You are in the aisle, phone up, product in hand, and someone in a uniform is walking towards you.
Nothing you are doing is wrong. It is also not going to continue, and the reason is not the law. It is that you are standing on somebody's property and nobody asked them.
Who owns the ground you are standing on
That single question answers almost every version of this.
The street
Filming yourself on a public street is generally unremarkable, and nobody needs to grant it. What changes the situation is not the camera, it is the kit: a tripod, a light, a second person holding a reflector, and you have stopped looking like a person filming and started looking like a production.
That is the point at which a council may have a view about commercial filming on the highway, and the only correct answer is to ask that council rather than to guess, because the policy is set locally and differs street by street.
Shops, stations, gyms, shopping centres
Open to the public and privately owned, all of them. The operator's own policy decides, not any general right, and staff are enforcing that policy rather than judging you.
The policy usually exists for reasons that have nothing to do with your video: other customers in the frame, security, and a general instruction to stop anything that looks like it is being recorded for commercial use.
A home, a workshop, a restaurant
Someone's business or someone's front room. Written permission, obtained before the shoot, and if the brand chose the location then obtaining it is the brand's job and not yours.
| Where you are | Who can say yes | What happens if you just start |
|---|---|---|
| Public street, phone only | Nobody needs to | Usually nothing at all |
| Public street, tripod and lights | The council, locally | You get asked to move on |
| Shop, station, shopping centre | The operator, on the day | You are stopped, politely and quickly |
| Private premises as a location | The owner, in writing | The brand inherits your problem |
The last row is the expensive one. A creator stopped in a supermarket loses ten minutes. A brand running an ad shot inside premises nobody cleared has a different kind of problem, and it starts with your name on the delivery.
What the brand does not know it is asking
Briefs say things like film it in a supermarket as though that were a setting, in the same list as film it in natural light.
It is not a setting, it is a third party's property, and frequently a retailer that also stocks the brand's competitors and has its own rules about being shown. The brand cannot grant permission it does not hold, and a line in the brief is not permission.
So ask one question back before the shoot day: is there an agreement with the store, or should this be shot elsewhere. That question has never once damaged a relationship, and it has saved a great many afternoons.
Asking so that it works
Go to the duty manager rather than the nearest member of staff, because the nearest member of staff has no authority to say yes and every instruction to say no.
Name the brand, say how long it will take, say there will be no tripod and no other customers in frame, and go off peak. Offer to send them the finished video. A surprising number of managers say yes to a polite thirty second request and no to the same person filming without asking.
The version that always works
Buy the products and shoot them at home.
Most convincing in-store UGC is shot in the first thirty seconds before anyone notices, which is exactly why it looks like a phone rather than a production. The same shot, staged on your own counter with a couple of props, is indistinguishable in a nine by sixteen frame and comes with nobody walking towards you.
Keep reading
- The Question That Ends a Conversation You Were Winning
- The sound was in the app, so it is cleared
- You Did Not Sell Them Views
- The Best Line in the Video Is the One You Will Have to Cut
- The complete UGC guide for the UK
Frequently asked questions
Can I film other people in the background?
Avoid it where you can, and reframe rather than argue. Faces you did not clear are the part a brand's legal team notices, and cutting a wide shot is cheaper than replacing it later.
What if staff ask me to delete the footage?
Stop filming and leave. They can require you to stop and to go, and a discussion about whether they can require deletion is not a discussion worth having in an aisle.
Does public liability insurance cover this?
That is a separate question from permission, and one worth understanding on its own. Insurance answers what happens if something goes wrong, never whether you were allowed to be there.
Do I need permission for a shopfront from the pavement?
Filming the outside of a building from a public pavement is generally fine. Filming through the window at customers inside is where it turns into something else.