MTV Real World Camera Crew Harassess WUSA VJ

Buck

Buck

Well-known member
http://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/archives/the_real_world_dc/2009_Jul_05_cast_names_stalking

...camera crew interrupted a CBS affiliate’s attempt to interview bloggers and others who were stalking the cast outside of the house—and then crew members asked everyone to sign releases, which of course they did.

In a video of that situation, below, DC CBS affiliate WUSA reporter Lindsey Mastis interviews Martin Mongillo, a relatively sympathetic DC resident who calls DC’s version the “best Real World ever” (two days in? really?) and a camera operator for the show gets in between Mongillo and Mastis, essentially ruining her shot. Mastis wrote on Twitter that “camera people got in front of my camera and tried to block me.”
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video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LiG4Jq_eC0

 
I feel bad for the WUSA OMB/VJ, and not just because she's stuck being a OMB/VJ (in fact, the only way it could be worse is if she was one of those Push Pause/FiOS suckers). Regardless, no matter the job title, harassment like that is frustrating and annoying. If that were me, I'd make it impossible to get between me and the subject instead of standing there and giggling about the situation. By the looks of it, she had a wide-angle or fisheye lens on that piece of crap.

However, I can't help but wonder: what the hell was the point of her report? Does anyone really care that a show that's run 21 seasons too long is shooting in DC? Maybe someone over there in the DC market can shed some light.

They're dumbasses for signing release forms, that's for damn sure.
 
why would she sign a release after being treated like that? That is how you get back at them....don't sign the release, then MTV cannot use any it.
 
There's no excuse for being that rude. Doesn't matter who he's trying to intimidate. VJ or no VJ.

Just speculation here, but I'd guess Big Camera Geek has a really tiny...
 
Memo to the Real World photog: I realize you were probably put up to it by your producer, but you are still a tool, just like the majority of the cast on the Real World shows. It must be contagious.
 
MtnShooter said:
There's no excuse for being that rude. Doesn't matter who he's trying to intimidate. VJ or no VJ.
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I don't think he was trying to intimidate. I think he was trying to provoke.

Consider: Some folks in other cities haven't been too happy about the Real World coming along to disrupt their lives. It even mentions in the article how much more receptive the DC community has been. But their reputation for "controversy" is part of their marketing schtick. Conflict is what gets people to watch.

I suspect that the producers of the show were expecting the usual resistance from the community. Then it didn't come. So they sent the crew out to manufacture some, by intentionally trying to piss people off and provoke a reaction. Suppose that girl had reacted at all, perhaps saying something like, "What the hell is wrong with you people?" THAT is all you'd see of the exchange on the Real World. Even if they pissed her off enough to refuse to sign the release, they'd just blur her face, and you'd see some blurred-face chick with a camcorder looking like an angry protester. It would look like the Real World house was receiving the rude reception they expected and wanted.

That guy was definitely a tool. But his interference was way too systematic not to have a specific goal in mind.
 
she should have kneed the asshole in the balls!

If someone EVER did this to me at a shoot they would have the enire large ENG camera kiester stashed...
 
Painful to watch. I know if I didn't have some great mentors over the years who cared about me being as great a journalist and shooter as I can be, I could be someone holding a camera like that with no back bone.

I have been around cameras enough to know, never to act like a **** in front of cameras, even if your boss tells you to. I care more about my career than any one job.

If I acted like that I would be worried that once MTV threw me out w/ the Tuesday trash I wouldn't be able to find anyone else that would want to hire me.

On the other hand, maybe that photog really wants to get hired by Sasha Baron Cohen for his next film. It might be funny going to work everyday pulling pranks on innocent people, but getting named in a few dozen lawsuits isn't my idea of a good business decisions.
 
I smiled

I'm proud of how the VJ and interview subject handled the situation. I smiled at the end of the clip, confident that only some creative editing could spin this as conflict. A few years ago, I would have had many other thoughts about how to ruin MTV's day. Now, as a father, I see that this is a situation where if you ignore the behavior, it will fizzle out with much less impact than a confrontation would have ultimately caused.
 
Just to play a little devils advocate here. Not once did the VJ ask the photog to move, I know your saying thy will use that as fuel and I don't watch MTV so I don't really know the conflicts with the cities that they get into, but it did look as though he was really getting broll, and has quite a fisheye on that lens, but I would at least have asked once, then its fair game, if he happened to trip by accident and break the $90,000 camera...Ooopps
 
The set up of the story was a lot of bloggers were outside the set, and with the WUSA shooter using a baby cam, she looked like a blogger as well. Would the MTV shooter have done the same against a large camera toting photog? It just seems the larger camera still get more respect.
 
I thought the same thing...

(from lenslinger.com)

...at the risk of sounding sexist I have to ask ... Would Apple Boy have done the same with your garden variety news crew? In this case, all he had to do was crowd out a cute female with a baked potato-cam. What would have happened had he tried that with a 300 pound lifer with 20 years of experience and twenty-five pounds of camera? Hard to say, but I know some fellas who would have taken enormous offense and while I don't condone violence, it's not hard to imagine emergency medical technicians being called with great haste to remove a beefy photog elbow from Apple Boy's throat.

They wouldn't have signed releases either...
 
The photog shooting for MTV was an ass.

I would have said (or done) something...but I give the girl credit for not giving them a confrontation to use for their own ends. ;)
 
Sean-1966 said:
Somebody has to know this assholes name...
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Maybe he used to be the lead singer of The Proclaimers.

the-best-of-the-proclaimers.jpg
...

Warren
 
Jerk. You probably won't even end up seeing the video he shot. She was kinder than I would have been but I'm sure that's what the photog was waiting for. I certainly wouldn't have signed a release.
 
slick said:
The set up of the story was a lot of bloggers were outside the set, and with the WUSA shooter using a baby cam, she looked like a blogger as well. Would the MTV shooter have done the same against a large camera toting photog? It just seems the larger camera still get more respect.
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I was kind of wondering that myself. At the very least I would have indentified myself and who I was with.
 
Anybody know what production company does Real World?? I was taught and have always taught that shooters stick together. We don't to screw each other and lend a hand when necessary. This friggin' guy needs a review of that.
 
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