DOP Ahmad Al Morsy Reveals BTS of a New Commercial Featuring Henedi and Ramadan

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Following his Latest Commercial with Sherine Abdel Wahab and Ahmed El Sakka

DOP Ahmad Al Morsy Reveals BTS of a New Commercial Featuring Henedi and Ramadan



DOP Ahmad Al Morsy revealed behind-the-scenes footage of his latest commercials featuring Egyptian stars Mohamed Henedi and Mohamed Ramadan. Directed by Ahmed El Naggar, Henedi's commercial was filmed in the UAE for Etisalat, while Ramadan's commercial was part of a campaign against drug addiction and was directed by Marwan Hamed, who lately collaborated with Al Morsy on two commercials featuring Sherine Abdel Wahab and Ahmed El Sakka for Vodafone.

"The Director of Photography is the actor's first mirror. He is the closest person the actor during filming, so the DOP should closely collaborate with him and set up the filming conditions to help him perform his part. In commercials, an actor's screen time is very short, so our concentration needs to be doubled to execute it accurately, especially when the actor is a film star," says
Al Morsy describing work in general.

While describing Henedi's commercial, Al Morsy said that he met the comedian on the plane on their way back from Dubai a week before they began working. Neither one of them knew that they would meet again in Dubai to film Henedi's first commercial. Henedi had previously only taken part in commercials using his voiceover skills. "I was very excited to be working on this commercial with Ahmed El Naggar, who presented the This is Egypt campaign to promote tourism in Egypt. As for Henedi, we go way back since we've worked together on a number of films. The work atmosphere was comfortable because the crew had worked together before. Also, the comedic atmosphere of the commercial was prevalent throughout the filming process. Working with Henedi was enjoyable. Although we filmed the commercial in different locations, work ran smoothly and Henedi was cooperative throughout it. By the end of shooting, we faced a generator malfunction and we were losing daylight. However, that did not affect the work process and everyone dealt with it smoothly."

As for Mohamed Ramadan's commercial, Al Morsy says that they met directly before filming for the first time in 7 years. "I was surprised as Ramadan reminded me of our work together on Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story (Ehky ya Scheherazade) on which I worked as a cinematographer and he was a rising star at the time," Al Morsy says about their first meeting. He adds more about the filming conditions, "We began filming very early, since 4 am, to film Mohamed Ramadan as he works out in the street. Ramadan was very professional and arrived on time fully prepared. Although the commercial required physical exertion, in addition to the action scenes and acting, he played his part professionally and carefully." Shooting lasted for two days in several locations, such as the Al Jazeera Youth Center, the Egyptian Media Production City, downtown streets, El Zamalek, and a hospital in 6th of October City.

Recently, Vodafone released two commercials filmed by Ahmed Al Morsy featuring Sherine Abdel Wahab and Ahmed El Sakka. Both commercials depended on re-shooting two famous scenes from the stars' famous works; Sherine's Tareeky and Al Sakka's Al Jazeera.

Aside from working as a DOP on 12 films and winning several awards, Al Morsy became one of the most important cameramen in the Arab world due to his passion in experimenting with new tools in more than 1000 ads. Thus, he has become one of the most famous Arab names in the commercial industry in several Arab countries, such as Egypt, Morocco, UAE, Jordon, and Lebanon, in addition to foreign countries, such as Spain, UK, and France. His talent made ARRI selects one of his projects (Union National Bank) as the IBC Exhibition main ad; it was about videos that have been filmed using ALEXA cameras in 2015.

Al Morsy also filmed many music videos for major artists in the Arab world such as, Tamer Hosni, Samira Said, Mohamed Mounir, Angham and Sami Yusuf.