I recently went out to Dubai to visit a friend who runs dubizzle.com (basically the craigslist of the United Arab Emirates and a good resource for filmmakers if they are traveling in the region). We also made some good future connections out there for production work. Dubai is booming in every possible way and the filmmaking world is no exception. There’s a ton of money being thrown around out there which accounts for the surreal growth of the city. Comparisons to Vegas do it absolutely no justice. It dwarfs Vegas in size, money and sheer ridiculous extravagance.
We shot a piece on the World Islands ( a reconstruction of our planet using man made islands off of the persian gulf), a piece on an up and coming fashion designer in the Muslim world and a quick piece on street fashion in Dubai. All three of these pieces required us to do a lot of Broll gathering. General cityscape shots, shots of locals, signage, etc…and the experience was quite different than anywhere I’d shot before. If you’re shooting in Dubai, you realize that Dubai, like a number of middle eastern countries, is a dictatorship, and although capitalistic, it is very privatized as such. Consequently, public space, one of the things we as filmmakers take for granted, is essentially non-existent. I depend on public space to shoot stand ups, do outdoor interviews, and to visually cover a city and not having it was a unique challenge. Essentially, in most of Dubai, there are very few sidewalks and really most of the places you set foot in are privately owned developments the size of a small US city.
What does all this mean for covering Dubai??? You have to be discreet. I shot a lot of footage from the rooftops of friends buildings. I shot a ton from cars which includes some of the best shots of women in full islamic dress I got during the trip. With a DVX pointed out of stopped car window, you make considerably less noise than say, planting yourself on a tripod outside of a hotel and attempting to shoot women whose entire fashion is devoted to not being seen in public. yikes.
We also just bit the bullet and tried to shoot on the developments. We got kicked out of a number of them. Essentially you need a unique press pass for every development in the city. That kind of diplomatic haggling was not in the cards. So discreet and sneaky, like a DVX100 filmmaking ninja, I managed to get good coverage that I was pleased with. But, it was not easy. And I am glad to be back in Barcelona and the West, where public space is now a new personal favorite in the democratic privileges category.
A guest post from Urgensia affiliate, Josh Soskin, of HouseBlend Media.
Shooting in Dubai from guest blogger: Josh Soskin
Dubizzling in Dubai.
I recently went out to Dubai to visit a friend who runs dubizzle.com (basically the craigslist of the United Arab Emirates and a good resource for filmmakers if they are traveling in the region). We also made some good future connections out there for production work. Dubai is booming in every possible way and the filmmaking world is no exception. There’s a ton of money being thrown around out there which accounts for the surreal growth of the city. Comparisons to Vegas do it absolutely no justice. It dwarfs Vegas in size, money and sheer ridiculous extravagance.
We shot a piece on the World Islands ( a reconstruction of our planet using man made islands off of the persian gulf), a piece on an up and coming fashion designer in the Muslim world and a quick piece on street fashion in Dubai. All three of these pieces required us to do a lot of Broll gathering. General cityscape shots, shots of locals, signage, etc…and the experience was quite different than anywhere I’d shot before. If you’re shooting in Dubai, you realize that Dubai, like a number of middle eastern countries, is a dictatorship, and although capitalistic, it is very privatized as such. Consequently, public space, one of the things we as filmmakers take for granted, is essentially non-existent. I depend on public space to shoot stand ups, do outdoor interviews, and to visually cover a city and not having it was a unique challenge. Essentially, in most of Dubai, there are very few sidewalks and really most of the places you set foot in are privately owned developments the size of a small US city.
What does all this mean for covering Dubai??? You have to be discreet. I shot a lot of footage from the rooftops of friends buildings. I shot a ton from cars which includes some of the best shots of women in full islamic dress I got during the trip. With a DVX pointed out of stopped car window, you make considerably less noise than say, planting yourself on a tripod outside of a hotel and attempting to shoot women whose entire fashion is devoted to not being seen in public. yikes.
We also just bit the bullet and tried to shoot on the developments. We got kicked out of a number of them. Essentially you need a unique press pass for every development in the city. That kind of diplomatic haggling was not in the cards. So discreet and sneaky, like a DVX100 filmmaking ninja, I managed to get good coverage that I was pleased with. But, it was not easy. And I am glad to be back in Barcelona and the West, where public space is now a new personal favorite in the democratic privileges category.
A guest post from Urgensia affiliate, Josh Soskin, of HouseBlend Media.