HOLLYWOOD—Let this be a cautionary tale to all adult producers who fail to get permits before shooting in non-studio locations: The police will bust you if neighbors complain.
That's just what happened to an unidentified photographer who was holding a Girls Gone Wild (GGW) photo shoot yesterday at a private home on Vulcan Drive in the Hollywood Hills—reportedly the site of many non-permitted shoots, both mainstream and adult, but it took the complaints of several neighbors before police responded to conduct what they described as a "film permit investigation," according to a report on TMZ.com.
While it's unknown whether GGW owner Joe Francis was present at the "crime scene," a GGW representative told TMZ that there were about a dozen staffers at the location, and the Los Angeles Times reported that possibly as many as 20 others were also present doing what one complaining neighbor described as "strange activity" in the back yard. The GGW staffer said that the crew was at the home shooting footage for GGW's "Search for the Hottest Girl in America."
But according to the police, someone had leased the house from its owner, and was engaged in the business of renting it out to filming crews without bothering to check whether they had shooting permits. And while the raiders issued the GGW rep a ticket for the misdemeanor charge of "commercial filming without a permit," TMZ reported that its sources inside the police department stated that GGW had not been particularly targeted, but that they were seeking the home's lessee for questioning, and that the police had been to that same location "multiple times over the last year."
"It doesn’t matter if you're Girls Gone Wild or Cecil B. DeMille," said LAPD Cmdr. Andy Smith, "you need a permit to film."
As adult producers know, it's common, when police raid a shooting location, for them to seize whatever footage has been shot, but there is no report on that happening in this instance.
