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Comment by msarrel | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

Technically they can say whatever they want, but you can also just ignore them.

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