Filming in a country that doesn’t want you there
It was a week before I was set to depart on a trip to a sensitive location. Sensitive for a couple reasons — This country doesn’t allow journalists or filmmakers to enter and so I went under the guise of a tourist. Additionally, it’s an Islamic country, so filming any content that would suggest otherwise is incredibly dangerous. I had finalized my equipment and decided to pack as light as I could while maintaining the must-haves. I brought a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6k, Leica R 35mm, Rode Filmmaker Audio Kit, a GoPro Black 7, bunch of batteries, ND filters and I was ready to go.
30+ hours of travel and 2 nights later I landed at my destination. I walked up to the customs desk and handed them my tourist visa. They asked me a few questions and then asked me the question, “What is your profession?” I knew this question was coming but it still caught me off guard. I said I took photos for different Universities across America (this is true and I thought I’d be fine with this answer). They then started accusing me of being a journalist and a photographer. After insisting for several minutes that I was there to visit some locations to take photos as a tourist (which was also true) they sent me to a room and told me to wait until the boss came. 4 hours later the boss showed up, he said they’d let me in the country but wouldn’t let me have my equipment. They took the equipment and put it in a locker and said I’d get it back on my way out. I took pictures with my phone camera the entire time they were doing this so I had proof later when I came to pick it up.
Photo I snapped of the guy taking my gear
They stamped my passport and let me into the country, minus my equipment I had spent time preparing specifically for this trip. My contact was waiting there and picked me up. We planned ahead of time for equipment to already be in the country in case this were to happen so my contact had a Canon 5d mk4 along with a wide range of Canon L Series lenses and the same Rode audio equipment I had. Right away I adjusted the 5d picture profile to have the look I was going for (as much as I could anyway, this 5d didn’t have the C-LOG update) and made sure we were in the high quality codec.
5d mk4 settings (contrast -4 and saturation -2)
My wife wisely told me before I left to be mentally ready to make the shift and to be okay to use other equipment if something were to happen to mine. Having those words in my mind, I made the shift to this new camera setup and we were ready to go.
The first two days we did interviews in a safe house that we knew was secure and that we’d have no issues with. We also filmed in a couple restaurants with no issue. On the third day we made a trip about 4 hours away to a tiny little village.
The scenery around this village we stayed in
Our accommodations for the next two nights
My room
Our first day out in this tiny village we decided to walk through the market area to record some footage. The very first shot was a lady making bread on the street and as I started doing a little camera movement from left to right a police man pulled up behind us. He was not happy. I didn’t understand anything being said but our local fixer was speaking to him as I was discretely trying to hold the camera at my side in a way where he wouldn’t look at it. He said we were not allowed to film, he asked what I was doing there, he asked where we were staying and said he was going to come to our hotel.
My heart sank.
Right away we started walking back to our hotel discussing among ourselves what to do. Do we pack up and leave the village? Do we play it cool and use the tourist card (it’s what my visa says after all)? I had piles of footage of content that was sure to get us in trouble so what if he asked to look at our SD cards or hard drives?
It was mission critical to stay, after all that’s the whole point why I made the trip out. We emptied the SD cards onto our drives, made a double backup, cleared everything sensitive on the SD cards other than “tourist” looking videos and photos. Then we did the same on the drives but instead of deleting the sensitive content, we hid it using a little command on the terminal of Mac OS.
chflags hidden DRAG_YOUR_FOLDER_HEREand when you want to unhide your folder
chflags nohidden DRAG_YOUR_FOLDER_HERENow we were ready for the police. Every passing police vehicle from that moment on I expected to stop and start a search of everything we had but miraculously, that never happened. We were not bothered by the police the remaining two days but we were extra cautious with every moment filmed after that incident.
We finished filming in the village and headed back to the city
A few days later it was time for me to leave and we had successfully filmed everything we needed. I went to the airport extra early to make sure I got my equipment back. After showing the pictures I took of them confiscating it to a handful of different officers, I was relieved when they handed it back and I started my journey home.
TLDR: I learned a handful of security lessons on this trip when filming in a country that doesn’t particularly want you there. Some of which I was prepared for but some of which caught me by surprise.
Have a plan B for if your equipment is taken by customs. Ideally you’ll have some contacts in the country and can plan to have some decent equipment to shoot on as a backup. If this isn’t an option, plan to have a decent phone that can shoot different frame rates and resolutions.
If your camera equipment is taken, try to snap at least one photo with your phone so you have a reference to show to officers upon leaving the country to reclaim your gear. I don’t know how I would have gotten my equipment without the photo because their English wasn’t good.
Be mentally prepared to shift gears if your camera equipment is taken. This can throw you off but in situations like this it’s important to be prepared for all outcomes.
Always be backing up your footage, clearing your SD cards (except for the “tourist” footage if you’re on a tourist visa) and use the terminal command chflags hidden to hide your folder with the sensitive material.
Be wise with where you film. Have people watching your back and know your surroundings.
Happy filming.