We’re up and over an astonishing 31,000 signatures on the petition - in just ten sweltering summer days! John Sayles and Moby just joined the list. Please sign, and get all your friends and colleagues to sign. The deadline for comment is this Friday, Aug 3.
Reach out to your listservs today!

The buzz hit major media and the international press Wednesday through an Associated Press story, indieWIRE did a feature piece Tuesday, amNewYork did a full color cover, we have hundreds of blog reactions, and our local WCBS radio had the story in heavy rotation using snippets from your Video Comments and Julianne Cho of the Mayor’s Film Office defending required permits for amateurs. Keith Olbermann at MSNBC named Ms. Cho and the people at MOFTB “Worst persons.” We don’t even know what that means exactly - we just want to preserve our right to take pictures of New York without having to ask permission from an office set up to deal with Law & Order shoots and Hollywood blockbusters.

Photo Credit: I.M.Bitter

“The kind of films we make simply could not be made if we had to go through
a NYC bureaucracy to get a permit every time we picked up our cameras. It’s
intrusive, stifling and goes against our first amendment rights - not to
mention it would probably put us out of business”
(more…)

Picture New York and the NYCLU joined Amy Goodman in the Democracy Now studios Thursday morning for a chat they titled “Independent Artists Lead Fight Against Proposed NYC Regs.” The FreeNYC Rap by Olde English, and Queen Juliana’s “Wait! What? Get A Permit To Make A Video?” led the segment.

There’s a transcript of the show, as well as streaming audio and video archived on DemocracyNow.org.

(who is also a filmmaker)

http://blogs.indiewire.com/jamesisrael
(more…)

Shot in Union Square at the First Amendment Rally on July 27th.
-by NotAnAlternative

AP-New York: NYC may require permits for many types of filming, photography

This Associated Press story is running today in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Guardian (UK), The International Herald Tribune, ABC News, and at least 100 other news outlets. (more…)

August 2, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) joins Picture New York in objecting to the proposed regulations. Tony Overman, president of the NPPA states “we are offended at the notion that a city agency or police officer would have the power to keep a photographer from taking a picture or video on a public street. This permit rule change creates that very real possibility. City property belongs to the citizens and the city has no right to limit safe, constitutionally protected behavior in a public venue.”

NPPA Voices Opposition To NYC Film Permit Rule Changes

With Deadine Looming, Proposed NYC Film Permit Rules Rile Indies
by Agnes Varnum

With stenciled Bolex camera protest signs and no permit to assemble, some 400 people demonstrated at a downtown Manhattan rally on Friday to protest New York’s moves to alter rules that govern filming and photography on the city’s streets. On that same day, members of NYC’s independent film community met with the Mayors Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting (MOFTB) (more…)

Sewell Chan of the NYT City Room blogs A Shout Out to the M.O.F.T.B., with lyrics . . .

It’s hard enough to shoot in Manhattan
So much happenin’, sirens flashin’
Every single minute there’s another distraction
And now you wanna cash in every time I say action??

Proposin’ new rules to try and get rid of me
A million in insurance just to cover liabilities!
From Little Italy all the way to Harlem
Bloomberg’s jealous cause our movies won’t star him

But wait. There’s more:

Make no mistake these rules are heartless
Everyone knows they just target artists
The video bloggaz at protest marches
And kidz making vids for the YouTube contests!
it’s garbage! Let’s tell the people in power
We wanna film for more than half an hour!
We won’t rest ’til that law gets trashed.

Picturing Protest, Artists Organize to Fight Camera Permit Proposal
by Colin Moynihan, 7/28/07

As the city considers rule changes that would require a permit to photograph and film in public places, a coalition of filmmakers and photographers is mobilizing a campaign against the rules by using the very medium they believe the regulations would constrict. (more…)