Sometimes there’s a fine line between what’s public property and what’s no trespassing
“Finding the right places is on me, part of my responsibility as producer and director,” Motty Berkowitz explains.
So his powers of persuasion sometimes come into play, such as when he knew he needed to film Lipa’s “Gemara Bemangina” in a suitably Arabic studio, and had only 36 hours to convince the owners to allow it and pull together the entire production. Recently, some schools have featured in popular videos, as in Shmueli Ungar’s “Tata Mama,” also shot by Motty.
Surprisingly, some schools don’t mind having a singer and film crew around for the day.
“We easily found a yeshivah willing to work with us and have Benny Friedman act in their classrooms,” Moshe Finkelstein says about his Chasdei Lev shoots. “It gives the kids some enjoyment, a little bit of a break, plus, they liked having Benny in the school.”
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