Toronto Police Uniforms

[AshleyAshes]

This isn't so much for PLAYING airsoft as much as FILMING with airsoft but I thought I'd share.



Yeah, we're makin' a cop show for YouTube on a shoe string budget.

Issues with the uniforms of course, the patches are pre-1998 design because I couldn't source repros the non 'Metropolitan'. They're done with velcrow and only a few stitches to tack the edges down, so they're easily swapped out with something better. Belts arn't leather, but I like nylon better and it was cheaper. Holsters are waaaaaaay off but Blackhawk Serpa Level 3's are a BIT out of budget at $130 each or so. Epaulette's are way wrong, that's not what they sounded like over the phone, wrong color, flag wrong size and will replace sooner than later.

Uniforms are off the shelf from Carleton Uniforms and the armor carriers are also off the shelf from Pacific Safety Products (Who gave us a 50% discount because we were film students and they rounded us up some returned units). ...We filled the carriers with cardboard instead of kevlar.

[T_A_N_K]

Assuming you are located in the GTA, there are probably a lot of people who would be willing to loan you gear for the video shoot, you just need to ask :P. Clones of real products "IE Black Hawk Serpa's" are a good budget option. Check out army surplus stores as well.

Also it would be a good idea to let local law enforcement know where and when you plan on shooting if the area is publically accessible.

I am not sure on the legaility of the TPS Patch, but without context someone can easily interpret you as impersonating a police officer (Summary Conviction btw) so another good reason to give local leo's a heads up.

Best of luck with the film, post it up when your done.

PS: One more thing, please don't make your duty belt look like below, your exterior belt should be secured to your interior belt, not like a gun slinger. You can rememdy this by using belt keeprs or a velcro interior/exterior belt. You can also try to make them secure them by friction, the outside one slightly tighter than the interior but this would be difficult for someone with a small waist.

[AshleyAshes]

Originally Posted by T_A_N_K

Assuming you are located in the GTA

Believe it or not, Ottawa. Though it's set in Toronto we're doing all our filming at Algonquin College in Ottawa. Though the school has been nice enough to let us use the police program's Impala, the paramedic program's Ambulance and the nursing program's 13 bed medical simulation ER. We'll use some crafty tricks to add the CN tower and a few things to Ottawa's own skyline to pass it off at T-Dot. That said, I'm moving on to advancing my film and TV education at Sheridan in Oakville, so I'll continue shooting this production as shorts and vignettes out of the GTA then.

Originally Posted by T_A_N_K

Also it would be a good idea to let local law enforcement know where and when you plan on shooting if the area is publically accessible.

We have a special constable from the Ottawa Police Service helping us out in an unoffical capacity for 'technical support' and he's the one bringing us the gas blowback sigs and M4s. We have that part covered.

Originally Posted by T_A_N_K

I am not sure on the legaility of the TPS Patch, but without context someone can easily interpret you as impersonating a police officer (Summary Conviction btw) so another good reason to give local leo's a heads up.

It's actually not the patch. Weather it generically said police or a specific department, it's just as much a problem or NOT a problem. When filming and people only looking like police for filming, there's no issue or violation of S.130 of the criminal code. Because when you see police and cameras and lights, no one thinks you're the cops. There's no concerns about 'personating a peace officer' so long as you execute common sense that'd be used on any film shoot. Obviously the talent will take the shirts and vests off when the go to lunch though. That said, there is one tiny legal issue that's civil rather than criminal. That emblem is a trademark of the TPS and The City of Toronto. We just figure they probably won't sue us for being so small scale. (And you just can't get generic Canadian police patches. American ones are easy, with stars and eagels and stuff, not Canadian though.)

[Cpt- Lovegrove]

Originally Posted by T_A_N_K

Assuming you are located in the GTA, there are probably a lot of people who would be willing to loan you gear for the video shoot, you just need to ask :P. Clones of real products "IE Black Hawk Serpa's" are a good budget option. Check out army surplus stores as well.

Also it would be a good idea to let local law enforcement know where and when you plan on shooting if the area is publically accessible.

I am not sure on the legaility of the TPS Patch, but without context someone can easily interpret you as impersonating a police officer (Summary Conviction btw) so another good reason to give local leo's a heads up.

Best of luck with the film, post it up when your done.

PS: One more thing, please don't make your duty belt look like below, your exterior belt should be secured to your interior belt, not like a gun slinger. You can rememdy this by using belt keeprs or a velcro interior/exterior belt. You can also try to make them secure them by friction, the outside one slightly tighter than the interior but this would be difficult for someone with a small waist.

proper police/ security pants hav dual belt loops, one small one for a standard sized belt and a larger set for your gun belt

and whats the eta on getting an episode up?

[AshleyAshes]

Originally Posted by Cpt- Lovegrove

and whats the eta on getting an episode up?

We start the biggest shoot tomorrow actually. I'll include a link to the script infact, scenes 4 and 5 which take up half the story will be shot tomorrow.

I'd put it at about 4 weeks for total completion, one of our cops is having dental surgery this upcoming reading week so we can't shoot with her for another 10 days or so. We can only do one more scene without her. We'll then wrap up the two scenes with her in the week after that. Then give it a week for post-production. So, 3-4 weeks. But I can post some production photos and screenshots after this weekend if anyone is interested.

There will be two different versions edited. We're actually graduating Television Broadcasting students at Algonquin, I'm leading this up as I've been drooling to do something like this because, well damnit, I'm learning film and television as a school that owns a police car! Anyway, this is a 'drama' assignment that makes up 25% of our mark, it'll also be in contention to be shown on CBC Ottawa over the summer where they showcase local indie stuff in a timeslot that ensures no one ever actually watches it. One of the specs for that is a hard limit of 12mins. So it could be edited a bit shorter for that. YouTube will get a slightly longer version and also start with a flashforward to the shoot out that takes place in the middle of the plot, then flash back to the start of the story. ...Cause it's YouTube and no one's gonna watch something 15mins long unless they see gunfire in the first 30 seconds.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hvlveocgja...Draft%202D.pdf

And for the record, Carleton Uniform's red stripe police pants do not come with duty belt loops, though the duty belts came with loops of their own. :P

[shinigami]

Sounds really good... Can't wait to see the show on YouTube :-)

[Cpt- Lovegrove]

just finished reading the script, i like it cant wait to see the vid,

[Hectic]

nice good to see its comming along, cant wait to see the final product

[Cifyra]

Carleton student here. Mind if I hang out and watch you guys film?

[Armyissue]

....shots fired at Queen Beatrix Hospital?

Would Toronto have a QBH or Ottawa?

Following German Occupation of the Netherlands, the Dutch royal family took refuge in Canada. Princess Margriet was born in exile while her family lived in Ottawa. The maternity ward of Ottawa Civic Hospital in which Princess Margriet was born was temporarily declared to be extraterritorial by the Canadian government, thereby allowing her citizenship to be solely influenced by her mother's Dutch citizenship. To commemorate the birth, the Canadian Parliament flew the Dutch flag over Peace Tower. This is the only time a foreign flag has flown over the Canadian Parliament Building....

In appreciation, the Dutch people sent tens of thousands of tulips (the Dutch national flower) to Ottawa. In the following year, the royal family contributed thousands as well, and a further ten thousand yearly since. The donations became an annual tradition, culminating in the Canadian Tulip Festival.

[AshleyAshes]

Originally Posted by Cifyra

Carleton student here. Mind if I hang out and watch you guys film?

Hang out and watch, no. You'd be a distraction. Be an extra while pretending to be either medical staff or a patient while dodging gun fire as you dive behind a hospital bed? YES.

If you're interested and available for a shoot from 5pm-9pm tomorrow, send me a private message or email me at hakker.ashley@synmediaproductions.com

There will be pizza and pop free to talent between shooting scenes 4 and 5, though you will be -required- to sign a waiver letting us use your apperance without payment, even though I'll be putting this up on YouTube and monitizing it. (It'd need 10 000-20 000 views on YT to even break even on costumes, props and other costs, and even that's not terribly likely)

Originally Posted by Armyissue

....shots fired at Queen Beatrix Hospital?

Would Toronto have a QBH or Ottawa?

The fake hospital was originally named when this idea was set in Ottawa. I kept the name because it was 'Canadian Sounding' but still fictional (Much like 'Hudson University' in Law & Order) though good catch picking up the reference to that particular Queen.


Since this is getting more response than I expected, I guess I'll show off something I did previously, a cinematically style commercial for Algonquin College's Pre-Service Fire Fighting program. No airsoft but I did get to strap a DSLR to the side of a fire truck.

Algonquin Pre-Service Firefighting Commercial (Extended Version) - YouTube

[Pirate]

Excited to see how this turns out. If you do end up filming in the GTA I'm sure you can get a few of us out there as extras.

[mrfister]

sorry but you will need a hotter pw if you want people to watch

[Shirley]

It doesn't matter which jurisdiction you're wearing it in.
The problem with wearing these patches is that whatever you do, the public will notice it.
Whatever you do while wearing the patches will reflect on the TPS.
Have you contacted TPS about using the patch?

Edit: So what is the purpose of the movie, what is this film supposed to be about?

[AshleyAshes]

Originally Posted by mrfister

sorry but you will need a hotter pw if you want people to watch

Sorry, I'm trying to tell stories about Canadian first responders, not create sex symbols for men to wank to. :P