American Film Crew Blocked by the Chinese

[Land Rover]

The crew was kept in their hotel rooms so they couldn't film the anti-government protests. Doesn't surprise me coming from over there.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/17/tibet.american/index.html

[Frank McBride]

Not surprising at all. They seem to use the same playbook I encountered shooting in Vietnam in the early '90s. I won't bore you with the details, but before we were done we had been accused of being spies and were forced to pay bribes to get our tapes out of the country. Oh, but communism is great. :mad:

FMc

[sheriff]

In Vietnam, we had a government-appointed minder. She had some uses, in that she provided a driver and vehicle, and smoothed the way with access to Cabinet Ministers and various official facilities. At the end of the shoot, though, we had to hand the tapes over so that he Ministry could view them. Made for a very nervous producer.

On a different note, as a foreign shooter in NYC, I was stopped by an unidentified security guard who was not satisfied with my explanation and summoned the NYPD. I was approximatley 40 meters from the entrance to our hotel. The cop threatened me with arrest, took my passport details, searched my camera bag, and generally made my life diificult. I was simply shooting yellow cabs on a Manhattan street. "No," I was informed, "that is just not acceptable." Apparently I can't just start shooting on New York streets. Most of these buildings are sensitive. You can't film the exterior of Grand Central Station, any bridges (there goes the iconic Brooklyn Bridge shot), roads or tunnels. Niiice. I suspect that being foreign is sometimes all that is needed for there to be a problem.

[Corporate Management]

This is why having the Olympics in Beijing is a bad idea. It's like stamping the word "acceptable" on their government.

[Foxwood]

You go to another playground, you have to play by the house rules.

[pre-set]

I would really like to see the "civilized world" boycott these games, but it ain't gonna happen.

The thing is, a boycott WOULD be the single most offensive, most EFFECTIVE way to show the ChiCom gov. how (most of) the rest of the world feels about their human rights record.

They don't really care about diplomatic critisims, Amnesty International or public scorn, but the overt insult of nations boycotting them in what is supposed to be The Middle Kingdom's moment of triumph and glory would be a crushing blow to their communist leadership.

It's a cultural thing....

[Land Rover]

Now the IOC is saying that the air quality could affect the athletes and one long distance runner has dropped out of the Olympics.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23682873/

[Clutch City]

I was in both Shanghai and Beijing a couple of years ago and had no problems shooting except for one place. It was a garden area and for whatever reason no video cameras were allowed.

The air quality was horrible in both cities. I've never "tasted" anything like it. Even back then I was wondering how the athletes would be able to compete, especially the long distance runners. That said, I think they'll put on a good show.

[canuckcam]

China has tons of money. Money can change the skyline of cities, but it'll take a couple generations to change the people. On that note, I wanted to go into mainland China with a relief group to photograph the utter devastation of the January snowstorm. I was denied. They had official-government media shoot everything. I was told the majority of the video/photos from the region was staged or carefully monitored.



BTW, if you blow your nose, look at the colour of your boogers... :)

[Land Rover]

With all the press that's going to be in the city I wonder how effective they're going to be with controlling the media's access to the events and parts of the city and how it will affect just shooting background stories around the city. Are they just going to shuttle the press around and keep them in their hotel rooms at certain times? If anyone on here is going I'd love to hear how things were handled when you get back.