Bill of Arabia

I worked late last year in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) creating a customer use case for client Cisco. It’s probably one of the most challenging and interesting location shoots I’ve ever done and I wanted, in the next few postings, to share a few thoughts it.

As you might imagine, obtaining the correct documentation (passport visa, ATA Carnet) was one of the most complex and time-consuming things I’ve ever done. For my visa, I worked directly with the KSA Embassy in Southern California but, in retrospect, wished I’d worked instead with a broker as the process consumed many hours of effort and follow-up (if you choose to use a broker, I recommend G3 – ask for Mauricio!).

Also, I ended up using a local video crew instead of importing my own gear; the problem was that KSA is not a signatory to international ATA Carnet conventions so I wasn’t certain how the process of importing my own gear into KSA would work out. But in the end, had a great experience with the local crew – at a higher overall project cost but with a huge reduction in complexity.

ACTION ITEM: If you’re planning travel anywhere in the Middle East, plan as far ahead as possible – and it cannot be too far ahead. My visa is good for the next 5 years

Greg Smith on working onsite with Bill Rolland

Greg Smith, Director at Cisco, describes why he uses Bill Rolland to shoot and edit onsite, especially at events where social media plays an important role.

ACTION ITEM: If you have an event that can benefit from posting videos in near real-time (and, honestly, which wouldn’t?), talk to Bill.