https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1336827
|
| [3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9742794
|
| [4] https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0192377/
| noah_buddy wrote:
| 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.
| MontagFTB wrote:
| > 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.
| neilv wrote:
| For one shoot in Boston, the crew said "mayonnaise commercial".
|
| I don't approve of dishonesty, but I thought that was clever.
| egypturnash wrote:
| This is one of the stock answers, according to some folks I
| know who do a lot of this kind of work.
| j5r5myk wrote:
| Yes mayonnaise commercial is the go-to industry wide cheeky
| answer going back decades
| djtriptych wrote:
| 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)
| j5r5myk wrote:
| They often use code names on those parking permit signs
| bitcurious wrote:
| 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.
| JetSetWilly wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Is your friend and wife credited in the film? Something along
| the lines "couple arguing at beginning"?
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| 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.
| msarrel wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| _Technically_ they can say whatever they want, but you can
| also just ignore them.
| vitno wrote:
| 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.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| > 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.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Working Title
| Kye wrote:
| 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/
| shrx wrote:
| Just curious: what law allows the movie crews to close off public
| property like streets and sidewalks?
| colechristensen wrote:
| There's a whole permitting process with the city.
|
| In LA obviously it's a streamlined process:
| https://www.filmla.com/for-filmmakers/permits/
| nathanvanfleet wrote:
| He did what? Stood around?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| 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 facade on most of the buildings downtown.
| Lotta work.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-07-28 17:00 UTC)