Images

February 9th, 2011
Athens International Airport
Athens, Greece

     Today was our second airport day and a little hectic. Since our first airport day was so well organized and we were so prepared for everything to go wrong and nothing did, this time around we encountered some problems. It took us about an hour to set up our first shot because there were logos everywhere we turned. Coach,  Sephora, Accessorize, you name it, it was there and we couldn’t shoot anywhere near them.

     This definitely plays into the spread of images in our everyday society. To be able to ‘use’ an image or icon from a private company, one must obtain a copyright release form for any and all products that are under that company’s name. Ever since the rise of consumer capitalism where every nation and object brands themselves, the ubiquity of brands has lead to a fight over symbols. If we were to use their brand names in our production without their permission we could be representing them in an ill fashion or demoting their product and would consequently be sued. Basically, by forcing consumers to request permission to even snap a picture of their product and put it on the internet, they are maintaining their control over society.

     As associate producer my job is to make sure everything runs smoothly behind the scenes. A specific example of this would be the fact that no one realized that by scheduling George’s coke scene, we needed to obtain a location as well as a location release for the business we were using. Brendon and I walked around the airport looking for a plausible location close to an information desk for continuity reasons and one that had a can of Coca-Cola inside. Not a single location had any coke cans, only coke bottles and we’d already shot a fantasy scene with a can.

     So I went up to a place called Rock Juice, used the Greek I had learned in class to speak to a woman so she called her supervisor. Her supervisor came over and we discussed that this film was a student production, we were only going to submit it to festivals in the United States and that it probably wouldn’t make it to commercial use. We were given the okay to shoot the scenes so we got creative with the ‘no coke’ situation and used our own. Six coke cans now lined their refrigerator and we put an old looking sandwich on their shelf to fit our scene. It’s interesting how little I know about the consumer world because when their supervisor came over he explained to me that they had a very strict contract with Pepsi Cola and if a Pepsi representative were to see a Rock Juice logo with Coca-Cola in it they would be sued. So we had to redo the shots without Rock Juice represented.

     We got all of the shots we needed at Rock Juice and the rest of the day we booked through the scenes we needed. It’s now extremely apparent to me how much media and images rule our lives. In the subconscious way to where we are always thinking about and being bombarded by these images, and in the completely conscious way, where big corporations literally control the world, and tighten their grip on business owners and workers so much that they can’t make any decisions for themselves. 

The Man's Always Keepin' Us Down, 

Susie