The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

With the whole world becoming internet celebrities Equity cards as a universal requirement to work in the performing arts are a thing of the dim and distant past. They are still necessary for equity contracts but that is about it.

Quarters wrote:I was once told that in order to shoot under this exemption you needed to have an Equity card.

Easy. Slip into your tights and get a job as an extra - £500's worth of earnings and that Equity Card is in the bag.
You lucky thesp.

I've got my own tights I just don't have the legs.

Can it really be that easy though?

Can anybody with a YouTube Channel get to play with a GPMG?

Like all things digital it has moved so fast that little, especially legislation, can keep up with it. The sections of the act they are using to allow them to do this were never intended for this digital mess we are now in.

Society is paying catch up with the social and institutional devastation the internet and the digital revolution have caused.

Quarters wrote:I've got my own tights I just don't have the legs.

Can it really be that easy though?

Can anybody with a YouTube Channel get to play with a GPMG?

The role of Tarzan may elude you but other parts are still available.
Knowing the way our legislation is formed it sounds very plausible for the reasons Dromia has outlined.
Although I find myself too lazy to wade through the legislation I'm minded to say probably-ish.
Given the amount of focus on the presenter in the past I'd say self-preservation has probably driven him to become pretty clued up on the issue.

Quarters wrote: Can anybody with a YouTube Channel get to play with a GPMG?

The relevant legislation allowed the drug dealing ex-convict, Johnny Vaughan, to shoot a Vickers gun at Bisley...

Dark Skies wrote:

Given the amount of focus on the presenter in the past I'd say self-preservation has probably driven him to become pretty clued up on the issue.

I have to disagree, I would say that his drive for self promotion and overwhelming belief in himself override any ability to look in the mirror and take a meaningful view on when it is a good idea to stay quietly in the background.

Just because you can do something doesn't automatically make it a good idea that you should.

The conversation I had was about the Vaughan filming.

Yes the legislation allows him to do such things, but there are a few caveats. It has to be for a real production that is going to be published, the production needs to have insurance and the supervising section 5 RFD has to be satisfied that the person he is giving a firearm to is not a prohibited person or going to do something dangerous. Ultimately if someone messes up and something goes missing or gets hurt they lose their section 5 and get prosecuted. You also have to be able to afford their services. For a film production it costs around £700 for a armourer to turn up to a set and around £200 for the hire of any firearms, blank ammo is extra. This is per day.
I've worked as a film armourer on a few productions as a "RFDs servant" on behalf of a section 5 holder.

Dark Skies wrote:

Quarters wrote:I was once told that in order to shoot under this exemption you needed to have an Equity card.

Easy. Slip into your tights and get a job as an extra - £500's worth of earnings and that Equity Card is in the bag.
You lucky thesp.

Not sure about that.

Been doing extra work on film and tv for a few years.

No right to an equity card.

Being an extra is not acting nor performing - its being nothing more than a prop !