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Comment by itronitron | Hacker News Reader

Years ago I was walking with my wife and parents along a path/boardwalk across a marsh to the beach on Cape Cod, MA. At the top of the platform where the wooden stairs went up the dune and onto the beach there were three people standing, one holding a sun shade. We just walked past them, but my Mom chatted them up briefly. Apparently they were doing a photo shoot for a J. Crew catalog, but I never would have guessed that since they just worked around us.

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From the perspective of someone who has worked in the film industry: how a crew interacts with and treats bystanders is generally very telling about where they are on the "amateur-professional" scale.

In my experience, professional productions are usually very intentional about not getting in the way of people just trying to go about their day. We were filming at a busy coffee shop in January, and we held for filming whenever a customer wanted to buy a coffee. The producers were pretty serious about not disrupting the business we were filming at.

Last time I went hiking in Yosemite, and there were people who would hike all the way to a pretty spot (like, 4hr+ hike), change into a dress/suit/etc that they had packed, get some pictures taken, change back, and then presumably hike all the way back out.

I mean if you're going to fake it anyway you could've stayed home and just pouted in front of a green screen.

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