Desert Days - Part 1

Giving up 2 weekends to shoot a film with friends is nothing new in my life. But giving up a 2 weekends to shoot a film with friends IN THE DESERT is.

FADE IN.

We woke up before 7 and prepared ourselves for a long day. Just how long, we didn't know.
When we arrived at Dale, Mike, and Rob's, we were surprised to find the cameraman and (only) actor alive after quite a night they had on Friday. *Sparing details to maintain their pride hahah
It took awhile for us to get moving but eventually it happened.
We had 5 locations in the deserts on the west side of the country to cover.
First up, the jebels.
We hiked up to the top,
suffered through Rob's nudist moment,
and got some pretty wicked shots before moving on to the next location.
We headed toward the sea and got everything there.
We were moving rather quickly at first and everyone was in great spirits.
Next up, a film set that was built in the middle of nowhere.
Took a little while to figure out where it was on the map but eventually we found it... along with another film crew who were already shooting there!!!
We sneaked around the back and got as many shots as we could before be chased out by a Sudanese guy who enjoyed naming all the presidents/leaders of the various countries we were from.
At this point, the sun was high in the sky and we were all getting a bit antsy, hungry, and a tad irritable..... but still, we forged on.
We came across some giant desert lizards ("Dhubs") along the way.
Then, we got some more shots before wrapping up and heading out. At this point we were all pretty much ready to be done. The dust flew up behind us as we rolled outta there.
Rob was immobilized for about an hour before expressing his extreme excitement to be heading home.
BUT.... we weren't actually heading home it turns out.
We had one more shot to get at another location where there were palm trees on the beach. (One of the only places in Doha where there actually are palm trees on the beach)
We had seen photos of this place on the internet and it matched perfectly to Mike's vision of a "deserted island"....
Those photos were quite misleading really.
The entire place wreaked of shit and was littered with trash. Flies were landing all over us as we tried to find an angle where there wasn't trash on the ground, human feces nearby, or giant oil tankers floating on the horizon.
Eventually we got the shots we needed and we were out of there.
We drove home with sleepy eyes and semi-burnt skin (somehow, this didn't include mine... I actually ended up getting what sort of resembles a tan.... at least for me hahah).
After a quick stop for shwarma, we were all at our respective homes relaxing and recooping from a long, hard day in the desert.

FADE OUT.