His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama :: April 27, 2007

Several months back I got a call from the organizers of an upcoming Peace Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. They needed to film a short piece with His Holiness the Dalai Lama for the closing of their conference. His Holiness was scheduled into San Francisco April 27-29, and the conference organizers made arrangements for me to meet up with him and get our film. Well, it wasn’t quite that simple. The time window we were originally given was 25 minutes, including the time to set up for the shoot. I was confident I could do it, and I enlisted the help of an experienced fellow video dude to help out. Here, in a nutshell, is the story of my day in San Francisco.

Security was very tight, and the teaching’s organizers, along with the US State Department and the San Francisco Police Department were not going to take any chances. We were granted the highest level of access, which was fun.

And to answer the next (obvious) question: no, I didn’t get to keep my badge. But it sure was fun to prance around the place wearing this!

His Holiness was given a very nicely-appointed dressing room where he was able to receive his many visitors, eat his lunch, and relax in between halves of his teaching.

We were originally scheduled to videotape him in this room, but we were told later that we wouldn’t be able to because our setup was going to be too complicated (despite the fact that my story never changed). Whatever. So we shifted our plan to a different room...but stay tuned...it was not to be!

Because His Holiness is a foreign head of state, he is accorded a high degree of security when traveling in the USA. The US Department of State had a very professional and impressive security contingent in place. I worked closely with one Special Agent Diaz (pictured here with me), who was responsible for His Holiness’ every move. Special Agent Diaz is also a very handsome and swashbuckling man who really should be playing a State Department Special Agent on some TV show.

Given the very tight timeline required to pull of this video shoot, my colleague Richard and I methodically staged all our gear outside His Holiness’ dressing room, not knowing exactly where, when or how we were going to pull this off. I crafted a lean and mean shooting kit that we could move quickly, set up quickly and rely upon, regardless of when and where we’d get the call. In the end, we ended up back in His Holiness’ dressing room, which worked out beautifully.

His Holiness’ security detail (several large, manly and well-armed Tibetan gentlemen) were very helpful in carrying and setting up our gear for us, and in less than five minutes I had this whole setup rigged and operational. I felt very fortunate that I had prepared so thoroughly because there was absolutely no margin for error. This was truly one of my finest "guerilla shoots"!

When our subject was done with his last meeting, he entered our room, dispensing friendly greetings and blessings to all of his guests. I was concentrating so completely on the task at hand, I barely even noticed all the protocol and activities. Even pinning his microphone to his robe wasn’t a big deal, although in retrospect it was pretty special to be in his presence. However, he is a media pro and knew exactly what was expected of him and was very polite throughout.

Our interview lasted less than ten minutes, although it seemed much longer, as we were all hanging on his every word. He spoke forcefully, thoughtfully and with humor at times. I liked what he had to say about "building a culture of peace" (the motto of the Peace Conference).

When it was over, my colleague Richard approached His Holiness to present his "kata", or ceremonial silk scarf (we both were given one), and Richard was suitably blown away by His Holiness’ gaze.

After we were done packing up, we were waiting for His Holiness to come back through the hallway in the hopes that I might get a photograph with him. Richard had my camera, and when the door opened into the next room (where he was having an audience with a group of San Francisco people), Richard snapped a photo through the door.

His Holiness, obviously impressed with my very manly camera, motioned for me to come in and take a photo. The person who was trying to take the group photo was struggling with a little camera, and His Holiness is known to dislike camera flashes (I wasn't shooting with a flash). I grabbed my camera back from Richard and ran in there to take the group photo (not this one!)...

...and after taking that photo, His Holiness motioned to me and said “You, come here and take a photo with me.” He took my hand and motioned for me to hand my camera to one of his security guys, then asked Richard to join us.

Needless to say, this photograph is a real keepsake.

My job did not suck today.

If you have Quicktime 7 installed (Mac or Windows), you should be able to click on the video to the left to see a very short clip. It's just me pinning the microphone on him. Not much, but unfortunately I can't share the real video with anybody just yet.