Don't Let Film Crews Wear Out Your Welcome Mat
Feb. 18, 2016 — There’s nothing wrong with renting out common spaces or individual apartments in your building to film and TV crews – provided you’ve won the consent of residents and taken necessary precautions with safety, convenience and insurance. It can be a vital revenue source that keeps monthly maintenance low and the reserve fund high.
But boards need to remember to exercise moderation in all things – including filmmaking.
Some boards have allowed their buildings to be used as film locations so frequently in recent years that the city’s Office for Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting placed the area “on hiatus” after local residents complained about production vehicles taking up parking spaces and causing other nuisances. It’s never a good idea to be a bad neighbor, no matter how enticing the payout.
“Inevitably, somebody is going to get upset,” says Damon Gordon, a location manager for numerous large productions. “But, as a location manager, you do the work beforehand and take in the realities of a community. Trying to film in a very Jewish neighborhood on a Jewish holiday would be horribly rude, especially towing people’s cars when they can’t actually move them. Also, don’t block schools during school time.”
“Outreach about what is going to happen in a week’s time is important,” adds Sallie Slate, who now runs an eponymous production company after working for more than a decade in the media relations department of the Museum of Natural History, where she oversaw the building’s starring role in Night at the Museum.
“There is a push-pull,” Slate adds. “It is exciting to have film crews and it is irritating to have film crews. It provides money for the city and it is a good business for buildings to be in if they want to make money, but you have to be smart. You can have too much of everything. French bread and cheese is divine but too much of it? Yuck.”