Making creative use of CCTV
On the podcast we'll feature the work of directors who use CCTV cameras to shoot their films. is the director of Faceless. She obtained images by using data protection legislation to request footage of herself from CCTV operators.
David Valentine uses CCTV as an "environmental television studio". He makes his films by accessing existing networks (with permission). In his last film he was granted access to a CCTV control room, but in previous works he's employed a technique called ""
Sniffing works by using a CCTV receiver to pick up the signals transmitted by certain types of cameras. We obtained permission from a camera owner do a bit of video sniffing ourselves (the Information Commissioners Office tell us there may well be data protection issues with recording images without consent - and indeed there are concerns about cameras that broadcast their images too).
The still picture above is a photo taken by me looking in the viewfinder of a camera recording a video sniffed image. If you look closely you can see both of us in the image.
Our efforts at film were arguably less successful, I thought I might do a Bob Dylan with messages written on white sheets of card, but I obviously lack his cinematic talent, and we had to resort to waving.
UPDATE: Video below with apologies to Charles Chaplin.
Both Manu's and David's films are in festivals ( and ), and well worth watching. David's work is supported by . His latest film The Duellists is a genuinely entertaining movie, and can be .
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