[thebradbain]

It’s clear that the OP is curious, which was ultimately harmless in this case.

But as someone who lives in Los Angeles and sees this all the time — and has many friends who work on sets — you absolutely should not do this. Sets almost always “look like they’re open.” That doesn’t mean they are, it’s because there’s a-million-and-one things being done on the set by _skilled_ people who are being paid near minimum wage, working late, getting yelled at, and skipping meals and still can’t get everything that needs to be done done (Hollywood is lucrative once you get above the ground floor, but those early levels are brutal in every part of the industry).

How would you feel if someone just came and sat next to you working on a PR in a coffee shop and kept asking questions about everything you were doing? Now imagine you were as exhausted as the people on set, and there were dozens of people asking you the same question. Because this happens all the time here in Los Angeles.

Again, totally agree what they do is interesting! But they’re not doing it for you, and they’re in the middle of working.

Do you walk into the middle of a construction site when a crew is working because you’re interested in that process, too?

[djur]

Bystanders standing around watching and commenting on construction work is so common that there's a name for a specific type of guy who does that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umarell

Construction sites are often on private property and in any case have clearly marked boundaries, though. I don't think it's unreasonable for people doing work in a public space to expect and handle a certain amount of polite curiosity from the public.

[thebradbain]

Yeah, my analogy could have been more clear, I think Umarells are a fun cultural phenomenon.

I meant that even in a public space for construction, however, spectators usually aren't allowed to wander into the middle of active construction, bumping shoulders with the workers. Staying off to the side is fine – as is also normal when watching a set in action! It's just the folks that get in the middle of a site who have no business being there (or worse, try to pretend to be an authorized background extra and ruin a shot because they have no idea where they're supposed to stand) that disrupt things.