When last we met…
The idea of engaging in the services of a fixer immediately conjures up images of dark alleys, shady men in overcoats and whispers of “Psst, hey buddy.” Or at least, what for me is the definitive shady character of my youth:
It all seams a little on the seamy side. I mean, what, after all, is so tricky for a filmmaker that it requires a professional to grease wheels, palms and anything else that is on first inspection, more than a little squeaky?
Turns out, there are so many little things that require the services of a local whose sole job is to make life go smoothly that I seriously doubt I will ever work internationally again without budgeting for a local staffer assigned to make life go easier. This is a filming essential of the first order.
Let me tell you about the Tel Aviv airport.
My photographer, a BBC veteran who has seen more than his share of war zones. (And really, isn’t the number of war zones that qualifies as “more than his share” equal to or less than “one?”), strongly suggested I hire a fixer to navigate getting out of Israel with my multiple export documents, gear and person. After days of resisting this advice, I relented, with about four hours to go before my flight left. You can read part one of the story here.
Now, let me just say this, if you’re a regular tourist visiting Israel, this would be serious overkill. While Israel’s David Ben Gurion airport is, to put it mildly, a difficult airport to navigate, not to mention very hypersensitive when it comes to security, if you budget a minimum of three hours, you can get to the gate with minimal fuss, minimal muss.
But if you’re a filmmaker, let alone a filmmaker with all of your gear, let alone a visually impaired filmmaker with all of your gear, you’re going to want a fixer. It’s not the visual impairment, per se. It’s the fact that a visually impaired filmmaker does not, let us say, compute. There are going to be questions. Questions from people who carry ammunition.
This was explained to me in no uncertain terms, and it’s why I buckled. I paid the $300 USD, and I have a strong suspicion this is far below the going rate, but my photog has connections and of the things I always imagined myself getting a great deal on while shopping overseas, a fixer was not one of them. Who knew?
In any case, I left Jerusalem via the shared taxi service (which I encourage you to use for getting to and from the airport, about which more anon) with, and I’m not kidding, the first name, and only the first name of my fixer, who, I was told, would meet me at the dropoff point for the shared ride service I was using. Not my proudest moment wearing my production coordinator hat, I admit.
Still, I could tell right away, upon reaching the airport, that I had made a wise decision in arranging for a fixer. Or rather, at the perimeter of the airport. This was the first level of what would turn out to be many, many levels of security. The IDF really does not want you near the airport unless you have a darn good reason to be there. And being anything but a traveler with a ticket is not a good reason. All I know is that the weapon being held by the soldier questioning the driver about his passenger load seemed very large, and very serious about his role in the overall security machine.
It was about this point when it occurred to me that maybe I should have more information on hand than just the first name of my fixer. I had a little movie playing in my head, and the basic plot of the movie was this: Fade up to the image of a dark haired, somewhat confused and stressed out guy with four large pieces of baggage, one of which is a tripod in a tall cylindrical case that looks, frankly, like it could stand in as a double for a gun case. Cut to airport or IDF personnel asking said guy why he was just standing around outside the departures terminal without going inside. Reverse angle to guy saying “Oh, I’m just waiting for a guy to meet me here,” and in response to the obvious question about who the guy I’m meeting is, the only answer is “Oh, well, I don’t know his last name, but he’s a fixer and he’s helping me get through security.” Smash cut to picture of filmmaker in a holding cell and fade to black.
So a frantic text to my photographer to get the last name of my fixer.
Well, there wasn’t a “psst, hey buddy,” but after about five minutes, a guy did sidle up to me. He wasn’t wearing an overcoat, but it may have been the last Member Only jacket still in use on the planet.He introduced himself as my photographer’s contact. Some small, very small pleasantries, and we loaded my gear onto a trolley and headed into the terminal.
This is where it gets good.
“So you need to get your carnet stamped, right?” He said. My carnet is the critical document filmmakers carry when traveling internationally. It’s a manifest of all of my gear, and It proves I left the United States with this equipment, am coming back to the United States with it, and that I didn’t buy any of it while I was here, thus avoiding potentially thousands of dollars in import and export fees. Honestly, I would rather lose my passport than my carnet. It’s far more valuable.
“So,” my fixer said, “You give me the carnet, and I’ll take your gear and get it processed.”
Now the movie playing in my head was the one where i try to explain to my insurance broker how i willingly gave my gear and my carnet to a stranger in an airport because he said he was a fixer. The soundtrack to this movie, by the way, is the peals of laughter from the insurance broker when I ask if I can please have my reimbursement check now.
Of the list of things that are not on my “hey wouldn’t this be a hoot?” List, handing over my entire load of gear along with my carnet, to someone whose last name I didn’t even know ten minutes prior, is not on that list. What I was doing though, was not so much a vote of confidence in my fixer as in my photographer. My thinking was that it would still be pretty unusual for this man to have guessed the identity of the man I was meeting, pretended to be my fixer, and then to have made off with my gear. But it was still a leap of faith.
He left with the trolley, and my carnet. I found myself hanging out inside the departures terminal, assuming he would come back, but, well, you know…
At this point, you may be wondering something along the lines of “Hyde, don’t airport people always ask you at check in if anyone else packed your bags, and if your bags have been in your possession the whole time?” And you may have a follow up question, something along the lines of “And isn’t this airport supposed to be one of the most security obsessed airports in the world?”
Well, the answer to all of these questions is a big fat yes.
So my fixer comes back, and I let out my first full breath of the evening.
“OK,” he said, “Now we go to check in.” And as we headed to the counter, he said, “and when they ask you if your bags have been in your possession at all times, the answer is ‘yes.’
I mean, how do you not flash back to that image of the guy in the holding cell at this point?
But the fact of the matter is that this is why you hire a fixer. My fixer knows pretty much every person in the airport by name, and they know him. This is worth every dollar you can pay for him. It’s why when the ticket agent asks you if you are carrying batteries, and you know that if they saw how many batteries you have (literally in the dozens), you get to show just the big ones, get them scanned, and don’t have to pull your bags apart for every AA And 9 volt you have. It’s why you make it through customs, check in, passport control, the baggage scan and the facial recognition scan in less than an hour (which would never have happened on my own as a traveling filmmaker). It’s why when you get asked “You’re visually impaired and you’re a filmmaker? How exactly is that possible?” There’s someone by your side who can vouch for you.
I really think it’s why, compared to my flight into the country, where my main piece of baggage didn’t get to Israel until the day after I did, both me and my gear got back to U.S. as a couple.
I have at least three more international locales to visit for The Palette Project, and I’m absolutely convinced that if I want to get it done without breaking the movie into tiny little pieces of stress and misery, I’ll be using a fixer in each and every country.
Onwards!
What’s the most difficult travel situation you’ve ever navigated solo? Post your comments below.
