When camera assistant Sarah Jones was killed while filming on a dangerous setup for the Gregg Allman biopic “Midnight Rider” in Georgia this February, it was only a matter of time before a legal saga ensued from the careless tragedy.
The gavel has finally struck in Georgia this morning, as the superior court of Wayne County has charged director Randall Miller, his wife/producer Jody Savin and executive producer Jay Sedrish with involuntary manslaughter and criminal trespass. Seeing that the production had no legal permission to be filming on the train tracks where the incident occurred, and that the location was unsafe, it was not regarded as an accidental death.
Now that this horrible tragedy has sparked a conversation in the entertainment industry, it’s only a matter of time before the YouTube community will be affected. Seeing that many digital content creators work without insurance or safety practices, a reoccurrence of this type of scenario figures to be an inevitability. Will it take a horrible incident to take place before YouTube creators start thinking of the safety/legality of their production?
Please read NMR’s list of a YouTube creator’s rights and responsibilities before filming in public.
Also see:
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[…] NMR published a quick hitter warning YouTubers a new precedent was set in filmmaking — a film production team was being charged with criminal negligence/manslaughter over the […]
I have had forty six years behind the motion picture camera and have lost many friends to ACCIDENTS and NONE to blatant stupidity simply because we had people around us in production that had the ability to recognize and take the appropriate precautions to minimize any chances of tragedies such as the Georgia incident from occurring. . In this case , the aforementioned precautions where NOT adhered to . Don’t get involved …
Hate to say this but…the police in Phoenix already do this. They took a YouTube video, fabricated a completely false and BS story and charged me with 4 felonies. The Maricopa county attorney backed them up and even threatened a 17 year old boy to keep him from testifying to the truth in court, heck even the judge refused to allow evidence into the courtroom that proved my innocence. People don’t seem to even care what happened to me, I bet they will when it happens to them. I did nothing wrong and can prove that yet my life has been turned upside down as a result.
It’s sad what happened to Sarah Jones. It does show how dangerous the film industry is though and if you think that’s bad, try television. It is 4 times as dangerous filming reality shows!
[…] MOVIE DIRECTOR ARRESTED FOR THE DEATH OF CAMERA ASSISTANT — YOUTUBE, BEWARE? […]