Why Do I Need A Fixer? The Ultimate Guide to Filming in Turkey

BBC2, Nigel Slater’s Middle East: Turkey (2017).

A team photo in a local’s home in Şavşat, near the Black Sea coast.

If you are coming to photograph or film something in Turkey, then a local line producer, a production service company or ‘fixer’ will make sure your trip is a success.

What is a fixer?

A fixer is an experienced media and events producer who helps you find and arrange exactly what you need in their home country. At MA Productions all our Turkish fixers speak excellent English and some other languages too. We specialise in assisting overseas companies with their production needs, no matter how simple or challenging.

Who needs a fixer?

Are you a journalist on a photoshoot?
Producing a branded content film?
On a fact-finding mission for your TV show?
Looking for an on-screen expert?
Searching for the perfect location for your film?

The best fixers are dedicated to finding you the story you need, the studio, street or mountainside where you will film it and the people you will feature.

ITV, Joanna Lumley’s Silk Road (2018).

British Producer and Director sip tea with shepherd Hakan. We first tracked him down on our recce in the Black Sea mountains.

Strong contacts

An experienced fixer will always offer high-end production services. We secure skilled local crew, quality kit and specialist equipment hire at good rates. We connect you to a nationwide network of industry experts:

underwater filming
drone operators
historians
engineers
chefs
models
actors
social influencers and more.

Fixers open doors that would otherwise remain closed

In some cultures, people are wary of foreigners. They like to keep their local know-how and authentic lifestyle to themselves.

Luckily, Turkish people have never been this way!

Anatolia has always been a crossroads for travelers and traders from every culture and continent. Turkish tradition teaches you to welcome and respect any visitor that knocks at your door. So, visitors are often greeted with open arms.

Yet, despite the enormous tourist industry in most corners of the country and the Turks’ excellent reputation for hospitality, most Turks don’t speak good English.

To find original and compelling personal stories, you need a local by your side to act as your eyes and ears. This is where a skilled fixer makes all the difference.

BBC2, Nigel Slater’s Middle East (2017).

Local farmer Faruk stirring homemade grape molasses in his garden in Cappadocia.

Do I need a permit to film in Turkey?

To come and film in Turkey, you need a Filming Visa. This is a special class of visa application, only issued by Turkish Embassies and Consulates. It cannot be issued at the airports or on the borders of Turkey. It needs to be authorised in advance of travel.

Before you can apply for a Filming Visa you must have already secured a General Filming Permit.
When you apply for the Filming Visa you have to attach the General Filming Permit to your application.
The General Filming Permit will only be approved by the Turkish Ministry of Culture if you have named the local fixer or production service company you will be using. This is compulsory.

The Ministry of Culture states, “it is obligatory to have at least one host who is a citizen of the Turkish Republic” when you apply for your filming permit. As your ‘hosts’ or fixers in Turkey, we will be held responsible for the content produced.

By law, you must employ a fixer

If you are filming for a foreign channel or as a foreign production company, you are bound by Turkish law to have a Turkish citizen named as host. Their details will need to be included on your General Filming Permit application form and they must accompany you throughout your shoot.

Supplementary permits

Once you have your General Filming Permit and your Filming Visa, you might also need supplementary permits for specific filming locations like:

old city streets and squares
nature reserves
parks
libraries and archives
museums and archaeological sites
trains and buses
boats and beaches
hospitals and schools
war memorials
churches and mosques

Your fixer or local production company will then apply for these supplementary permits in their own name. The supplementary permits are granted by local authorities to your fixer. For example, we’ve needed specific supplementary permits for filming:

a car tracking shot on the Bosphorus bridge in Istanbul
breakfast in the food wagon of the Eastern Express overnight train
black bears in Sarıkamış forest in eastern Turkey
a travel sequence on the famous Beyoğlu tram line

Generally, you will find that there are rarely any English speakers in Turkish government offices. So, it’s not only the law to have a fixer with you – it is also crucial for the success of your project.

At MA Productions, we have arranged permits to film in Istanbul and all over Turkey countless times. We know the best places to shoot and which permits you must have for a drama-free shoot.

What can a fixer do for me?

Our services include :

getting permits for filming
production consultation
location scouting
crew management
equipment sourcing and rental
transportation and coordinating logistics
casting
accommodation
problem-solving

BBC2, Turkey with Simon Reeve (2017).

Simon plays a palace guard in hit TV series, The Magnificent Century.

MA Productions is Istanbul-based. Your fixer will know the city like the back of their hand. Filming in a mega-city like Istanbul can be tricky. There are tonnes of amazing locations to choose from, each with their own rigorous permit application processes. Understanding who to send an application to and how to follow it up saves you pre-production time.

We work all around the country. Local know-how is priceless. We have strong relationships with local authorities and plenty of experience navigating the bureaucracy that comes hand in hand with filming in Turkey.

Knowing who to call for help will save your production money when the director’s dream location is far beyond your budget.

Fixers make life easy

As your local production partners, we begin to support you long before you arrive in Turkey. Working with reliable people we’ve used before is the key to avoiding unnecessary expense or disappointment during your shoot.

Our fixers and producers introduce you to people you could never find from your desk at home. You may need:

a captain of a luxury yacht
a megastructure engineer
a studio set carpenter
a minibus driver who always helps load kit
celebrities
a politician
seismologists
cotton farmers
an edgy model agency
wildlife conservationists
a groundbreaking surgeon
a traditional potter
whirling dervishes

Our fixers are sensitive interpreters who enable you to truly connect with our people, places, traditions and culture.

You might want to:

climb along rooftops in old Istanbul
dive for ancient shipwrecks
make Turkish baklava
discover Christian cave art
try oil wrestling
investigate the war graves at Gallipoli
find a Syrian refugee women’s support centre
take a train through snowy mountains
ride on the world’s largest powership

We’ve found luxury locations for X Factor and society crowds for Made in Chelsea. We’ve rooted out a human trafficker in Izmir for Turkey with Simon Reeve and adventured underground in Istanbul’s ancient Roman cisterns for Invisible Cities.

Our contacts book is brimming with tried and tested professionals and brand new discoveries.

We connected a producer sitting at an office desk in London with a Turkish nomadic family in the Taurus mountains. The family don’t speak a word of English and migrate for six months of the year. Yet, with our help the producer was able to write a story synopsis describing this nomad’s day to day lifestyle in a goatskin tent. And it led to a remarkable shoot!

National Geographic, Europe From Above (2020).

Interviewing a nomadic family outside their goatskin tent.

We find Turkish families that will welcome your team into their homes. Whatever the format, we help filmmakers meet people they would otherwise never meet.

NPO3, Keuringsdienst van Waarde (NL).

Local ladies picking hazelnuts during the summer harvest in Giresun.

BBC2, Nigel Slater’s Middle East (2017).

Nigel Slater with Istanbulite chef Maksut Aşkar

at his world-famous, experimental restaurant Neolokal.

We help you set up and run your shoot. Be it in a trendsetting restaurant or a local family owned cheese factory, your fixer will be there translating for you, thinking ahead for you and problem solving for you.

ITV, Joanna Lumley’s Silk Road (2018).

Joanna having a go at making Gruyere cheese in Kars.

We carry on supporting you all the way to delivery

After your shoot is complete and you are back home, you might have extra research needs:

subtitles or translation for a line of Turkish sync
spelling checks for contributor or location names
Turkish music and archive sourcing

A bilingual fixer is your facilitator. From the seed of an idea all the way to, we take care of you and your project.