Middle East an HD Highlight

Production company lures U.S. studios

Highlight Films completed a virtual-reality production after filming Israel's significant religious sites for a U.S. company.

Highlight Films, a full service high-def production company in Israel and the Palestinian West Bank, is extending an invitation to U.S. studios.

Boasting archive footage of Israel and the Middle East from the 1940s to the present, Highlight has worked with French, Italian and British productions involving the BBC, Channel 4 (U.K.), National Geographic Channel, PBS and Arte.

Highlight also provides pre- and post-production with two editing suites in Tel Aviv and a third mobile unit that can be installed throughout Israel and the West Bank, as well as facilities for research, film permits, crew, equipment and transport coordination.

Two American studios are researching the possibility of film projects in the region, but most shy away due to security and insurance issues.

Oliver Stone chose Israel for his 2002 docu "Persona Non Grata" despite those concerns. Stone incorporated Highlight's camera crew -- three Israelis and two Palestinians -- with his own, consisting of 12 Americans and Europeans for "Persona Non Grata's" American, Spanish, French and British co-production.

Amid suicide bombings and terrorist attacks on Israeli cities, Highlight assisted in securing for Stone interviews with former prime ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres, Cabinet minister Gideon Ezra and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah.

Action heightened behind the cameras when, a day later, Israel began operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank; Highlight spirited Stone and his crew under fire from besieged Ramallah to Israeli territory. Completing the task, Highlight's Israeli and Palestinian crews continued filming after Stone's departure and sent the film, which incorporated archival Highlight footage, to L.A.

While this scenario seems daunting, Highlight boasts an extensive roster of documentary and TV production and has recently begun work with Time and Newsweek, providing video content and production services for their online video segments. The studio just completed a virtual reality production after four weeks of filming Israel's significant religious sites for an Orlando, Fla., production company, Global Ilumina.

"BHD1," Highlight's new high-def docu-reality series, will be the first TV project in which cameras were allowed into the Israeli Defense Forces' officer training school. ("BHD1" is a code name for the army officers' school, the Israeli version of West Point). The series, composed of six one-hour segments, will wrap in October and air on Channel 2 Israel in December.

American, Israeli and European cable, Web and cellular outlets will broadcast Highlight multiplatform reality skein "Haolim" ("The Immigrants") planned for winter. "Haolim" follows new immigrants to Israel.