Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Traveling through Iran as a film crew presented us with some unique hurdles. On the
first day, we dropped by the foreign press office to get our press badges. A beautiful and
properly covered woman took mug shots for our badges and carefully confirmed the pro-
nunciation of our names in order to transliterate them into Farsi.
The travel agency—overseen by the “Ministry of Islamic Guidance”—assigned us
what they called a “guide,” but what I'd call a “government minder.” Our guide/minder,
Seyed, was required to follow our big camera wherever it went—even if that meant climb-
ing on the back of a motorcycle taxi to follow our cameraman as he filmed a “point-of-
view” shot through wild traffic. When he wasn't holding on for dear life, Seyed slipped a
tiny camera out of his pocket and documented our shoot by filming us as we filmed Iran.
