Mark Thorpe
04-13-2007, 06:25 PM
OK so here's the deal,
Many amateur or semi-pro "filmmakers" think its quite fine to make movies and do as they wish when it comes to using images of people to convey whatever message they like. Lets take a situation I find myself in at the moment. As you can see by my Avatar I live in Palau in the western Pacific where I work as an underwater shooter. For many years the government here has been very aware of bad diving practices of many poorly trained dive guides in the region. Complete disregard for the reefs and marine life.......yada yada yada. As such they recently commissioned a Palau based production company to come up with a training video product that is to be used in the newly introduced Tour Guide Training Program.
I have always been an advocate of non intrusive filming techniques when I go about my daily work, especially when dealing with the mega fauna here in Palau, Mantas, Turtles, Sharks, Eagle Rays etc etc. I never chase, I follow. Having spent many years in this profession I pride myself on my ability to be able to understand and approach wildlife in a non obtrusive manner. So much so in fact that I send video stills to dive shops whose Instructors I see blatantly flouting all behavioral ethics of wildlife / diver interaction episodes here. Many of the dive shops know that I don't like to see this kind of thing and as a positive thing some repeat offenders have actually started to change their diving behavior in a positive way. Thats a good thing.
The bad thing here is this. The other day I was in attending the third of three training seminars for the new guide course, out of interest I wanted to see what was to be addressed in the course. The video presentation was in full swing and was talking about photographers and videographer etiquette on the reef especially when it comes to animal interaction. Imagine my horror when I see a sequence of me being used to give a negative message of diver / animal interaction. Now if it was just a sequence of me filming an animal that would be fine. BUT the producers had taken a completely benign piece of footage, an innocent encounter with me and a Green Sea Turtle and they then manipulated it, accelerated its normal speed, to make it look like I was chasing the animal. They also laid over a narrative comment that guides should not allow camera equipped divers to chase the wildlife. So lets see:
Scene 1 - Nice shot of a completely innocent encounter. A camera toting diver glides along next to a very relaxed sea turtle. The turtle is not presenting its shell to the diver in a defensive and evasive display but quite happy to swim, relaxed, with the diver. Narrative "Come to Palau, and witness the beauty first hand" - Audience reaction, "Hey, honey lets go to Palau, it looks amazing".
Scene 2 - Nice shot of a completely innocent encounter. A camera toting diver glides along next to a very relaxed sea turtle. The turtle is not presenting its shell to the diver in a defensive and evasive display but quite happy to swim, relaxed, with the diver - Straight cut to an accelerated continuation of the same clip, the music changes to a sombre tempo and the message "Photographers and video enthusiasts should also respect the marine life and never chase or harass it". Audience reaction, "Jeez hon, look at that asshole with a camera chasing that poor turtle"!
I was horrified. The facts are that they were not to know it was me in the video. Where they got the clip from is anyone's guess. BUT from a legal stand point what are the issues here? They were contracted by the government to produce this piece so should everyone appearing in the video either willingly or not would they have had to sign waivers or a release? The production company benefited financially so I would have thought that releases would have been necessary. The fact that they had to manipulate the images in order to get their message across could also be construed as defamation of character? I think the biggest thing here is that I never gave any consent to be in the film. Granted the average Joe Blow in the street here wouldn't know it to be me because I'm in my wetsuit etc BUT the whole core element of dive guides and boat captains here can identify me in the sequence. This is having a negative impact on my standing in the local dive community, on my personal diving ethics and is, not surprisingly, causing me a lot of concern. The night of the airing I could hear my name resonating, albeit whispered, around the auditorium as the segment was playing.
Anyone have any ideas on what I could do from a legal stand point?
I mentioned my displeasure to the production company and they said "ahhh sorry but the footage shot out on the reef is in the public domain". I tend not to believe this as that would then mean that any underwater archive could be construed as public domain and anyone would be able to use whatever they want free of charge, therefore negating the need for crazy gits like me who film underwater for a living......?
Anyone got any ideas?
Cheers,
Mark.
Many amateur or semi-pro "filmmakers" think its quite fine to make movies and do as they wish when it comes to using images of people to convey whatever message they like. Lets take a situation I find myself in at the moment. As you can see by my Avatar I live in Palau in the western Pacific where I work as an underwater shooter. For many years the government here has been very aware of bad diving practices of many poorly trained dive guides in the region. Complete disregard for the reefs and marine life.......yada yada yada. As such they recently commissioned a Palau based production company to come up with a training video product that is to be used in the newly introduced Tour Guide Training Program.
I have always been an advocate of non intrusive filming techniques when I go about my daily work, especially when dealing with the mega fauna here in Palau, Mantas, Turtles, Sharks, Eagle Rays etc etc. I never chase, I follow. Having spent many years in this profession I pride myself on my ability to be able to understand and approach wildlife in a non obtrusive manner. So much so in fact that I send video stills to dive shops whose Instructors I see blatantly flouting all behavioral ethics of wildlife / diver interaction episodes here. Many of the dive shops know that I don't like to see this kind of thing and as a positive thing some repeat offenders have actually started to change their diving behavior in a positive way. Thats a good thing.
The bad thing here is this. The other day I was in attending the third of three training seminars for the new guide course, out of interest I wanted to see what was to be addressed in the course. The video presentation was in full swing and was talking about photographers and videographer etiquette on the reef especially when it comes to animal interaction. Imagine my horror when I see a sequence of me being used to give a negative message of diver / animal interaction. Now if it was just a sequence of me filming an animal that would be fine. BUT the producers had taken a completely benign piece of footage, an innocent encounter with me and a Green Sea Turtle and they then manipulated it, accelerated its normal speed, to make it look like I was chasing the animal. They also laid over a narrative comment that guides should not allow camera equipped divers to chase the wildlife. So lets see:
Scene 1 - Nice shot of a completely innocent encounter. A camera toting diver glides along next to a very relaxed sea turtle. The turtle is not presenting its shell to the diver in a defensive and evasive display but quite happy to swim, relaxed, with the diver. Narrative "Come to Palau, and witness the beauty first hand" - Audience reaction, "Hey, honey lets go to Palau, it looks amazing".
Scene 2 - Nice shot of a completely innocent encounter. A camera toting diver glides along next to a very relaxed sea turtle. The turtle is not presenting its shell to the diver in a defensive and evasive display but quite happy to swim, relaxed, with the diver - Straight cut to an accelerated continuation of the same clip, the music changes to a sombre tempo and the message "Photographers and video enthusiasts should also respect the marine life and never chase or harass it". Audience reaction, "Jeez hon, look at that asshole with a camera chasing that poor turtle"!
I was horrified. The facts are that they were not to know it was me in the video. Where they got the clip from is anyone's guess. BUT from a legal stand point what are the issues here? They were contracted by the government to produce this piece so should everyone appearing in the video either willingly or not would they have had to sign waivers or a release? The production company benefited financially so I would have thought that releases would have been necessary. The fact that they had to manipulate the images in order to get their message across could also be construed as defamation of character? I think the biggest thing here is that I never gave any consent to be in the film. Granted the average Joe Blow in the street here wouldn't know it to be me because I'm in my wetsuit etc BUT the whole core element of dive guides and boat captains here can identify me in the sequence. This is having a negative impact on my standing in the local dive community, on my personal diving ethics and is, not surprisingly, causing me a lot of concern. The night of the airing I could hear my name resonating, albeit whispered, around the auditorium as the segment was playing.
Anyone have any ideas on what I could do from a legal stand point?
I mentioned my displeasure to the production company and they said "ahhh sorry but the footage shot out on the reef is in the public domain". I tend not to believe this as that would then mean that any underwater archive could be construed as public domain and anyone would be able to use whatever they want free of charge, therefore negating the need for crazy gits like me who film underwater for a living......?
Anyone got any ideas?
Cheers,
Mark.