I'm David Hoffman, filmmaker, and you're about to see a film, a short film, a commercial that I made in Iran in 1975.

I got to tell you a little bit about this because it gives you a sense of how hard documentaries were and sometimes still are to make.

It's quite a story.

So 1975 the oil crisis.

The Arab shut off oil to the Western countries because of a battle with Israel, and they thought they were really going to screw us.

But the old company said, We're gonna find the oil and hard out of the way places.

So I get this wonderful job working for Mobil Oil.

I'm going to Iran.

They're sending me to a place where on the Iran Iraq border outside the town of Kerman, Shaw a 10,000 feet in the sand mountains visually for oil.

And they want to show Americans how hard it is to find oil to justify kind of the price, which is rising because they're Arabs aren't giving us any oil anymore.

So what happens to be?

First of all, I get trained by Mobil Oil, one of the ethics of Muslim countries.

How do you shake hands?

How do you not cross your legs?

All kinds of other things Before I got there and they also gave me all kinds of shuts and they set me on my way.

So we get to JFK and we're gonna take off.

And we're going to Iran.

Stopping in Paris, by the way, in a beautiful hotel to rest up before the difficult journey.

And we get to Tehran airport and his tanks all around the airport.

1975.

The revolution has come.

Get off the plane.

Tanks, soldiers everywhere.

No equipment.

Wait a minute.

We have 40 cases, guys.

Where is it?

Pan am.

Go to your hotel and we'll find it for you tomorrow we go to a hotel, we come back.

No equipment.

How can you make a movie without equipment?

We got all our film.

16 millimeter.

We're stuck.

We're there for about five days waiting for the equipment.

No word.

And I say I'm going up to the rig.

You guys in my crew and my producer stay in town until we get our equipment.

Get in a taxi with another guy, Dr.

13 hours, 13 hours up to the rig.

Hit a couple of chickens along the way.

Almost had some cows.

It's an incredible ride and I get there and it's dusk.

I get into the hotel.

It's a little teeny hotel.

The toilet is a hose with a hole.

The windows have no screens.

You can see out in the river and women are washing their clothes.

You're hearing the call to prayer, and it's just another world.

I decide to go to the Shook like it like a like a market center.

And it's evening and the guy that I'm with is a tall, white haired white guy, and I look kind of Iranian.

So nobody's hassling me but him.

These kids are coming up in yelling words.

We don't know what it means.

So I asked somebody, What does that word mean?

And they said non believer.

I went to get him and yelling at him, kind of hostile, kinda tense.

All around us are Kurds.

Now.

The Kurds are these people who are not Iranian and they're traveling between Iran and Iraq.

Beautiful clothing, beautiful people.

Just a whole another world Got no equipment.

Next morning, get up.

Go to the rig a 10,000 feet open the door guy sponsoring and says, Hey, David Hoffman, we would wait for you, your filmmaker, right?

Come only in absolute coffee and doughnuts right in the middle of these sand mountains.

So here's what happened with our equipment.

If you're interested in production or any kind of story about it, this is really amazing.

My producer, who's an incredibly good get things done, kind of a guy.

Great producer is sitting in a coffee shop and he sees a guy pass for the 16 millimeter camera.

Runs outside, says to this guy, Would you get that camera?

We need a camera Guy turns out to be czar form Czar Farm was the cameraman for the shore for the shore.

The show was like being the King plus and czar, Form says.

Well, we got lots of this equipment.

Make a deal with me and use me as a cameraman.

I'll get you everything you need.

So my partner goes to this building, and inside the building are hundreds of 16 millimeter cameras, complete audio rigs, all kinds of film, everything you could want, grabs it off the shelf czar forms on the road and they're up to drive this 13 hours long.

The ways are from gets to know my producer and he tells him things like, Don't ever discuss the shore.

Don't have image in his name.

You get get killed for that.

Don't comment on his pictures, which are all over the place.

He personally hated the shore.

The show was beyond a tyrant as far as he was concerned.

But I'll tell you what happened at the end of this film.

What happened to me?

What happened in Iran right after this film was made?

There are way we're on top of a mountain about race drilling rig.

We do it here a few months, we take the whole thing apart, move it, put it all back together again.

It's really hard that one up with a lot of work involved a lot of people.

You just gotta take it to come.

Derrida office, over into this, they're gonna need a little more outdoor.

I'm getting it here.

A desk job to go to work in the morning and get home tonight.

This job Go to work this morning.

Never know when you're going home.

The average level of the terrain here is around about 5000 with mountains rising up to 10 or 11,000 feet on the Rick site.

Very Nagy say off the top.

Most of these mountains here are practically straight up and down on this is old, real, romping country.

Most of the roads are non existent on roads to the Rick sites.

All have to be made.

Get there quick enough that we've been really fortunate.

So far, we haven't lost anything.

But we came off close several times for this race.

We've got the helicopter here because it's so difficult to get people in and out in a hurry.

I hate to say what the cost of it.

ISS It gets up in the millions of dollars.

Just one well sign.

They've already looked in all the easy places, not finding places like this, our geologist, because here but seven holes I haven't found a thing.

Little bit of gas.

It's really difficult to drill a well in this country.

That's quite a job.

So we shoot this film up in these sand mountains you just saw is pretty exciting.

And now we read A sign at the airport is we're leaving the airport do not leave with any film that has not been exposed.

Because if you do, you could be arrested.

And we knew being in a jail in Iran in prison wasn't good thing.

We've seen several documentaries off other people who have been caught for mostly drugs in Iran and men.

That was really terrifying.

So everybody in my crew doesn't want to take the film except me.

And I got about 75 rolls of film.

I stuff him in my bag.

I stuffed it in my box.

I put him in my jacket.

I got all this film.

I'm carrying the film.

Nothing.

I'm a courageous guy, but what choice do I have?

So the bus takes us.

There's as machine guns all around near to the plane.

You get off the bus, I step hard on the ground and the bag opens up on all the film rolls out.

It's still in its cans around me, so we'll just turn around.

What a moment.

I look at the soldiers on my act.

Kind of like a crazy Cairo.

Just man dropped it.

Sorry, uh, picking up to film and they kind of go, huh?

And I get on the plane.

If the look had not been with me, I would have gotten caught.

And that would have been the end of David.

Often, what happens?

As a result, I make about 10 of these little stories.

I absolutely love everyone.

Alaska, uh, Sumatra, these incredible places.

What a job.

And they run on TV as like on a long form commercials, documentaries, and they get reviewed by The New York Times.

They get Sena's films, and that was my goal.

That was the goal of the folks who hired me Incredibly successful.

If you'd like to see more of these oil films, search the word oil on my YouTube channel and you'll find other films I made in other really strange places at that time.

Hope it gives you a sense of production at that time.

It's certainly different now, right with handheld go pros and other stuff like that.

But I loved it.

One of the great moments of my life.

Thank you for watching this story.

I hope you enjoyed it.

If you want to subscribe, I look forward to having you as a subscriber.

If you want to support me, that's Patri on www dot patri on forward slash All in a day which is still have I'm living my life all in the day Thank you.

Take care.