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James Marcus Haney , Photographer & Filmmaker

Christa42

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Christa42

Christa42

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Well this just looks amazing, but never condoning sneaking in :P

 

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/an-interview-with-marcus-haney-the-guy-that-has-broken-into-coachella-bonnaroo-glastonbury-and-the-grammys

 

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An Interview With a Guy Who Has Broken Into Coachella, Bonnaroo, Glastonbury, and the Grammys

 

Interviews

 

By Ryan Bassil

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Marcus Haney has never paid to go to a festival. He makes replica wristbands, sneaks past security guards, and walks with confidence. Sure—he gets chucked out. But often he ends up on the mainstage, hangs out with bands, and captures unique views with his camera.

 

In the space of four years Marcus has been to almost 50 festivals around the world. Along the way he’s made friends with bands like Mumford & Sons, found himself clinging underneath festival cess-pits, and hanging out with people called Acid Chris. This is not his day job—he shoots for stations like HBO and creates music videos. But somehow, between hitch-hiking across the United States and being one of the most sought-after photographers in music, he’s found time to compile his four-year festival experience into a documentary.

 

The film is called No Cameras Allowed and you can watch a trailer for it above. Marcus told me it’s important to note the trailer is leaked—the film has been passed around interns, shown to Chris Martin from Coldplay (who he hopes will pass it on to Michael Eavis), and as a result it is not representative of the final piece. He tells me a couple of names are missing from the trailer's credits and deserve a shout-out - most noteably the Naked and Famous, who he befriended a couple years back and have provided songs for soundtrack.

 

I called up Marcus yesterday evening to find out more about the film, his life, and whether or not he decided to graduate university or go on tour with a world-renowned band.

 

 

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Noisey: How did this all start? What was the first festival you broke into?

Marcus: It was Coachella 2010. That was the first festival I ever went to.

 

Have you ever paid to go to a festival?

I’ve never paid yet, no. It really came down to Coachella being really close, we’d been talking about it for months, and this girl I really liked at school was going to be there.

 

It all started with a girl; a classic story. When you went to Coachella, did you have someone inside helping you out or did you blag your way in?

It was me and my friend Adam. We had no money for gas—we met a guy called Acid Chris on Craigslist to help put gas in our car. We snuck in at about 4AM on Friday morning, dressed in all black, jumped the fence, and slept underneath the trailers and porta-potties until the festival opened at noon.

 

The trailer for the film shows you guys printing off fake passes and making wristbands. What techniques have you used to get into festivals?

We’ve done everything. Everything from jumping fences to fake wristbands to posing as security to posing as artists to posing as press to running through truck entrances to going underneath fences.

 

What’s been the most exhilarating?

It’s always the one’s where you’re jumping and running—it’s the most old fashioned way but when someone is hot on your tail and you’re running through a sea of people, it’s like a high-speed pursuit but with a crowd watching and cheering you on.

 

I read a story once about a guy breaking into Glastonbury—it took him three days to jump the fence.

Glastonbury always stirs up the craziest stories because it’s the most guarded. It’s the crown jewel of music festivals. When I snuck into Glastonbury I got super lucky—I walked through a truck entrance at the right time when security were dealing with other people that had snuck in.

 

Lucky.

Even if you’re headlining it’s really hard. Last year when Mumford headlined we had to sneak someone in. We put him on the floor of the Mumford bus and they still almost caught him.

 

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The best one I ever heard was someone hang-gliding into the festival. It’s quite risky heading to Europe from the States without a Glastonbury ticket though… How did that happen?

I had a job with HBO—the Running of the Bulls in Spain. It was for four days and I extended my trip. I travelled around, crashed on couches, and hitch-hiked. Hitch-hiking was how I met a guy called Grim Grim, who is in the trailer.

 

Is he the guy that says—"If you ever get a chance to meet someone like Marcus, and he offers you the most stupid sounding, irrational, impossible, illogical scheme - do it"?

Yeah - Grim Grim is a special dude. He picked me up when I was hitch-hiking to Glastonbury, we kept in touch, and he’s since been a part of my adventures across the world. I shot the album cover for Mumford and Sons and if you look at that cover he’s in it, in the background.

 

That’s amazing. In the trailer I could spot Bonnaroo, Glastonbury, and Coachella. What festivals have you been to?

The one’s that made it into the film are Coachella, Bonnaroo, Glastonbury, Ultra, the Railroad Revival Tour—which was my first tour. But the credit sequence is my favourite bit of the film, which is sneaking into the Grammys.

 

How the fuck do you sneak into the Grammys????!!!

It was tough. It takes a lot of watching for the right opportunity to get past security, past scanners, past metal detectors, all the way down to the nominees floor where everyone is sitting. The Mumford boys were down there. I didn’t tell them I was going to sneak in—I turned up in a thrift store tux—and they went nuts. They let me sit with them. It was crazy and pretty surreal.

 

Speaking of Mumford—how did you end up meeting them?

It was after Coachella. I had snuck in, shot a lot of bands I liked, and I made a short film called Connaroo about breaking into Coachella and Bonnaroo. I handed the film to a roadie at one of their shows - because the band was in it - and said—“Hey, if you like it, pass it on to the band. If you don’t, throw it away”. I never even thought he’d watch it but he did. He gave it to the band. The band gave it to the manager. The manager gave it to Edward Sharpe. Edward Sharpe watched it and, collectively, they invited me on the tour.

 

But the only thing was, that train tour was during the same time as my finals at university. I had to choose between graduating or going on the train.

 

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You chose the train. What was your course?

Cinema Production. I am still a high school graduate.

 

In the trailer there’s a clip of you being kicked out of a festival. What situations have you been in where people have asked you to leave and how have you dealt with it?

You get kicked out loads. As long as you flip your shirt inside out and take a different approach, you’ll be fine. The gnarliest one was Bonnaroo 2010. I got kicked out on the Sunday, they put me in a farm equipment, hay-bail carrier thing, and drove me out the site. They ended up dropping me about four miles away, in the middle of nowhere, and took off.

 

But that was the worst. I’ve been in handcuffs but never arrested.

 

After getting into Coachella, what spurred you on to continue breaking into festivals? The fact that you could get in for free?

For one, Coachella completely bit me. I had such an amazing time. Like, such an amazing time. I put my photos from Coachella in a Facebook album and a mutual friend, who was an intern at Bonnaroo, saw them. She passed them on to her boss, he took a look at them, and hit me up.

 

Right.

He basically said—“We like this photo of JAY Z. Do you mind if we use it for promotional purposes or something?”. I replied like “Yeah! That’s so cool! Do it!”. They said they couldn’t pay me but could give me two passes to Bonnaroo. I sold one pass and used it for air fare. Except the pass I had wasn’t a media pass and they wouldn’t let me bring my camera in. I ended up not using it and snuck in instead.

 

Is that where the name of the film—No Cameras Allowed—has come from?

The phrase has been in a lot of places: concerts, side of stage, places where you’re not allowed to be shooting.

 

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In the trailer you talk about the morality of breaking into festivals. Do you ever feel bad? Or are you like, fuck it, I’m going to festivals for free, it’s sick. I, personally, don’t think it’s a bad thing—enough people pay to go to festivals.

The first thing I think about is—I’m not hurting anyone. But am I stealing anything? Am I stealing a ticket or opportunity for Coachella to make money? Well no, Coachella is sold out. And then I start to think—is there any way I’m able to twist this and make it feel like I’m helping the situation?

 

The trailer makes the film out to be about a guy sneaking into festivals but it’s really a coming of age story set in a music world. It’s a love letter written to these festivals, in a way. And it shows them in such a great light that my goal is that people will see my film and then go and experience live music on their own. There’s no way you can translate the live music experience on to film.

 

You’re right. Every time I get back from Glastonbury, you can’t explain it to someone that hasn’t been.

It’s inexplicable. I can’t put it totally on screen but if I can compel people to go and do it on their own, that’s my goal.

 

Alright. Last question—what’s your favourite festival?

Glastonbury.

 

Good answer.

American’s go to Coachella and think it’s the happiest and best place on earth. But if you ever get a chance and want to experience something out of this world, you have to go to Glastonbury. You can go there for eight days if you really wanted to and have the time of your life; that’s how ridiculous it is. People don’t understand—you go to Coachella and there’s nothing to do except go to a stage. Glastonbury is a fucking Alice in Wonderland…

 

I call it Disneyland for adults.

Dude, it’s insane. I don’t want to do anything that jeopardises what they do; I want to celebrate them. Thank god for the Eavis family.

 

Thanks Marcus.

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grids

grids

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WOW such a gig maniac person -- dunno how I should call this person in the definition.

 

Have you ever paid to go to a festival?

 

 

I’ve never paid yet, no. It really came down to Coachella being really close, we’d been talking about it for months, and this girl I really liked at school was going to be there.

 

 

LUCKY.

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Captain Crieff

Captain Crieff

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MTV Picks Up Documentary by Rock Concert Crasher Turned Filmmaker (among the featured artists: Coldplay)

 

Fake Empire is producing "No Cameras Allowed," which MTV plans to give a limited theatrical run and a future airdate on its channel.

 

MTV has picked up the distribution rights to No Cameras Allowed, a documentary directed by and starring James Marcus Haney, who turned a penchant for crashing the backstage of rock concerts into a budding career as a rock videographer.

 

Lis Rowinski, who runs motion picture for Fake Empire, the production entity run by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, is producing the doc along with Matt Barber and Michelle Knudsen.

 

Schwartz and Savage are exec producing along with Haney, frequent Fake Empire music collaborator Alexandra Patsavas, Robyn Demarco, Joshua Vodnoy, Michael Raimondi, Mason Novick and James Parrinello.

MTV plans to air the documentary on its channel as well as give it a limited theatrical run.

Haney began crashing concerts in 2010 when he posed as a press photographer at the Coachella Music Festival. His duplicity garnered him press badges and coveted backstage wristbands, allowing for greater access to the bands, which he started to shoot fanatically.

 

It led to Haney regularly sneaking into other music festivals, and he eventually caught the attention of Mumford & Sons, whose manager was won over by the college-age kid and invited him to join the band’s tour as official recorder.

The documentary details Haney's four-and-a-half-year journey on the road with several bands, his experiences in the rock world and plenty of behind-the-scenes footage at concerts. Among the artists featured are Coldplay, Muse, Jay Z and Mumford & Sons.

Rowinski came across Haney’s self-made trailer online and brought it to Schwartz and Savage, whose love of music spills into their shows and movies — both have strong music components to them. The trio and other producers went through hours of footage and offered input to Haney on what would become the final doc.

Fake Empire recently joined the producing team of MGM’s remake of WarGames and is producing the event series The Astronaut Wives Club, which will premiere on ABC in spring 2015. The company also is producing The CW's Hart of Dixie.

Haney will be doing a Reddit AMA at 9 a.m. PT on Tuesday.

 

Link: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mtv-picks-up-no-cameras-721852?mobile_redirect=false

 

Backstage footage of Coldplay? I like :wideeyed:

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Christa42

Christa42

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Review from The New York Times

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/08/movies/no-cameras-allowed-a-documentary-by-james-marcus-haney.html?ref=movies&_r=0

 

Movies | Movie Review From Gate-Crashing to the Grammys

 

‘No Cameras Allowed,’ a Documentary by James Marcus Haney

 

<meta content="1" itemprop="ratingValue"> <meta content="1" itemprop="worstRating"> <meta content="2" itemprop="bestRating"> By ANDY WEBSTER<time class="dateline" datetime="2014-08-07">AUG. 7, 2014</time>

Inside

 

<!-- close story-meta-footer --> <!-- close story-meta --> <figure class="media photo lede layout-large-horizontal" id="media-100000003044539" role="group" aria-label="media" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/08/08/arts/08NOCAMERAS/08NOCAMERAS-master675-v2.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" data-media-action="modal">Photo 08NOCAMERAS-master675-v2.jpg

<meta content="380" itemprop="height"> <meta content="675" itemprop="width">

<figcaption class="caption" itemprop="caption description">Mumford & Sons on tour, about to play at Air Canada Center in Toronto in fall 2011, as captured by the director James Marcus Haney. Credit James Marcus Haney </figcaption></figure>

 

 

 

NO CAMERAS ALLOWED

Opens on Friday

Directed by James Marcus Haney

1 hour 24 minutes; not rated

In 2000 Cameron Crowe directed “Almost Famous,” a narrative account of his journey to becoming a Rolling Stone reporter. This year the photographer and onetime University of Southern California film student James Marcus Haney has made “No Cameras Allowed,” a documentary about his own ascent to Rolling Stone’s pages. Who knows how much Mr. Crowe glossed over details? Who knows how much Mr. Haney has? Who cares? But “No Cameras Allowed,” with its kaleidoscopic editing and often smartphone-driven imagery, is the more exuberant story.

It begins with breaking into the 2010 Coachella festival. A penniless Mr. Haney and a friend jump a fence and make it backstage before being ejected. But Mr. Haney gets great shots. Undaunted, he scores a ticket to Bonnaroo, then crashes the Ultra Festival in Miami. A homemade Bonnaroo DVD wins him a spot documenting a Mumford & Sons tour, and Rolling Stone runs one of his photos. An HBO assignment lets him take a side trip to the Glastonbury festival. Ultimately, his path takes him to Austin City Limits and the Grammys.

<aside class="marginalia related-coverage-marginalia nocontent robots-nocontent" role="complementary" data-marginalia-type="sprinkled">Continue reading the main story <header>Related Coverage

 

</header>

</aside>Mr. Haney is an appealing narrator, evincing humility and moxie. There are subplots (tensions with parents over graduation; neglect of his girlfriend and a disabled buddy) that dovetail into a crisis (an injury in Pamplona, Spain) and a pat ending almost too MTV-friendly. (MTV, the film’s distributor, is scheduled to show it on Aug. 29.) But “No Cameras Allowed” brims with enthusiasm, vividly conveying rock ’n’ roll’s hectic, bleary and exhilarating moments.

Mr. Crowe is now a Hollywood fixture. Who knows what awaits Mr. Haney?

<footer class="story-footer story-content"> </footer>

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Christa42

Christa42

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It's streaming now if anyone wants to catch it

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Missed the <a href="https://twitter.com/MTV">@mtv</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NoCamerasAllowed?src=hash">#NoCamerasAllowed</a> premiere last night? Never fear! We're streaming the whole doc FO FREE here: <a href="http://t.co/xgvNYX7bkN">http://t.co/xgvNYX7bkN</a></p>— No Cameras Allowed (@nocamerasmtv) <a href="https://twitter.com/nocamerasmtv/statuses/505702827822694400">August 30, 2014</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

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Christa42

Christa42

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Marcus just tweeted this :bliss:

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>here's one of <a href="https://twitter.com/coldplay">@coldplay</a> at the acehotel awhile back. thanks for havin me guys! <a href="https://t.co/jE5vtE2KIy">https://t.co/jE5vtE2KIy</a></p>— Marcus Haney (@marcushaney) <a href="https://twitter.com/marcushaney/status/573539152622411776">March 5, 2015</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

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Batman

Batman

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Marcus just tweeted this :bliss:

 

<iframe style="position: absolute; visibility: hidden;" allowfullscreen="" class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" allowtransparency="true" scrolling="no" id="twitter-widget-0" frameborder="0"></iframe>

here's one of
at the acehotel awhile back. thanks for havin me guys!

— Marcus Haney (@marcushaney)

<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

great hahahah! :evilgrin:

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Christa42

Christa42

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He has a new film which looks fab "Austin to Boston" and is hitting some film festivals

 

Austin to Boston, the latest from No Cameras Allowed director James Marcus Haney, is the ultimate road picture, following three U.K. bands (Ben Howard & Band, the Staves, and Bear's Den) and one from Denver, Colorado (Nathaniel Rateliff), that are crammed into five old VW vans for a jagged 3,000-mile "tour" from South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, to the penultimate gig in Boston, Massachusetts. Watching these modern-day folkies interact brings to mind the Laurel Canyon denizens of the 1960s.

 

 

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XH625BQBaLs" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe>

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Christa42

Christa42

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[MEDIA=twitter]719211975666966528[/MEDIA]

Mobile Link: https://twitter.com/marcushaney/status/719211975666966528

 

[MEDIA=twitter]721463158737604609[/MEDIA]

Mobile Link: https://twitter.com/coldplaying/status/721463158737604609

 

[MEDIA=twitter]721510292530851840[/MEDIA]

Mobile Link: https://twitter.com/coldplaying/status/721510292530851840

 

[MEDIA=twitter]721951103433072641[/MEDIA]

Mobile Link: https://twitter.com/coldplay/status/721951103433072641

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