You don’t have to wander very far on YouTube to find concert footage, but venues and artists are getting increasingly narky about the prospect of being filmed. At a Go West/Pseudo Echo/Wa Wa Nee concert in Perth last weekend, a security guard came up to me and pointedly asked if I was planning to video the concert (I wasn’t). My crime? Using an i-Mate 9502 to surf the Web — apparently the large screen makes it a video suspect. In a more blatant crackdown, Prince recently demanded that YouTube remove all fan footage of him performing Radiohead’s Creep from the site, even though the members of Radiohead (who in theory would lose songwriting royalties from such postings) actually don’t give a damn.
There’s not much you can do about pop star lawyers, but there’s some obvious strategies you can use if you do plan to film parts of a concert and don’t want a shakedown from the security goons too soon. Check the venue policy first: some places have a blanket ban (in which case there’s not much point trying), with others it’s dictated by the artist. Getting a seat away from the aisles makes you harder to reach. Using a smaller camera and only filming for small bursts makes it hard to distinguish what you’re doing from regular photography. Anyone got any other tips for concert capture?
