Sessions and video cameras

[Jäger]

I know this subject has been touched in several threads here on the forums, but I couldn't find a dedicated thread for it, searching back a few years, so excuse me if there might be an old one floating around.

The last session I went to, last sunday, a regular one that's on every other sunday in the same pub, we hadn't even been playing fifteen minutes before at least two different persons from two different groups of people in said bar had hauled their phones out of their pockets and started filming us, not asking our permission or even adressing us beforehand. The other players didn't seem to mind of even notice, but I myself found it a quite strange behavior. Rude, even.

Sitting about, eating my lunch today, I came across a number of recently uploaded clips to YouTube (in the Uilleann youtube thread here on C&F) of some recent performances by Paddy Keenan, two of which were shot very up close during a session featuring himself and barely a handful of others.

What would "conventional" session etiquette say about this? Is even conventional session etiquette usable in this case, with the video camera in everyone's phones being a very recent invention, especially in relation to ITM. I wonder how these people would take to being filmed by a random person in their daily lives. Or better yet, if the entire session stopped and all the players turned around with cameras of their own, filming back.

What do you say, fellow chiffers and fipplers? Is it all right to start filming a session without permission? Is it okay during certain circumstances? Is it a crime that should be punishable by having to sit in an enclosed space for 48 hours with nothing but a bodhrán player driving you nuts?

[fearfaoin]

Honestly, in today's world, going out in public
means the possibility of being filmed by any
private citizen no matter what you're doing.

It is touchy... off the cuff, I say that I don't
care if a session is recorded. But if a person
at the next table in a restaurant was taping
my conversation, that would obviously be rude.
Maybe the question is whether a session is a
public-owned than a conversation in a public
place.

[Hotblack]

I was in Scotland in September. During the 2 weeks I went to 6 sessions, some of which I was able to join in, others where it was less appropriate for me to do so. At each session at least several of the onlookers videoed some of the session without asking if they may do so. Not one of the session musicians batted an eyelid. In fact, I was quite flattered that somebody thought my playing worthy of being filmed. And as Fearfaoin questions, is a session much more public owned than a conversation? My answer to that would be a resounding 'yes'. You're in a pub (public house) making a lot of noise.

[Jäger]

Interesting points. I remember reading in another thread a good while back that several people stated that if someone started filming them in a session they would right away stop playing, some even saying that they would walk out, if I remember correctly.

And if being in a public place and making noise makes it all right, would it be equally okay to start filming a gathering of people in a pub having a loud discussion?

Not saying that someone is right and someone is wrong, just trying to stir things up a bit and get a discussion going.

[straycat82]

My question would be: what is your problem with someone recording you playing in a group of people? Does it really upset you or are you just following the inclinations that you've seen others display regarding this topic?

Some people seem to get excited that someone is recording them. Others get furious. I find myself in neither camp. If I were making my living as a piper 200 years ago and my livelihood depended on my repertoire being uniquely mine, I could see getting upset about someone stealing a performance. You're in a pub, playing generic session tunes (generic meaning they're not specifically arranged for a band/performance) and nobody's paying admission to get in so what's the matter? What is it you're afraid of?

I hadn't really thought about it much before. Personally I wouldn't whip my phone out and video anyone in public as I'd feel rude but I've nothing to fear if I find my way to a video on someone else's phone-I really just don't care enough to worry about it. Interesting how my perspective opposes itself depending on which side of the lens I'm on.

[Mr.Gumby]

You're in a pub, playing generic session tunes

That's a bit of an assumption. In my experience anything can come up, depending on who you're playing with. I don't buy it there is a specific set of 'session tunes'. There are tunes.

Carry on now.

[straycat82]

I don't buy it either, which is why I never suggested such. I didn't say anything about specific 'set of session tunes'. I clearly stated my meaning in the parenthesis following your dissected quote; that they were likely playing tunes which were not specially arranged for a group or solo performance. This could be any tune in the world and is certainly not limited to what is viewed as 'common' by any group, though if all the group is playing it together, it's common between them.

Nit pick all you want if it's relevant but at least try to read the post for contextual meaning before side-tracking a discussion.

[Pat Cannady]

For what it's worth, I agree with you, Jager. Would-be videographers should ask permission before recording. They don't always do so and I find it a bit rude when that happens. But manners vary from place to place so we have to grin and bear it sometimes.

[Jäger]

My question would be: what is your problem with someone recording you playing in a group of people? Does it really upset you or are you just following the inclinations that you've seen others display regarding this topic?

What bothers me with it is that with the highly digitalised world we live in, we could all have been on youtube, facebook or god knows where else. Something that, for one thing, is illegal. At least it is illegal to publish someone elses face, online or offline, without their written consent in Sweden. And although I don't know if these videos or pictures will get put online or not, the fact that they could is still a bit unsettling to me.

[straycat82]

My opinion is that it's extremely rude to photograph/record/video anyone without consent. I also recognize that in this technology driven age there's not much I can do to get away from it short of rallying others together and working to pass local laws to change it. Another option might be to talk with the pub owner and see if they'd be willing to post and enforce a "no photography/video" sign in the pub.

My personal choice is to choose not to let it bother me so long as they're not physically interfering with the music. If they're right up in our faces and being aggressive then they might need to be reminded about some personal boundaries and common courtesy. I'd obviously prefer not to be taped and there are some situations where I might feel comfortable enough with the offender to ask them to cease it but I'm more inclined to just ignore it. In my case, I can't imagine why it should matter to me to have my ugly mug and shabby playing being posted on the web.

[crookedtune]

A public session is not a public performance. I think it's OK to film the latter, but not the former.

The problem is that most casual spectators have no background for making such a distinction. So, it's less rude than understandably ignorant.

[david_h]

I think there are two issues in the OP. First making the video. Second publishing it on youtube.

I guess most people videoing are doing it for their own use or to show to friends & family as they would their holiday photos. It is adjunct to giving a first hand description of a personal experience to a limited group. In that situation I don't see much difference between recording or videoing. Both are a little rude but if one is in a public place doing something that from its very nature projects itself more than a private conversation I don't see much cause to grumble too much.

Putting it on youtube, or including in a 'what I did on my travels' talk given to a public audience is, I think, a different matter. Whether it is Paddy Keenan or Joe Bloggs, or me. But it is hard to explain why. However, I feel much the same way about videoing concerts from the audience and putting them on youtube. Performers may have a different approach to playing for a live audience that they can interact with than one that will see a video, so that should be respected.

Just my 2p

[dsmootz]

I do not identify with most privacy issues that seem to come up - I'd love to find myself randomly at a session on youtube. In fact, it's quite likely you can see me listening in the background of that Paddy Keenan clip you mentioned - if it's the same one I'm referring to, it was taken by the director of the Austin Celtic Festival, during one of the evening sessions at the host hotel. In that specific case, I think it's a fuzzy line between a a public performance and impromptu session, and most of the players there were likely aware it was being filmed.

But, I'm getting sidetracked - thought I don't personally mind being recorded, I am aware that others do, and try to respect that. I wouldn't record at all in a session where I wasn't a regular, and if I were to record one of my regular sessions, I'd ask the group if there were any objections first. One of the local sessions is at a local music shop, and the host likes to take videos of everything that goes on with his shop to put on his site/youtube. So, he asked the group one day if that was alright, no one objected, and he went ahead. Seems like that's the best way to do go about it.

[talasiga]

.....
My personal choice is to choose not to let it bother me so long as they're not physically interfering with the music.
..........

Very succinctly put.

So, as long as they don't interfere with your playing than you're Ok with it.
So they're in some corner for the whole session and get a nice angle on you without you even knowing it and, later, along with other clandestine recordings they make a compilation and sell it amongst a close circle of neo ethnomusic researchers unknown to you.
And 10 years later you're at a festival and this guy's giving a talk and he is very wealthy and his main thing is this compilation and you're on it and its famous and you're not and not that u wanted to be. And the audience gets to see the video on a big screen and professors and crooks are talking about it on a panel and the aisle lady comes to check your ticket and you haven't got one because you were just passing by and couldn't afford it anyway and you get ejected.
And you wait for the main guy outside just to talk to him may be even to plead that you get acknowledged in the credits but when he comes out he is a tad beligerent and waves you away and then generally behaves you don't exist and even umpteen da Vinci's artist models got treated better than this.

And this is all a fiction but I tell you it could be true because there are many here among us
who have experienced the ingredients in this fiction in little ways and big ways in the course of our anonymous lives.

But you are cool with this?

[benhall.1]

I think that "fiction" of yours rings very true indeed, talasiga. (OMG, I may be agreeing with him here. ) It's not a million miles either I or friends have experienced, and I guess you've had the same.

On another point: my general feeling is that videoing sessions without asking everyone in them whether they mind is extremely rude. However, I am feeling very ambivalent about it this morning, because a friend from Leitrim has just found a video, posted on YouTube, of Neilidh Mulligan, myself, and some friends in a session in Drumshanbo earlier this year. I disapprove (intellectually) but it really made me smile seeing that session, and brought back memories. That one turned out to be a marathon - I was 15 hours sat on that bar stool in the vid.