ISRAEL CAMERAMAN
Dror Lebendiger is an award-winning Israel cameraman. He graduated from AFI (The American Film Institute Conservatory) in Los Angeles in 2002 (MFA). He has collaborated with many acclaimed filmmakers including David Attenborough, Emmy Award winner James Jacoby "Amazon Empire", Emmy Award winner Alex Weresow, multi awards winner director David Ofek any many more.
ISRAEL LOCATIONS
Israel is an attractive filming location for international video productions. It offers diverse and beautiful sites relatively in close proximity to one another. Also, Israel generally has a pleasant weather making it suitable for filming almost all year round.
As a relatively small country, you can cover Israel from south to north in 6 hours by car, and from east to west in 2 hours. The two main urban centers, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, are about an hour’s drive from one another and therefore are good bases for filming in most of the country.
Israel offers incredibly diverse locations - beautiful coast, middle eastern atmospheres, urban modern architecture and high rise, ancient biblical old cities, and fascinating desert.
Israel, the startup nation, is home to major companies in the high-tech industry. Industrial locations include high-tech manufacturing of aerospace, pharmaceuticals, and polished diamonds. Energy locations include gas-fired power plants and solar power farms.
Israel also offers a wide range of agricultural film locations including plantations of wheat, corn, flowers, citrus, avocados, grapes, tomatoes, mangos, bananas, and cotton. Cattle and sheep are farmed. Israel is home to two unique types of agricultural communities, the moshav and the kibbutz. Moshav village plantations make for interesting aerial photography.
Also important to note is that Israel is often used as a stand-in for other Middle Eastern locations where filming might not be possible.
ISRAEL WEATHER
Israel, facing the Mediterranean to the west and the Red Sea to the south, has a Mediterranean climate on the west coast, temperate in the hills of the interior, and desert in the flat areas of the east and the south. The climate in Israel is characterized by hot and dry summers and cool and wet winters.
PERMITS
Israel is quite welcoming for foreign film crews, and a general film permit is not required.
Municipal film permits are required only when filming narrative films in public spaces in the big cities (Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa), when filming in national parks, historical sites, religious sites etc. Each permit takes about 10 days to be issued from date of application. The costs of these permits vary.
Privately owned locations carry a location fee which is best negotiated by a local film fixer.
For areas near a military base, getting approval for film permits may be a challenge. However, it is still possible with the support of an Israeli fixer. The process can take up to two weeks, regardless of location.
FILM EQUIPMENT
All gear is available for rent, so there is no need to bring it from abroad when filming in Israel.
ISRAEL CURRENCY
The Israeli currency is the new Israeli shekel (NIS), also known as simply the Israeli shekel (ILS). The shekel is divided into 100 agurot (agura in singular). Israeli bank notes come in four denominations: 20, 50, 100 and 200 ILS. Coins come in six denominations: 10, 5, 2 and 1 ILS; 50 agurot and 10 agurot.