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Blur on “The Real World”
I just looked at “The Real World” and noticed that in many scenes, blur is used to obscure:
faces of people;
some beverage cans (but not others!);
prints hanging on the wall of the house where the participants live.What’s going on? I understand that people are blurred if they won’t sign releases (or the producers just didn’t get releases). But why prints and some (not all) beverage cans?
— Bob Cole
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6 Replies
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The producers do not want to offer free product placement advertising to certain products and/or have not obtained the rights to use other material such as the prints.
Tony Salgado
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And, they more than likely have an exclusive product endorsement deal with some brands, but not with the others…
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[tony salgado] “have not obtained the rights to use other material such as the prints.”
The reason I ask is, of course, for my own sake, not MTV’s. Your first point makes sense about paid/unpaid product placements, and is of no concern to me. Coke hasn’t approached me lately about appearing in my doc’s.
But your second point scares me a bit. If I have to start blurring every tiny detail in any image for which I don’t have specific legal authority — what a pain. I wonder whether this sort of thing applies to MTV, and less so to smaller targets like me.
— Bob C
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Documentaries have their own set of rules, and some of them fall under fair use. But it’s always a sticky wicket. I think that’s why SuperSize Me could use all the McDonald’s logos without paying for it somehow. Anyway, all those “I’m not a lawyer” comments also apply.
drsanchez, son of a midwestern bureaucrat
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The reverse is happening too. A fun new pastime is catching CBS’s sponsor paint-ins on the Friday night show “Numb3rs”… Sponsors are getting product placement after the shows are shot. About a month and 1/2 ago, I noticed a yogurt container had been digitally placed (quite poorly) onto the table next to actor Judd Hirsch. The Hummer logo has been digitally placed in all sorts of places on Numb3rs and CSI: Miami.
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\`(=)`/…Pixel Monkey
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seeing as more and more people either have a DVR or download tv shows (legally or otherwise) commercials are becoming a less effective tool. No way to edit out a product placement (yet).
I’m surprised networks have not introduced the ticker for advertising during network shows.
Mike
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