My time in the slammer
Rule #1 - Obey all rules.
“What’s this?” I asked as the man behind the security glass handed me what looked like a very large, square pager with a red button in the middle. He looked up and dryly responded:
That’s the panic button. If something happens while you’re in there, hit that and every guard in the prison will come running.
I nodded as nonchalantly as I could, as if walking voluntarily into a prison with a video camera was something I did on the regular. In reality, my heart was in my throat and beads of sweat formed on my abnormally large forehead.
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Welcome to The Rock.
After checking in, a prison guard met our group and proceeded to give us a run down of important prison “do’s” and “don’ts.”
DO stay with the group.
DON’T press the panic button just to “see what happens.”
DO follow instructions.
DON’T try and help anyone escape.
The last one was a bit of a no-brainer. We all nodded to affirm that we both understood everything he was telling us and that we would obey all rules.
Which is, after all, the number one rule when spending time at The Rock.
The guard told us to follow him to a very large, heavy door.
He waited for a moment. We heard a buzzing sound and a click before the door swung slowly open, allowing us to pass through.
Once on the other side, that same heavy door slowly closed and when it did, I suddenly felt the weight of being inside. It was very unsettling, even though I was fully aware that I would be able to walk back out at the end of the day. Never before I had been inside a prison.
The guard escorted us out into a courtyard where large groups of inmates were moving between wings of the prison. We filmed a bit of that action before the guard led into the workshop where we would spend a majority of our time.
My summer camp.
I was in the middle of a week-long class on documentary filmmaking at the Maine Media Workshops, which was an incredible experience. It was like my dream version of summer camp; a full week surrounded by a host of other creative professionals, who were taking classes on everything from photography, to cinematography, to drone videography, to lighting for TV and film.
Throughout the week our instructor took us to different places and set up different scenarios and exercises where we could practice our camera work and our people/interview skills. On this particular day, he took us to the Maine State Prison.
The workshop.
The guard at the prison led us down a long hallway and then we made a right turn into a spacious workshop. It was like a factory floor. All around there were prisoners working at various stations, making different products. Above us, in the center of the room, was an observation post. Guards could see every inch of the workshop from their vantage point.
The assignment.
Our class instructor broke up the class into pairs. Each person in the pair was to select a prisoner and ask if he would be willing to tell his story on camera. We were to take turns running the camera and conducting the interview.
My partner and I walked up and down the aisles and I observed each prisoner doing his work, evaluating potential story subjects. I was looking for something visually interesting; work that offered a sense of artistry and attention to detail that would look good on camera.
I came across a man who was making model sailboats. This instantly caught my attention. Here was a job that displayed everything I was looking for.
I approached him and asked if he would be interested in talking to me on camera. He agreed and my partner ran the camera while I conducted his interview, getting the details about his life in the prison. I then spent time with him at his stall, gathering shots of him working on his sailboats.
From the footage captured at the prison and the footage gathered from the rest of the week, I was able to put together a short documentary that told the story of the inmate and the prison’s work program. It actually went on to play at a few film festivals.
The moral of the story.
Sorry to disappoint you if you were expecting a story that involved me accidentally hitting the panic button or getting caught up in the middle of a prison riot. Despite my early trepidations about going into a prison, the entire experience was smooth and uneventful (thankfully).
Despite the lack of conflict to this story, I decided to write about it, because there were things I learned from reflecting on this class that I think are important.
It doesn’t matter how much experience you have.
Before I even took the documentary film class I had already been working in non-fiction storytelling for about 15 years.
I knew how to shoot.
I knew how to interview.
I knew how to edit a story.
Yes, I knew how to do all of those things, but I knew how to do them my way. And it was both educational and encouraging to listen to different perspectives, different methods, and different approaches.
So, despite how much experience you have in a particular discipline, take that class.
Ask questions of others.
Observe how they do things.
Learn a new method.
It does matters how you approach people.
None of us in our documentary class had prepared anything ahead of our visit to the prison. How could we? None of us knew exactly what the plan was for that day, only that we were going to the prison. I didn’t know what the instructions were. I didn’t know who I would be talking to.
So, as a documentary filmmaker I learned a lot about how to quickly make a connection with someone; to approach him confidently; to make him feel comfortable; to reassure him that he was in good hands.
Anyone working in a non-fiction genre (whether it’s a feature-length documentary film or short-form marketing video) has to learn how to approach people; how to read and assess them — their body language, their emotions — so that they feel safe with you and have no hesitancy about sharing their stories.
It definitely matters that you listen to people.
It’s easy to write up a bunch of questions ahead of an on-camera interview and just ask those questions one-by-one while the camera rolls.
It’s another think entirely to really listen to someone and guide a conversation. And that’s what I had to do in my time interviewing my chosen inmate.
As mentioned previously, I didn’t have any prepared questions. I spoke to the prisoner briefly beforehand and then we started the interview. I started small — introductions — and then went from there. As he told me his story I had to listen to what he was saying and respond accordingly, improvising the questions as I went.
When you think of an interview as simply a conversation between two people, and you are genuinely interested in both the subject and the topic, then the resulting story you capture will be that much richer and more interesting to your viewers.
You may have questions prepared, but allowing the conversation to veer off into different directions can lead you into territory you never expected and the resulting story might be far better than the one you had mapped out in your head.
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