NH Supreme Court To Rule On Bigfoot Video Shoot In Public Park

alphadogg writes with this excerpt from the Boston Globe: "On a whim two years ago, performance artist Jonathan Doyle paraded around the bustling peak of New Hampshire's Mount Monadnock in a $40 Bigfoot costume from iParty. He thought his deadpan video interviews with hikers describing their Bigfoot sightings would be worth a few chuckles on YouTube, and might boost the profile of his other artwork. But the staff at Monadnock State Park found the Yeti act abominable. When Doyle returned with friends to shoot a sequel, the park manger quashed the production and ordered Doyle off the mountain, insisting he needed a state permit to film a movie in the park. Bigfoot stepped up with a lawsuit, alleging that the park's permit regulations are unconstitutional. The New Hampshire Supreme Court next month will hear Doyle's complaint. Though many elements of the dispute border on the absurd, the case raises some serious free speech issues."

Re:Limits are necessary, or are they?

[mysidia]

How about permits for potentially disruptive activities in order to maintain public order? Do you have a right to dress up as a large creature or do other deceptive things to disturb other people's enjoyment of the park?

Free speech?

[ToasterMonkey]

insisting he needed a state permit to film a movie in the park. Bigfoot stepped up with a lawsuit, alleging that the park's permit regulations are unconstitutional. The New Hampshire Supreme Court next month will hear Doyle's complaint. Though many elements of the dispute border on the absurd, the case raises some serious free speech issues."

What does filming location have to do with free speech?

Re:Limits are necessary, or are they?

[hedwards]

Yes, how one dresses is by and large covered by freedom of expression. There are a few limits in that you do generally need to be clothed, but it's been settled case law for years that you can legitimately wear an American flag as a shirt, I don't see why dressing like a Sasquatch would be any different.

Re:Limits are necessary, or are they?

[Fluffeh]

I think this is a case of the "Big boy rules" being applied to the little guy. You can't shoot a Hollywood movie in a national park without the proper permits, that's something that no-one wants to argue. However, the park isn't going to stop a family busting out a video camera and recording their holiday hike.

I think what's going on here is a few friends are having fun and doing something that falls into the latter category, but the park is (for no reason that I can fathom) against the idea of some pranksters having a good chuckle with the park patrons - so they apply the only rules that they can find to stop this happening, the rules meant for Hollywood.

If you ask me, this smells like a case of the park being douchebags, but I can't really see too much that anyone can do. You certainly don't want the next blockbuster film crew coming in and trashing a park just because the courts ruled that Jonathan and his friends could have a laugh.

If you ask me, Jonathan should find another park that isn't so full of themselves to record his sequel. "The Yeti Migration" comes to mind as a title...

Re:Free speech?

[hedwards]

Because restricting free speech to one particular block in the middle of Topeka would be way too easy a way of curtailing freedom of expression. And they could do the same thing for freedom of assembly or right to bear arms.

The right to free speech necessitates the ability to engage in it everywhere one can. Having these zones like at the airport is counter the purpose of having the freedom in the first place.

Re:Limits are necessary, or are they?

[fatphil]

Just your look is expression. However, how you interact with others is not. In the UK, you could be guilty of assault if your demeanor shocked people.

Re:Limits are necessary, or are they?

[robbyb20]

The way i look at it(im a photographer), is that the permit IS necessary. The argument that its a small production and like a family pulling out a video camera and nothing like a large production is that they are intentionally filming this for monetary reasons and IF they arent, how can they prove that? The 2 million policy isnt absurd at all, all parks and buildings in IL, especially chicago, require this. I have liability coverage up to 3mil and its only $600 a year. Pretty reasonable for what it covers(theft, damage, injury, TRAVEL). If youve got a crew of people, and this is going to be posted online or used anywhere for public viewing, you have to follow the rules. No ifs, ands or buts.

Re:This is huge.

[dbcad7]

Actually.. this is a state park.. requires a fee to enter.. Given that, I am inclined to agree those that have paid to enter should expect some policing.. In my mind, requiring a fee changes it's status from public access to private paid access.. The issue here is not about filming in a public place.. in fact I am certain they could have filmed all day long.. even in a Bigfoot suit.. the issue was whether the filming was harassing other guests.. Let's say they did the same thing even without filming it.. or let's say they (without their Bigfoot suit) just hid behind trees on a trail and jumped out to scare people to see their reaction.. In either case film or no film, you would expect them to be kicked out.. It was nice of them to state their intent before doing it.. and reasonable of the park to refuse to let them.

Eh...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Frankly, this only seems like an "important free speech issue" in one respect: the (quite likely) possibility that the park management are using selective enforcement of (possibly outdated) regulations against people who merely annoy them.

The notion that certain things that incidentally happen to be speech can be curtailed or limited because they are also hazardous or deeply disruptive has been more or less unproblematic as long as the notion of freedom of speech has been a matter of political possibility. However, such limitations do offer a potentially hazardous temptation for anti-speech selective enforcement(Is running around a dense residential district at 3am and shouting your head off legitimately "disturbance of the peace"? Yeah. Does that mean that it would be OK for police to ignore some disturbers of the peace and arrest those who say unpopular things? Not So Much.)

If this case turns out to be the park staff using a permitting system written back when cameras were barely man-portable and 'filming' implied a trail of havoc to selectively quash the weirdos while ignoring That Vacationing Camcorder Asshole, whose life only has meaning if they glimpse it continuously through a viewfinder, they need a smacking down.
If it turns out that the permit requirements are applied uniformly, then it becomes the much less weighty question of whether or not the decreasing size and disruptiveness of cameras makes them due for a rewrite or not...

Re:Limits are necessary, or are they?

[shutdown -p now]

The question here shouldn't be whether it's commercial in nature or not. The only question is whether it is detrimental to other people using the park. It's clear why large production would be that - it's due to the sheer amount of people involved, not because of the mere act of pointing a camera somewhere.

Re:This is huge.

[phantomfive]

Right, so the question is, when is commercial activity enough to require a permit? I've never been to New Hampshire, but I assume there were plenty of other people who had cameras who were fine. It was the extra stuff this guy was doing that caused the confrontation with the park rangers.

Re:Limits are necessary, or are they?

[Pharmboy]

Big movies are for profit, a commercial venture.

You can shoot home movies of your children in the park, which isn't for profit, and is perfectly fine and legal.

He is trying to do something closer to home movies, as he is posting on youtube, not requiring large equipment and space, and not requiring any part of the park to be off limits. If they want to require that he first notify them (so they know to not hunt for any reporting bigfeet) and require a small fee for dealing with it, ($10 range, since entry is only $4), then I wouldn't have an issue, as the fee would be in line with the cost to them, virtually nothing. Anything more is infringing on free speech, since it wouldn't be in proportion to the "disruption" itself.

Permits are OK if they are "Shall Issue"

[nicoleb_x]

I have no problem with permits as long as the the Parks have a "Shall Issue" rule so that you get a permit as long as you meet the minimum requirements.

Re:This is not a moral battle but a legal one

[sconeu]

How is a *STATE PARK* not considered a public place?

Re:Limits are necessary, or are they?

[Plunky]

Have you ever seen a Hollywood movie shooting on location? Hundreds of crew, trucks, generators, lights, etc, etc.

Right, so its a National Park and that stuff isn't allowed, so they need a permit to get trucks, trailers and generators on site, and an exclusion zone set up because you can't have members of the public wandering across your set.. The permit then is not for the filming, but for the inconvenience they are creating to other park users, and to the costs they are incurring to the park wardens who need to coordinate such activity.