Is anyone in the wrong here?

mergatroid

mergatroid

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
A lady films Gaston at the meet and great whilst he interacts with other guests she doesn't know. When he sees her he approaches her and says "You're recording people that you don't know, it's not something that we do here, it's not ok". After a very long awkward silence whilst she laughs and continues filming him, he says "My dear I'm asking you a favour, would you not record people you don't know".

He then walks over to a CM and points at the lady filming and she approaches and in a very friendly way asks the lady if she's waiting to meet Gaston. Gaston is now seen talking to the photographer and then says out loud "Me I understand, people she doesn't know it just gets weird"

Personally I find it weird that she's filming him with people she doesn't know, but I don't think she's breaking any rules? I think when he initially speaks to her she should have stopped filming if for no other reason than the family with Gaston look uncomfortable with her filming them.

I'm not sure that walking over to her and staring at her in an awkward silence was the best thing to do, though you could argue that he was staying in character? The CM was super nice to her which makes me think she probably knew there was little she could do, but I do find it odd that the lady filming continues throughout whilst just laughing and ignoring all requests?

At the end the text all says she did nothing wrong, that Gaston was a jerk and even the photographer told her Gaston was a jerk off camera which I don't believe for one second. Was anyone in the wrong here, I think the woman filming was morally wrong but perhaps not technically doing anything wrong?

 
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Shouldigo12

Shouldigo12

Well-Known Member
I don't know about the official rules, but the lady was on the wrong. I also agree that an attendant probably should have been the one to talk to her, but maybe the guy could see the other family was really uncomfortable and wanted to shut it down quick.

I don't even know why should want a video of another family talking to a character.
 
mergatroid

mergatroid

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Dave B said:
If you watch the video she really doesn't record the other family, its more of filming the character until the last 5-10 seconds
Click to expand...

At the end the text says she cropped them out, but at the time they wouldn't have known that and would just have seen her filming them. There's actually a youtube channel (not hers) that seems devoted to filming Gaston up to 20 mins at a time with him meeting everyone. There doesn't seem to be an issue with this but perhaps that person is filming from further away, so not standing out so much?
 
M

Minnie Mum

Well-Known Member
How is this different from taking photos anywhere in the parks where there are strangers in the view finder? Its my understanding that photography/videography in public areas is permissible, since there is no presumption of privacy. This includes meet and greets that aren't in a closed off (private) area. While this is not something I would be interested in doing, I think Gaston was out of line. The assistant might have asked the woman to stop because the other party was uncomfortable with the filming, but there is no legal requirement to comply.
 
JIMINYCR

JIMINYCR

Well-Known Member
Sorry but I dont see anything wrong about it. Everyone has their phones recording every aspect of Disney all over property. Including capturing still photographs of others in the frame. Theres nothing wrong about recording Gastons interaction with someone other than your family members, it happens all the time. The person who gets flamed here could have told Gaston that they are only getting him and his antics in the shot. Who knows what things others have captured of me and my family doing in the parks. In this world of tech videoing, expect to be filmed by someone. Hopefully you wont be filmed doing something stupid.
Now it would be a different story if a creep was going around trying to intentionally capture shots of someones young kids.
 
deeevo

deeevo

Well-Known Member
Minnie Mum said:
How is this different from taking photos anywhere in the parks where there are strangers in the view finder? Its my understanding that photography/videography in public areas is permissible, since there is no presumption of privacy. This includes meet and greets that aren't in a closed off (private) area. While this is not something I would be interested in doing, I think Gaston was out of line. The assistant might have asked the woman to stop because the other party was uncomfortable with the filming, but there is no legal requirement to comply.
Click to expand...
It's not and its been happening for in this park for ohhhhh.... almost 50 years?
 
NoPoncho!

NoPoncho!

Member
These are perfectly acceptable and Gaston is way out of line. Meet and greets are a form of entertainment and if they are located in the public view then recordable. There are loads of youtube videos of characters. If someone were to follow a family to continue to record them that'd be different. But this is recording a Disney employee performing a character.
 
eliza61nyc

eliza61nyc

Well-Known Member
So many times it's really not that you want the recording of someone else you just want the entire "ambiance' and setting.

Ironically I did a similar boneheaded thing recently. I was one of the first among my peers to get the covid vaccine so there was a lot of speculation around the procedure and side effects. so I get to the testing site and start recording, recorded us waiting in line, going in, the check in procedure, people waiting around. finally the security guy came up and asked me to stop and gave the reasons why.

I was mortified and immediately stopped and apologized. I really wasn't conscious of invading someone elses privacy. I was just trying to reassure some of my friends.

a lot of the problem is in todays world every thing is filtered through suspicion. sad really
 
HouCuseChickie

HouCuseChickie

Well-Known Member
As a person who takes a lot of pictures and video, it's impossible to do this and not get others in your shots in most theme park settings. I would see a problem if she was going out of her way to film these specific guests, or there was some kind of stalking of them involved...but that doesn't seem to be the case. When I do take video, if it's not of my family, it's of the ambience or some kind of entertainment. Last year, I was filming the Dapper Dans and they pulled someone in from the crowd while I was filming. I wasn't expecting that nor was it my intention to film some random girl, but right after, her mom came over to me and asked if I could email it to her because she wasn't filming and wanted it for her memories. As far as I know, Disney's only real rule is no commercial photography (and some other banned equipment like selfie sticks and drones), and supposedly, larger telephotos are prohibited in the CA parks because of celebrity issues.
 
ShookieJones

ShookieJones

We need time for things to happen.
It was an odd exchange to say the least. I am not hundred percent sure what the problem would be with this sort of thing. He's a character he's putting on a 'show' and someone is filming it. I don't know MAYBE if it was some middle aged creeper dude filming Gaston's interactions with women or small children then 'Gaston' is in the right, but a blogger Mom there with her family looking for content for her You Tube channel!?? He kind of comes off jerkish.

Wanted to add: thanks for posting! This is the type of WDW related general discussion that we can debate, take different sides on and not hate each other afterwards....:);):);)
 
Shouldigo12

Shouldigo12

Well-Known Member
mergatroid said:
At the end the text says she cropped them out, but at the time they wouldn't have known that and would just have seen her filming them. There's actually a youtube channel (not hers) that seems devoted to filming Gaston up to 20 mins at a time with him meeting everyone. There doesn't seem to be an issue with this but perhaps that person is filming from further away, so not standing out so much?
Click to expand...
Yeah, part of my problem with it is that she seems very close to him. And it would be different if she had been walking around, saw Gaston having a funny interaction, recorded it real quick, and moved on. I can get that as wanting to get the "ambiance", like some people mentioned. But filming people that close and just....standing there, waiting for other families to interact with him is weird. She may not have had malicious intent but personally that would make me uncomfortable.
 
danlb_2000

danlb_2000

Premium Member
I don't see any problem with recording other people's interactions with characters. If you do have a problem with this, where do you draw the line? It's impossible to take a video or picture in the parks without getting tons of other people in it.

As for Gaston talking to the guest about this, that is totally unacceptable to me. If a rule was being broken a non-character CM should have handled it.
 
Goofyernmost

Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
That argument has been around for a long time and I have to admit to being guilty of being a possibly offending photographer. Back in the days of Mickey and Minnie's meet and greet in the area that now houses Pandora I was standing to one side waiting for my grandson to get to one of the Country Bears members, if I recall. While I was waiting I noticed that one of the bear characters was cradling in his arms a small girl. Not a baby, just a petite child. It was all perfectly innocent and cute as hell. I took a picture of it because I thought it was one of the cutest things I had ever seen. Then later while reading one of these Disney boards that an uproar was being hashed out because of that happening on a regular basis. My thought is that you cannot take a picture in WDW without having a stranger show up in it someplace unless of course you broke in after it closed. So that picture is in my computer files someplace and the cutest thing I had ever witnessed, will remain out of sight. I don't even remember anymore what file it was saved in.
 
TrainsOfDisney

TrainsOfDisney

Well-Known Member
That seems like a very odd encounter especially for a casual outdoor meet and greet.

If it was a handler, ok, but it’s not something the character should have made a fuss over. If anything he should have complained in character and said “I’m so handsome people sneak around and take my photograph like that lady over there.”
 

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