Addicts of TV's Hill Street Blues will recognise the headline as the briefing sergeant's regular warning to police officers going on duty. This time the warning applies to us.

How often have you planned - or actually made - a dramatic sequence in a public place? Did you worry about what onlookers might think? I will confess to having dropped a realistic dummy from an 8th floor school window for one movie. We warned people in the classrooms below but did not consider the public in surrounding houses. BIG mistake. On another occasion having faked a realistic (and rather gory) bicycle accident shooting was interrupted by passing motorists skidding to a stop and offering help. Even placing signs 50 yards ahead saying "FILMING IN PROGRESS" did not help.

We got away with some curses and tellings-off but two movie makers recently put themselves at far more serious risk.

On February 12th 2000 the 'Gloucester Citizen' reported that armed police were alerted when passers by saw what they thought was a violent crime being committed. Two men in their mid 20's were making an amateur movie, one in a balaclava and one with a fake gun.

D.C. Andy Castle is quoted as saying: "These people gave no thought to the consequences of their action."

Thankfully Gloucester constabulary are not the gung-ho shoot-em-up types we see on American tv cop shows and no one was hurt.

"We're only amateurs ..."

Police were also the good guys when Finchley Cinevideo Society were shooting in the streets a few years ago. As Edward Agius told it the movie makers had hired a low-loader lorry, placed a car on it with two actors working hard and a camera crew shooting what looked to the viewfinder like an amazing tracking shot through the streets. It was a great scene but as a friendly, if concerned, traffic policeman pointed out the crew were not properly harnessed and could have been at risk.

Edward showing his IAC membership card explained: "We're only amateurs."

To which the cop muttered back: "You can say that again!"

This story came to mind when on a visit to BBC Bristol I saw the camera car from which the Driving Test series was shot. A much battered old American car (heavy and on reinforced suspension) had been converted by fixing flat metal plates to the roof and bonnet. The plates had eye-bolts so that the camera operator and kit could all be securely held in place when they were on the road. That way they could track Maureen and her long-suffering instructor through the streets without danger.

Anyone else got any similar stories of filming scenes which nearly turned into real dramas?

- Dave Watterson

Page updated on 21 March 2008

Authors' views are not necessarily those of The Institute of Amateur Cinematographers

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