Immensely Creative Cinematographer and Filmmaker Omar Ragab
Years ago, rather, decades ago, when video cameras were becoming way too popular, way too fast, there were a great many cinematographers who vowed to never shoot a project in video. It almost seemed to be a life or death choice to them: Shooting in film or video. Omar Ragab, the very talented and skillful cinematographer from Cairo, Egypt, can tell you that there were definitely an endless supply of stubborn purists who preferred film over video, but little by little and one by one, they started to give in and wrap their hands and minds around the idea that video quality was improving. And it was improving. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to at least try it out on some shoots that were low budget and shows that didn’t mean anything in the long run.
Of course, once the look of video leapt its way to the high quality digital images it produces today, the question had to come up in many cinematographers’ questioning consciousness: Is film dead?
A great deal of photographers, along with film processors and manufacturers thought so, but Omar and a handful of other lonely holdouts simply loved the concept of sticking with film. Omar is a rarity in today’s film industry. He is a professional cinematographer and camera operator who loves shooting on film and he is quite accomplished when it comes to working with it and within its lighting parameters. He is also extremely knowledgeable with digital video cameras and what is needed to properly light the images he captures digitally. He can operate any camera in the industry, whether it’s film or digital.
Omar has worked very successfully on too many shoots as a camera operator and cinematographer to name them all here but we can mention a few. Through GUDAWG PRODUCTIONS, which he founded and is the CEO, he has 6 short films to his credit: Bedland, Finding America, Eightball, Leef, Sleepless and Banana Thugs. He has also used his skills as cameraman and cinematographer on countless other films, commercials and music videos. Some of them are: Manana no hay Clase (music video), Ride the Wave (music video), Calvin Klein-pgLang (commercial), Lancome (commercial), Army National Guard (commercial), Saturday Night (music video), Uber Eats (commercial), AT&T (commercial), Funky Fresco (music video), and Valentino-Lady Gaga (commercial) to mention just a few.
Omar has also worked his camera magic on reality shows: Cooking with Paris; Master Chef Season 11; Hype House and Bling Empire Season 2. His expert camera skills have also come in quite handy when he works on projects for companies/networks like Netflix, Disney, Amazon and HBO Max to name a few.
