LIVE FROM BAGHDAD
HBO ORIGINAL MOVIE • WAR DRAMA
DIRECTOR
DOP
SCALE
CLIENT
YEAR
Mick Jackson
Ivan Strasburg
Prestige TV Budget
HBO
2002
OVERVIEW
Produced by HBO, this critically acclaimed film starred Michael Keaton and required transforming busy Moroccan city streets into 1991 war-torn Baghdad. Unlike remote desert shoots, this was an intense urban production requiring complex city logistics.
CHALLENGES & APPROACH
Urban Logistics & High-Speed TV Production.
Filming in active cities like Casablanca presents a different financial challenge than the desert: high costs for location permits, street closures, and compensation for local businesses interrupted by the shoot. Additionally, as an HBO TV movie, the production schedule was faster than a theatrical blockbuster. My focus was on rapid processing of these “city costs” to ensure we never lost access to key urban locations due to payment delays.
THE RESULT
The film was a major success, earning Golden Globe nominations. It proved our team’s ability to handle the fast-paced financial demands of American television networks while managing complex urban set dressing.
