I was the controller in this incident, and I can tell you that in addition to working the helicopter sector, I was also working Local Control for the 'North Complex'---RYs 24L/R. Normally, when traffic reaches a moderate or greater level, a separate controller will be assigned to work helos to lessen the workload of the local controller. That wasn't the case here. I was working the 2 sectors combined. The audio here doesn't give you anything close to an accurate picture as to what was going on. The only audio you here is a very short clip from my end, without the pilot dialog. At the point of this incident, I'd been working heavy volume traffic for probably in excess of 45 mins with a nonstop flow of traffic on 2 freqs. What you don't hear is that after advising the pilot that he needs to contact the Traffic Mgmt Unit prior to conducting a photoshoot, he responded by virtually screaming at me that he'd flying through our airspace for 25 yrs, and had never heard of such a policy. My response to him was rooted in the fact that I'd been humpin' my ass off for close to an hour, and I wasn't in the mood to get any attitude from a pilot. You couple that with the fact that I've been a controller at LAX for 21 yrs (only 2 others have been here longer), and a controller for 30 yrs, and what you get is a situation where the controller isn't intimidated by the claims of a pilot's seniority.
All that being said, look, that's something that pilots and controllers deal with every day. Things get tense, tempers get frayed, but you laugh about it later when the stress level drops, and tell anybody who asks that it's still a great way to make a living. If I ever met the pilot I was working with, rather than having an axe to grind, I'd be more likely to buy him a drink and exchange a few war stories. That's the reality.