Curious about it.

Did they have to get permission from the survivors/victims families to use the footage?

I think it depends on the context

in the bird box context I feel like they probably should remove that
plus it doesn’t sound like they were meant to use that footage... at least the stock footage company they got it from makes it seem that way

I have not seen the clip in question, but I didn't think it was a bad thing when real footage was used in war movies...

Didn’t Herzog kill like a hundred natives filming some movie about a boat?

In 2019 it's definitely unnecessary.

I think it depends on the context. Obviously a documentary is different but a film which aims simply to entertain, I can see why that would be problematic for survivors.

Maybe in that context, where you're using just any footage to portray something unrelated, but if you're representing a disaster with actual video of the incident, I think that's okay. For instance, I'd be okay with 9/11 footage if that's what's actually happening in the movie, but I think using video of the towers falling to represent just any building being knocked down by Godzilla would be inappropriate.

if not more ethical, it's definitely less wasteful than getting life sized prop trains to explode for a film...

As I understand it, the content of the footage was a couple of seconds showing a fireball over the town. It didn't show any people in it, and I expect you wouldn't recognise the source unless you lived there or were very familiar with the incident (by which I just mean that it's not something widely recognisable like 9/11 footage).

I don't think the scene would have been negatively affected had a similar clip been done using CGI, or just left out entirely. I guess if filmmakers are generally going to use stock footage showing a disaster or mass destruction (e.g. explosion, tsunami, floods), there's likely to be people who suffered from it. I struggle to think of a situation in which the footage is valuable or necessary enough to justify the potential distress. You could probably say the same about a lot of content in films, though.

On Friday 1/18/19 - 11:15:14 PM CowDung wrote: Did they have to get permission from the survivors/victims families to use the footage?

No. You can buy the rights of the footage, normally use for documentaries or education. Netflix started doing it for entertainment purposes.

A cbc article on the subject

Also, in a movie like Cloverfield, where most of the footage appears to be domestic (at least from the preview, I haven’t seen the film) did they create the whole thing?

I’m not trying to create outrage, but that fireball was on our media for a long time. Kind of iconic now, and half the town still suffers from ptsd.

And it’s still news since trials and civil action are going on.

I think that specific incident had better be extremely integral to the story if you're going to use real footage of a trauma like that.

On Saturday 1/19/19 - 4:41:04 PM birdsong4j wrote: I think that specific incident had better be extremely integral to the story if you're going to use real footage of a trauma like that.

it's not. Completely out of context.

On Saturday 1/19/19 - 8:24:32 AM Floor Demon wrote: (by which I just mean that it's not something widely recognisable like 9/11 footage)

im laughing my ass off at the thought of a disaster film using 9/11 twin towers footage for something that is ostensibly something entirely different and fictional

But not Bird Box?

Update: Netflix has finally agreed to remove the footage.