film bussiness

[Doneldon]

jyf-

Don't worry too much about the UP giving you a hard time.  They realized they had themselves up a tree with the public and effectively gave carte blanche for the use of UP and UP-legacy road names in a case they settled with Mike's Train House.  All they require now is notification.  They've not gone after anybody since then.  Besides, even if they decide to go after you the first thing they'll do is send you a letter demanding that you stop filming and selling and that will be the end of it if you comply. 

An angle you can try is seeing if they will actually help you with this.  Do some research so you know who heads their public relations department and then ask directly for that person's help with your film project.  If you are clearly focused and can send some good tape to start with (I know you can because I've seen some) s/he might even grant you permission to film on company property or in places where the public is usually prohibited, like an engine servicing facility or a control tower for a hump yard. 

A bigger concern I have, however, is that your chances of making any real money doing this are almost nil.  Unless you believe such a project might help you get into a film school or something, this is likely to be a real time consumer with little or no payoff.  You could even spend so much time on it that your other areas of responsibility, like school, go lacking which you can ill afford to do.  In the long run you might be better off doing the McDonald's schtick, learning what's involved in having a job and getting a good reference source for future jobs and even college.  In any event, good luck.
                                                                                                -- D

[jettrainfan]

its probably just gonna be in my regular railfanning time (9 hours average on a full school week). It'll just be rare clips like i said, the conrail caboose, M.O.W. trains, specials, ETC. I'll see how things work out and it should be ok. Actually E-mailed RTA if i could tape on the platform about 4 hours ago and should get a reply today or tomorrow. If its a yes then its settled, I'll try the business and see how it works but if not, its still a thought. I'm sure it will be something to get a few extra dollars, even if i do work at McDonald's or something.

[ABC]

Not to discourage you, but he's right on the money about the money, although you don't have to worry about UP in north eastern Ohio, you have some videos that are nice, but still people will not pay more than $2-$3 for the DVD and there's no way you'll get $5 for shipping and $5 for the DVD. If you had some start up capital then you might fare okay, but then you wouldn't need a job in the 1st place. You can't even sell films by established artists for 1 cent on ebay with $1 shipping let alone what you are trying to sell.