My First Encounter with the Camera

In 2006, I went to see Dr Suleiman Al-Eidi, then director of Saudi Channel One, to ask for an opportunity to work behind the camera.

He smiled and said:

“You would be better in front of the camera.”

I had no idea that this sentence would change the course of a career that would span years.

I had not taken a training course, and there was no time to prepare.

I was immediately assigned to produce the first television report of my life, about flynas’s inaugural flight from Riyadh to Al-Qurayyat.

The entire report was to be filmed aboard the aircraft.

I went to the airport with television cameraman Khalid Al-Sarhan and met the company’s director of media and public relations, who was waiting for us beside the counter as we collected our boarding passes. I began gathering information quickly and writing it down in a small notebook, while thinking about only one thing:

How would I interview the chief executive in a few moments?

I would write the questions… then cross them out.

I would rewrite them… then hesitate.

Tension was present in every moment.

When I met the chief executive aboard the aircraft, I said to him:

“I’ll interview you here, while you’re in your seat.”

He replied calmly:

“Show me the questions.”

He read them… then suggested adding another question.

The interview began…

And it ended.

For the first time in my life, I signed off a report with my own name, holding a microphone bearing the channel’s logo, from the aircraft cabin.

We returned to Riyadh, and I thought my task was over.

I would hand over the tape, and others would take care of the rest.

But then I received an unexpected call from the head of editorial production, Mr Fahad Al-Hudaib, who said:

“You are its producer.”

I paused for a moment…

Its producer?

I did not even know where the editing took place.

I began searching on my own until I found the editing suite. I sat beside the editor, Mr Abdulrahman Al-Mukhaimer, reviewing every shot, learning, and shaping the report as I had imagined it, until I handed it to Mr Hamad Al-Assaf, director of the programme Morning Coffee.

Many years later…

I realised that the first lesson I learnt in the profession was not in front of the camera.

It was that great opportunities do not wait until you are ready.

Sometimes, the opportunity comes first…

Then forces you to become ready.

I still believe that many milestones in my life began this way!

This is one page from the Professional Notebook… and there are still pages left in the notebook.