Filming Notification Map System

By Dave Bullock
Published: Thursday, June 14, 2007, at 05:02PM

Dave Bullock

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Back in March a helicopter hovering at midnight got Downtown into a serious discussion about filming. DLANC formed an ad-hoc committee to look at the issues, and from that Film LA issued new interim rules for the Historic Core. One of the clear problems that’s been identified is that of filming notification.

In an effort to help those of us Downtown know what’s going on I’ve been working hard over the last few months to create a system that lets us see all notifications together. After leaping various hurdles, including dealing with FilmLA’s choice for notification format and their lack of standardization in those notifications, I have released the Filming Notification Map to the public.

The system isn’t perfect and there are still many bugs to be worked out and features to be added, but it is a good start. To learn more about the technical aspects of the system as well as my motivations for creating it, check out this post on my blog.

Comments

David Kennedy writes:

Was a requirements document ever created for this project?

# on Jun.14.2007 AT 05:26 PM

jim writes:

david: that's pretty funny.

dave: kudos! i'm sure this will blow some minds over at filmla.

# on Jun.14.2007 AT 05:35 PM

David Kennedy writes:

I'll take that as a no.

# on Jun.14.2007 AT 05:52 PM

Whitman Lam writes:

Some specific details would be nice. Some productions are more minor with a few trucks and trailers, some require road closures for entire blocks. So knowing how much of an affect it will have on the neighborhood is important... as anticipated most filmshoots are clustered around the busiest intersections. A traffic nightmare...

# on Jun.14.2007 AT 07:35 PM

mimer9600 writes:

This is great! Thanks for working on this mapping/calendar system. One question though, is there some way to make it work with google calendar?

# on Jun.14.2007 AT 09:04 PM

Ginny Case writes:

Looooove it!

# on Jun.14.2007 AT 10:17 PM

brian writes:

this is a great tool, dave. especially like fact we have the name/phone number of location managers. it would be cool if street closures were highlighted when you dragged over specific film shoots so that you can get a visual of where you can and can't drive. thanks so much for taking the initiative to get this out to your neighbors. good work!

# on Jun.15.2007 AT 07:17 AM

Dave Bullock writes:

@DK: No requirements document was created.

@WL: Click on the pushpin and then click more info, that will show you all the info on the permit.

@m9: You can add it to your google calendar, although some of the productions show up multiple times, I'm working to fix that.

@b: I am working on showing street closures as well as parking.

# on Jun.15.2007 AT 11:47 AM

Benjamin Pezzillo writes:

To be clear, the only thing this project has to do with FilmLA is that it takes the notifications FilmLA sends DLANC by e-mail and makes them easier to access than the file posting we had been doing to DLANC's Residential Issues Yahoo Group.

The project is in NO way sponsored by, supported by or affiliated with FilmLA, the City of Los Angeles contractor which issues film permits.

Dave, your work on this is worthy of a community service medal. I know you have more planned for it and we all look forward to seeing what your mind can further achieve.

Thank you for doing what a multi-million dollar privatization of a government function has been unable, unwilling or forlorn to do.

Maybe you should consider submitting to the up-coming RFP for film permitting services...

# on Jun.15.2007 AT 09:14 PM