OT: Interesting lawsuit

[David Mathis]

Is it me or is this nation lawsuit happy?

[David Roth weiss]

This is exactly why E&O insurance is required. It is incumbent on the plaintiffs to prove they’ve lost business, which is doubtful in this case, so the insurance company will just settle ASAP.

There are very few deep pockets in the world of documentary producers, so suing the producer and her production company will probably be fruitless. My guess would be that the E&O insurance company will pay the other side $20,000 to go away, and the plaintiff’s lawyer will quickly grab his or her 33% and celebrate over a lobster dinner before filing as many similar suits as possible over the next days, weeks, and months.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[Noah Kadner]

To be honest- that does sound intentionally misleading. But we all know only the lawyers actually benefit in these things.

Noah

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[Tim Wilson]

[David Roth Weiss] “This is exactly why E&O insurance is required. It is incumbent on the plaintiffs to prove they’ve lost business, which is doubtful in this case, so the insurance company will just settle ASAP. “

A million times yes to E&O. When I’m feeling harsh, I’d say something like “If you say you can’t afford E&O insurance, then you can’t afford to be in this business.” When I’m feeling less harsh, I’d still say, “Don’t be an idiot. Get the insurance.”

But the suit isn’t about an error or an omission. It claims defamatory intent. Loss of income isn’t at stake. It’s loss of face. They say the producers used “deceptive editing methods” to make them — and I love this language — “appear stumped.”

Is it illegal to make someone appear stumped when they in fact had an answer at the ready? In this case, there’s absolutely no funding at stake, no limitation on the activists’ ability to pursue their activism, so it’s nothing more than “they hurt our feelings.”

[Noah Kadner] “But we all know only the lawyers actually benefit in these things.”

Not necessarily. My assumption is that the plaintiffs are using the suit and the attending quivering outrage over “the media” to whip their fundraising to a stiff-peaked meringue. They may be able to make MORE money if it DOES get dismissed.

“They made us look stumped” is ultimately a pretty pathetic “injury”, so it could in fact easily get thrown out. But it’s hard to overstate how much people hate “the media”, so who knows. The chance to make “the media” accountable for ANYTHING might be enough to motivate graduating the rolling of eyes to the rolling of heads.

The specific “injury” is trivial enough to be almost beneath the threshold of measurability, but it’s certainly prudent for anyone working in a field remotely along these lines to remember that outrage is always cocked and ready to fire. The guiding principle for editors may be summarized as, “Don’t try to make the other guy look as venal as you THINK he is.”

btw, the footage that got cut in to make these guys look stumped was recorded while the camera was rolling on room tone. I almost want to see this go to court just to establish a legal precedent with “room tone” in the official record. Maybe have a module in film school on the ethics of room tone.

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btw, my tongue-in-cheek riposte notwithstanding, I do think that the ethics of news magazine-style editing news (which I think this is, more than documentary) is very much worth discussing.

But then slipping into my guise as occassional forum referee (when I’m not being one of the pugilists), a reminder please to avoid couching the ethics of editing in terms of the ethics of one political position or the other. So far so good. 🙂

[Michael Gissing]

If the cut was to footage where the participants were sitting waiting for room tone atmos then they certainly have a case although the laws in the US may be substantially different to here.

Do editors manipulate edit timing to further a point of view. Yes of course. Mostly it is totally benign or isn’t as intentionally obvious as this case so I think they might have to at the very least change the edit.

I don’t think a release form from the participants gives the doco maker the right to blatant distortion or misrepresentation to invoke ridicule. Mostly doco makers aren’t worth suing but in this case there might be some of the crew with a bit more than credit card debt.

[Warren Eig]

[David Mathis] “Is it me or is this nation lawsuit happy?”

Say that again and I’ll sue you 😉

Warren Eig
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[Shane Ross]

This might open James O’Keefe up for lawsuits after the Acorn video…or that Planned Parenthood video by Center for Media Progress…as well. LORDY…all sorts of pauses and reactions are added to reality shows that didn’t happen at the time. I’m sure someone will sue saying “Chelea’s reaction to what what I said in Big Brother didn’t happen in the scene. Thus it made me look like a bonehead, and on national TV.”

Shane
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[David Roth weiss]

It’s very hard to prove anyone suffered anything but hurt feelings… It’s kind of a sticks and stones argument, and judges hate getting involved in those. And, as you said Shane, these kinds of creative decisions are done all the time. The brand clearly wasn’t hurt by the film, as more guns have been sold in the last 18-months than any time in history, so agreeing to a minor change, and paying the plaintiffs to go away, are still my best guesses on the outcome.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[Michael Gissing]

Defamation laws must be different in the USA.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Shane Ross] “This might open James O’Keefe up for lawsuits after the Acorn video…or that Planned Parenthood video by Center for Media Progress…as well.”

You can sue anyone for anything in America, but whether or not is gets traction in court is a different matter. With that being said, O’Keefe was sued and paid $100,000 to settle the case.

[Shane Ross] “LORDY…all sorts of pauses and reactions are added to reality shows that didn’t happen at the time. I’m sure someone will sue saying “

Different kettle of fish though. On reality shows the participants sign away everything because producers want to freely exercise ‘creative license’ and by now it common knowledge that the shows are manipulated into next week. There is no expectation of an accurate portrayal of events in that situation. It’s fiction w/amateur improve actors.

I remember when this first came to light a few months ago and I get as pissed thinking about it now as I was then. It’s bush league, unprofessional, disingenuous, disrespectful, and harmful to the doc making community as a whole. For docs you cut for time and you cut for clarity but you must remain true to what was shot. Even if how events unfolded doesn’t jive with how you had hopped events were going to unfold.

Docs depend on trust from subjects and trust from the viewing audience and when crap like this happens it violates that trust. It just makes it that much harder for all doc filmmakers.

Whenever I meet a producer or director for the first time I layout the ethical boundaries I have and I’ve threatened to walk away from a project when asked to fabricate things because the fictionalized version would be more ‘interesting’ than what actually happened. No dice. That’s the risk with docs. Sometimes what you are documenting isn’t all that compelling.

If you ask the subject a question and they answer it correctly, you don’t edit it so it appears they answer it incorrectly because having them be incorrect is better for the ‘story’ you are wanting to tell. F-that. You have what you have and you work w/in those boundaries. If one finds that difficult and/or too constraining then one probably shouldn’t be doing docs.

[David Roth Weiss] “The brand clearly wasn’t hurt by the film, as more guns have been sold in the last 18-months than any time in history,”

This wasn’t a gunmaker though, it was a gun rights group, so I don’t see how gun sales relate. If someone filmed a meet-up of COW users and edited it so we all looked like we didn’t know our butts from a hole in the ground the number of seats of FCP X that Apple sells isn’t relevant.

-Andrew