What “Never Give Up” Actually Meant to Us

Shooting 35mm Film in Dubai: Our Experience on Casio G-SHOCK Never Give Up

At The Company Films, we are quite used to pulling off last-minute projects. But this one was different.

The Casio G-SHOCK Never Give Up project was approved on 4 February 2026, and we had to shoot on 13 February. Nine days is already a tight turnaround for a commercial, and this project was heavy on some of the major production parameters like locations, cast and influencers, art, and the overall scale of the film. On top of all that, we decided to shoot it on 35mm film. It was an Arabic rap music commercial directed by our Executive Producer, Rajeev Thottippully. We really liked Rajeev’s treatment, and from the beginning, we felt that the visual world he had in mind would look great on film.

As a production house, shooting on film was something we had wanted to do for a long time. But we never really got a project where we had enough flexibility to decide the shooting medium ourselves. When we received the approval on 4 February, we asked the client if they would be open to us shooting the project on film. They were supportive, but also made it clear that the technical responsibility would be ours, as they did not have much experience with the process. We took that as a challenge. For us, it was also an opportunity to finally do something we had wanted to do it for a long time. 

Deciding to Shoot 35mm

The night before the approval, on 3 February, Rajeev, our DOP Yousef Daoud and I had a call to discuss whether shooting on film was realistically possible.Yousef had a lot of clarity about the process and was very confident about how we could approach it. That gave us the extra confidence we needed. He came on board officially the next day and, importantly for us, he had already shot several projects on film before.

We were also quite clear that if we were going to do it, we wanted to shoot 35mm rather than 16mm. For us as a production house, and for me personally, this was our first time producing a project on film. It was exciting, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly worried as well. With digital, you are used to having a certain level of control and immediate reassurance. Film is different. If something goes wrong somewhere in the process, you may only find out much later. So every step had to be handled very carefully. We researched the process, spoke to people with experience, and tried to make sure we understood the risks before making each decision. And our first major problem appeared almost immediately.

Finding Film Stock in Nine Days

There was no film stock available in Dubai. We contacted Kodak and also reached out to a few older studios and people in the region who had shot extensively on film years ago. The answer was the same everywhere: no stock. At this point, it became a real race against time. Eventually, we got in touch with Kodak in the UK. They had exactly what we needed: nine 400 ft rolls of 250D and two 400 ft rolls of 500T.

Kodak arranged the stock on the same day, and DHL collected it from them on 5 February. Getting the stock was only half the problem. We now had to get it from the UK to Dubai without it going through an X-ray scanner.Unexposed motion picture film is sensitive to X-rays, and once the stock is exposed to certain levels of scanning, there is a risk of fogging or other damage. After all the effort of sourcing the stock, the last thing we wanted was to damage it somewhere inside an airport before it even reached our camera.

With the support of Kodak and DHL, the package went through a manual inspection at Heathrow instead of the regular X-ray screening. Customs clearance was completed on the night of 7 February, and the stock reached Dubai early on 8 February through Emirates SkyCargo. We thought the most difficult part was over. It wasn’t.

Getting the Stock Through Dubai Customs

Once the stock arrived in Dubai, it was held at the airport. The problem was that 8 February was a Sunday, and we couldn’t meet the relevant customs and airport officials immediately to explain why this particular shipment could not go through the normal scanning procedure. The next day, we coordinated with Emirates SkyCargo, our DHL handling agency GAC, and Dubai Customs to explain exactly what the package contained and why we needed a manual inspection. After the necessary discussions and approvals, the stock was finally released on 10 February without being X-rayed. We were shooting on the 13th. That gave us three days.

The Shoot

Once we got to the shoot, things became surprisingly smooth. We were fortunate to have a very experienced camera and lighting crew around us. Our 1st AC, Toyota, and loader, Jey, had strong experience with the process. Our gaffer,Shrif, and key grip, Rizwan, also go back to the days when shooting on film was much more common in the region. Between them, there were decades of experience on set. For some of us on the production side, the process was completely fresh. For several people around the camera, it was something they already understood very well. That combination helped a lot. Our equipment vendor, Action Filmz, also provided us with one of the best maintained 35mm camera packages available in the region. With film, the condition and reliability of the camera become even more important, and their regular maintenance gave us a lot of confidence in the equipment. The shoot itself went very well. But unlike a normal digital shoot, wrapping the camera didn’t mean the stressful part was over. We still had rolls of exposed film in our hands.

Getting the Exposed Film to the Lab

There are currently no motion picture film processing labs in Dubai or anywhere close enough in the region for this kind of workflow, so our exposed negative had to travel Again. This time to Cinelab in Romania. And once again, we had the same problem: X-rays. This time the material was even more important. These weren’t fresh rolls anymore. This was our footage. We had to arrange the necessary customs clearances and handling instructions to make sure the exposed stock could leave Dubai without going through regular X-ray screening.

Meanwhile, we couldn’t just wait for the negative to reach Romania. We had a delivery schedule to maintain.So we started the offline edit using the video recorded through the camera’s video assist system. Interestingly, when we put together the Director’s Cut from this material, I personally liked the rough, almost VHS-like quality of it. Of course, this was only a temporary reference until we received the actual scans from the film. We managed to send the exposed stock out by 15 February after completing the necessary customs procedures. Then came something completely outside our control. Romania was experiencing heavy snowfall. Roads were closed, transportation was affected, and the lab couldn’t collect our shipment immediately. Cinelab finally received the stock on 19 February and processed and scanned it the same day. On 20 February, we received the dailies and relinked our edit to the actual film scans. That was probably the moment everyone was waiting for.

Seeing the Film for the First Time

There was a lot of excitement when the files came in, but also some nervousness. Until that point, we had done everything we could from our side. The camera team had done their job, the stock had travelled from the UK to Dubai, gone through customs, been loaded and exposed on set, gone through customs again, travelled from Dubai toRomania, sat through a snow delay, reached the lab, and finally was processed. There are so many stages in that chain where the physical negative is outside your direct control. You have to trust the people handling it, the process you have put in place, and the vendors you are working with. Then we opened the scans. Everything was there. And it looked great.  Despite the delays during transit and all the additional logistics that came with shooting on film, we still delivered the final film according to schedule. Looking back, shooting 35mm definitely added another layer of pressure to an already tight production. It would have been much easier to shoot digitally, especially with only nine days between approval and the shoot. But the easier option wasn’t necessarily the right option for this film. For us, the whole experience was a reminder of why the medium still matters. Shooting film forces you to prepare differently, trust your crew differently, and think about every stage of the process a little more carefully. It was our first time producing a commercial on 35m, and it definitely won’t be our last.