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Monday, August 18, 2014

No Cameras Allowed

In 2010, a USC film student named James Marcus Haney snuck into the Coachella music festival in southeast California. While there, Marcus became hooked on the intoxicating frenzy of the moment. He documented his experience with the many cameras around his neck, and knew he had to relive the experience again as soon as possible. In the months following his Coachella break-in, Marcus successfully snuck into Bonnaroo (in Tennessee), Ultra (in Miami), Glastonbury (in England), Coachella (again), and more, documenting his exploits the entire time. No Cameras Allowed is the fun and frantic feature length documentary of his adventures.

Marcus doesn’t just sneak into these festivals, he sneaks into them. He gets in the press pits directly in front of the stage, or on the stage itself, all without a credited press pass, let alone an actual concert ticket. You’re likely to ask yourself if you’re okay with Marcus consistently and gleefully breaking the law. That’s up to you. I suppose I don’t see how anyone who has illegally downloaded a movie or television show (let alone snuck into movies in the theater) could cry afoul to Marcus’ misdeeds, but to each your own.
Instead, there were two main things concerning No Cameras Allowed that I took issue with. The first is that Marcus clearly has money. His camera equipment, for example, is insane. He has vintage 8mm cameras, Canon 5Ds – at any given point, he has least five different cameras around his neck, and he’s shooting with lenses that cost double the amount that the bodies of the camera cost. How is that an L.A.-born and raised kid, who is attending USC film school, who lives in his parent’s basement, who has tens of thousands of dollars worth of production and post-production gear… how can he not afford a concert ticket, or, at the very least, gas to get him to the concert? Coachella is expensive, sure, but if Marcus hawked just one of his lesser-grade lenses, he could easily buy two tickets from the profits.

The second thing I questioned is the overall validity of the film itself. I’ve never snuck into a festival, so I can’t call into question the legitimacy of Marcus’ sneaking-in efforts. What I do know plenty about, however, is licensing music for films. This is an extremely difficult and cripplingly expensive task. In No Cameras Allowed, not only does Marcus feature songs from Jay-Z, Skrillex, The Naked and Famous, and many more, he features footage of those people actually performing the songs, which is infinitely more difficult and costly to license.
So, how did Marcus pay all the licensing fees to clear the performances in his film? In publicity interviews Marcus has given to reputable publications, the authors shamefully throw Marcus curveballs. (“What’s your worst experience of being thrown out?” “Do you feel like you’re stealing?”) But it was his recent and disastrous reddit ama that piqued my interest. For those of you who don’t know how reddit ama’s work, they are essentially a forum for regular people to ask famous people questions in real time. A celebrity logs onto reddit, instructs users to “Ask Me Anything,” and spends the next several minutes answering questions. I’ve read hundreds of ama’s, and Marcus’ is easily the most cringe-worthy one I’ve come across. When asked about the film’s validity, Marcus either ignored the question entirely, gave an obviously rehearsed answer, or replied with snark. If you check out the ama, you’ll see that nearly every one of Marcus’ answers are hidden because they’ve been down voted (the opposite of a Facebook “Like”) by reddit users.

Obviously, the reddit community wasn’t buying what Marcus was selling. They called bullshit, and Marcus didn’t have a convincing retort. Marcus has said that the licensing fees for his film were picked up by MTV (who came on as a distributor after the film was completed, which is quite common for independent films). But I’m still skeptic about the overall legitimacy of the film as a documentary (it’s very interesting, for example, that the film doesn’t appear to have an IMDb page).
But does it matter if Marcus’ documentary is more staged than spontaneous? Film is a medium based on manipulation. The individual components of a film – music, cinematography, editing, to name a few – are designed to manipulate us into feeling a certain way. The stringed instruments cue up, and we’re manipulated to feel emotional. The film cuts frantically, and we’re manipulated to feel excited. Documentaries are no different. My favorite documentarian, Werner Herzog, openly admits that many of his documentaries implore staged and rehearsed sequences, yet they are disguised in a manner that, as Herzog says, “Strives for greater truth.” Most every documentarian has staged a scene or “performance” in their career. Does that make me feel slightly cheated? Yeah, sure. But does it invalidate the entire film? Hopefully, no.

Whether you roll with it or call bullshit, it’s up to you to decide how much slack to give No Cameras Allowed. I can honestly say that, real or not, I enjoyed most everything about the film. It made me laugh (two words: Acid Chris), it made me cry (two words: rope swing), and, above all, it filled me with a great sense of inspiration. You can stage sneaking into a concert and you even can lie about licensing songs, but you can’t manipulate shot composition of a live event. Nor can you cheat polished editing. No Cameras Allowed looks great, is cut together brilliantly, and is factual proof that if you own a digital camera (or five), you can manipulate your footage into something quite entertaining. Real or not, No Camera Allowed is a film of its time. B+

No Cameras Allowed is currently available for rent on iTunes, and will air on MTV Aug. 29.

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14 comments:

  1. This sounds interesting. I've never heard of this doc before and am curious how you managed to stumble upon it. Was it showing in a theater near you or did the reddit Q&A catch your attention?
    But aside from that, while I love a good doc (and Mr. Herzog is definitely one of my favorites as well) this sounds like one of those where the film is entirely focused on the documentarian. I've seen quite a few docs like that and the either bore the fuck out of me or just plain piss me off. A 20-something year old guy sneaking into big festivals, and who apparently has quite a bit of cash, just seems like one of those projects where the filmmaker is going, "Oh look at me. Look at how edgy I am. I'm totally doing something original." Am I on the right track with that or is it just my wild imagination putting these ideas onto this film?

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    1. I'm lucky - one of the very few theaters No Cameras Allowed played in is only about 5 miles from my house. It's actually a chain of theaters, about 7 of them around LA, owned by one guy. They show only indie films, including some deep cut indies like No Cameras Allowed. So every Friday, I go on their website and read the bios of the new movies they have. No Cameras Allowed sounded interesting, so off I went.

      Now, there is a little bit of the "Look at me! Look at me!" vibe to No Cameras Allowed, but it definitely doesn't dominate the film. I too am not a fan of docs that predominately focus on their maker. (Catfish is a great example of that - what a crap film.)

      I'd honestly be interested in your thoughts on No Cameras Allowed. Haney has said he encourages people to download the film illegally, so, have at it!

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  2. Great review, as always. I'm so taken with this kind of vivid, enthusiastic, sometimes even flawed, but constantly fascinating filmmaking. I really am, man. And it's so awesome to read from you something that was always on my mind while watching a film: "Film is a medium based on manipulation." It is the art of illusion. A filmmaker has only way to reach an audience and take them on a journey with him and that would be to somehow manipulate the way the audience thinks and feels. Even if it's a documentary we're talking about, it doesn't matter that much indeed if it's more staged than spontaneous, if the filmmaker has the ability to make you dive into the universe he has created. Because simply put, not even a documentary can depict our universe and our reality to the fullest. Fictional techniques such as editing, scripted narration and staged shots, let alone the use of music that you mention and obviously cinempatography (and really that's just to name a few) are definitely parts of making any film and a documentary is really no exception. But if a fimmaker has the balls and the enthusiastic approach in his work that will make you dive into his view on our reality, that's something, no doubt about that. "No cameras allowed" truly seems to make for an interesting and entertaining watch and I'm really egaer to watch it. Thank you for another excellent post.

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    1. Hell yeah man, you seem to completely "get" what this film is selling (as did I), so I'd LOVE to hear what you think of this film.

      "...not even a documentary can depict our universe and our reality to the fullest." YES. Exactly. Couldn't agree more. And one thing I'll say - I loved my time with No Cameras Allowed. The film is a lot of fun and breezes by. I only started to question its validity after the fact. But during, I loved it.

      Thanks so much for the comment!

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  3. I don't know if I want to see it. Plus, I tend to avoid anything involving MTV.

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    1. Yeah, definitely fair enough. I would be curious to hear your thoughts on the validity of the film. But I will say this... the movie really does look great.

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  4. This seems like a really fascinating film, and I will see if I can find it. While I am not the biggest fan of documentaries set around their maker (I didn't like Catfish all that much), this seems very interesting. I also agree wholeheartedly with what you said in your review and Stergios' comment above. I was quite surprised to learn that there are certain parts of documentaries that are staged, but I think Herzog summed it up excellently. Yet another brilliant review, Alex :)

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    1. Thanks Aditya! Thankfully, while No Cameras Allowed is much about it's maker, it's still a well put together film. Herzog is such a fascinating storyteller - I love his stance on truth in films.

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  5. Great piece Alex; I love how you've done some honest-to-goodness investigative journalism here, but haven't let the potential inauthenticity of the film overshadow its work as a piece of entertainment. It's great to see a critic identify the flaws in a film but look past them to evaluate the work as a whole.

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    1. Likewise, it is great that a fellow critic "gets" what I'm going for in my review. So thank you, kind sir.

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  6. Oh, this sounds very interesting. Valid or not, it does look entertaining. I might check it out at some point.

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    1. It definitely makes for an interesting viewing. I was very impressed with its overall style.

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  7. Alex, this is Marcus's dad. The film is as true as the sunrise today; completely ligit, untouched by MTV. Oh yeah, the part about being broke: that was ligit too. I know because his parents are cheap SOB's. The part about the Mark V: You hope your brain surgeon has the best equipment for your mental rearrangement, so it goes with film artists as well. relax, enjoy the film, don't get a mortgage, get a R.V..

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    1. Hey Marcus's dad (if that is indeed you), thanks so much for the comment. It was great to have some of these things cleared up.

      I'm not sure what this sentence means: "The part about the Mark V: You hope your brain surgeon has the best equipment for your mental rearrangement, so it goes with film artists as well." But that's all good. Really cool of you to stop by.

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