Mena Bezar Vlog - 1

Today il be talking to you guys about my experience in going to bur Dubai with my class, where beforehand we were told we would take a series of pictures and videos and would have to compile the video to make a short two minute documentary.

So first off I arrived and we all gathered in this parking lot waiting for the rest to show up before starting our little adventure. I had never been to old Dubai before and it actually felt normal for me, I’ve been to many places before outside of the UAE with a similar feel. It almost felt like I was outside of the UAE. Walking around the streets it was such a different feel than what we were all used to, seeing people who were struggling to make a living and true hard workers looking to improve their situation really touched my heart.

We were then split into groups or either twos or threes, I went into a group of three with Shad and Danny. We were assigned to each take three photographs of anything and anywhere around us, as long as there was a connection or story between them. I decided to stop by a store that mainly sold these wooden baskets, and asked the store owner for permission to take photos of him setting him the store, he agreed and a snapped some wonderful photos of him. My group and I then stumbled upon a museum that was opening at 7 am, and we had to meet back at 7:15 am so we decided to wait and see if we could get a few photos in there. The security guard working there had told us that when they open, we would be allowed to shoot there, however when 7 am came he no longer would allow us and we unfortunately missed out on that opportunity.

When we met back, we then were treated by our lecturer Resh for some breakfast, where we all conversed and ate before having to be then split up into our documentary groups to shoot a video of anything of our choice.

We each split up once again and me and my group initially had decided to make our mini documentary on the breakfast store we ate at, and while they did allow us to film, they were not very engaging and did not want to converse with us so we moved onto another store which sold a variety of things from necklaces to antiques to swords, and stones. It was called Ibrahim Nasser and run but this Indian man who spoke a little English and gave us the content we needed to practice with. We each took turns with the camera and learned some lessons on shots and permissions throughout the day that will help us for our final project of the trimester.

After shooting we had learned that one of the other groups had gotten into trouble and taken to the police station there where they were being interrogated and eventually let go by the help of our lecturers. Which was a lesson to us all in how risky filming certain things can be and was really a wake up call to be very careful when choosing where to film and getting the right concrete permissions.

Overall it was quite the fun day full of stories and lessons learned and thats all you can ask for really on a day like that. I look forward to implementing what myself and my group have learned throughout it all in making our final documentary.