Liam Allan
Liam Allan was obtained through a twitter message promted by a news headline we saw. We were behind everyone else as we had several failed ideas and were looking through the BBC news headlines online when we saw Liam Allan's story and read about him having to wait two years before his courtcase was heard. This wasn't the main thing that caught our attention however, it was that three days into court a mobile phone download was found on a disk and the defence requested to see it and when they were given it they found hundereds of texts that destroyed the case against Liam. We immediately wanted to get in contact with him however when we phoned people who had spoken to him and who's details we could find they said they could not give out his details due to data protection which was fair enough. I offered to leave my details and ask them to pass them on to him but they also declined that as well.We decided we needed to try and contact him directly which was hard as his contact details were nowhere to be found so we decided to reach out to him on social media. Facebook was far too hot and he wouldn't respond to anything and we knew that already as the option to send a friend request wasn't visible. So we decided to try and direct message him on Twitter as his personal account was still accesable through his organisation Inovation of Justice. We adjusted my (very little used) account to make it seem more proffesional and messaged him with our idea for the documentary and explained it is a university project and how we wanted the tone of the doc to come across. To our absolute amazement he replied, saying that he was interested and would love to have a chat with us about it. I sent him a message with mine and Georges number on it and we both got a phone call from an eager Liam asking about dates for filming. At that time we didn't have confirmed dates so we chatted about the topic of the doc and the sorts of people and structure it would have.
Following the convorsation we agreed to get back in contact with him when we had filming dates or more info about the documentary. After a meeting with Simon with our new idea he seemed positive and interested about the project and the general topic was evidence being withheld by the police. After a few weeks of research and another phone call to Liam asking if he knew any organisations we could talk to about getting people to speak on camera about thier experiances, he passed us on to JENGbA (Jan Cunliffe) and Paul Caddick. With Liam it wasn't too hard to keep him on board as he is very much a public figure now and he embraces the spotlight and has no reason to shy away from the camera.
Jan Cunliffe
Jan was a very friendly person and was extremely helpful and open to convorsation whenever we phoned her. Our first point of contact was through JENGbA via email in which we basically pitched the idea to her and asked her if she would be ok with us filming her at the Innovation Of Justice conference as well as giving us an interview at some point in the future. She responded with her phone number and told us that it would be best to have a chat about everything first so we phoned her as soon as she replied and chatted about the project for a little while, answering any questions she had e.g. who we were why we were doing the doc etc. After finding out we were students and this was for our third year project however we would like to get it out after submission e.g. take it to festivals, she was very open to being a part of the doc and told us to phone her any time if we had any questions for her. Again it was a case of we will have to let you know closer to the time about filming dates but whenever there was a slight change to the idea or angle we would let her know and she would always be fine with it.
When we got confirmation from UCA Farnham that we would be aloud to borrow their camera equipment we phoned Jan and re-confirmed with her that we would 100% deffintely be filming between the dates of the 18th and 25th of February (we had already told her we would most likely be filming at that time as it was the first study leave we had in February). Following this convorsation i sent her an email in early Feb to ask if there was a specific date in that time period that worked best for her as we were trying to construct a timetable for the shoot and who is getting filmed on what day. I didn't get a reply by the end of the following day so i called her the day after that and after a convorsation about which day would be easiest to get to her because of traffic etc. we agreed on the 24th. When it comes to "keeping hold of" Jan as a contribitor it seemed pretty obvious after our first few chats that she was in for the long haul and was happy to contribute on any level she could.
Eddie Gilfoyle
Eddie was probably one of the highest profile cases we looked at and aquired as a contributor. He had already been filmed by several news and production companies and and although he was happy to be filmed at the conference and when we spoke to him in person at conference he said he would be fine to have an interview for the project, we felt like we needed to make sure we sustained a professional appearance. When i phoned Paul (Eddies brother in law) who's phone number was on the card Eddie gave me at the conference, he seemed a bit apprehensive. He wanted to make sure that eddie wasn't seen in a bad light and he wanted to know that he could trust us to help rather than hinder. Eddie's case was and still is such a sensitive one, as he is still fighting to try and clear his name so of course they welcome anyone who wants to get his voice heard but he also didn't know us really. We needed to keep assuring him that it wasn't going to be too much or over the top for Eddie (regarding the questions we were asking) and that it wasn't going to be just based on Eddie. The reason Paul was concerned about the amount of Eddie that would be in the documentary is because a documentary maker named Kate had already approached them and asked to film Eddie and make a three part series about him. This meant that they did not want to step on her toes by allowing someone else to film him however they agreed to it because they knew any exposure his story could get would be good.
After two phone convorsations with Paul we agreed the date that we would come and film him and although i was nervous asking this as i didn't want to come across bossy or head-strong i asked if we could film Eddie at his house and Paul said yes. Paul then explained Eddies living situation and expressed that we must keep it absolutely confidential and we both of course agreed. Following this dicussion We didn't contact each other until just before the shoot week and i sent a confirmation email checking they were still ok for us to come and interview Eddie, to which he replied that they were.
After two phone convorsations with Paul we agreed the date that we would come and film him and although i was nervous asking this as i didn't want to come across bossy or head-strong i asked if we could film Eddie at his house and Paul said yes. Paul then explained Eddies living situation and expressed that we must keep it absolutely confidential and we both of course agreed. Following this dicussion We didn't contact each other until just before the shoot week and i sent a confirmation email checking they were still ok for us to come and interview Eddie, to which he replied that they were.
Peter CIPN
Peter is an interesting contributor, quite simply because we didn't actually intend having him in the documentary at all! Once we had filmed at the Innovation of Justice in the University of Manchester we were chasing up all possible leads for contributors, we had established the people who's stories we wanted to tell but we needed to obtain professionals or specialsts in certain areas that we could ask questions in regards to the cases we are looking at. We decided that we would need someone specified in Law, someone specified in Evidence, and someone specified in Psychology. We already had an idea for the specialists in Law because Liam told us that the barrister who was prosecuting on his case was very keen on speaking about the issue of annonimity in rape cases and failings in court. We also knew who we would like to obtain as our specialist in evidence which was Prof. Allan Jamieson from the Forensic Institute. He spoke at the innovation of justice about problems with certain types of evidence and how they can really either end up incoclusive most of the time or they can be manipulated to look certain ways. However there was no connection through Liam or any of the organisations at the conference that would lead to a Psychologist so i decided i would see if we could use the PR contact i had already etsablished at the Manchester Uni to see if there were any staff that lectured on Psychology.
As it turned out there was a lady called Tammi Walker who had an abundance of qualifications in the field and did in fact run lectures in criminal psychology and other areas. I emailed her staff email adress and emailed the lady i had been speaking to about the conference when it was held in the university, however after a good few weeks and several emails i chased it up again and it seemed like Tammi was uncontactable, she was not replying to emails from either me or the organiser at the university. At this point i googled her name and saw she was an advocate for the CIPN (Counciling In Prison Network). In her profile i saw that she worked extensivley in prisons as well as conducting a lot of work on mental health in specifically womens prisons. With this information not only was i wanting to contact her as a specialist but i was also thinking she might be able to discuss or even get on board a female prisoner who has suffered mentally in prison and belives they are innocent. George and i constructed an email and sent it to the CIPN with our phone numbers attatched and shortly after recived a phone call from the founder and runner of the CIPN Peter Jones.
He was very keen about the project over the phone and explained who he was and asked when we would be filming etc. and i asked if Tammi Walker was still a part of the CiPN. He said yes he had worked with her before so i then explained that we had been trying to contact her to get her on board to which he replied "I'll do it!". Even though it meant adding another white male to the list of people in our doc his enthusiasm for the project out-shone everyone else at the time so we made the decision to welcome him to the project.
Proffeser Allan Jamieson
As i mentioned before we had already met Prof. Allan Jamieson at the Innovation of Justice conference and he seemed to be a good speaker as well as being involved with organisations such as Liams meaning he would more likely be willing to contribute to our doc than say a forensic expert who knew nothing about the cases we were looking at etc. Prof. Jamieson's specialties are in: DNA, LCN DNA, complex crimes, drugs, drugs on money, CCTV, drugs and driving and many more. Not only does he work on national cases but he is also Involved in casework and forensic projects in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, Turkey, Cyprus, Jordan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Having all these accolades to add validity to his opinions reinforced our view that he was essential for the doc and that if we needed to work around him we would.
As it turns out that is exactly what we had to do. Due to the fact that Prof. Jamieson is constantly being called to court to give his opinion as an expert on the validity of the evidence in that case, we had arranged to film him between the 18th and 25th of January however just before the start of that shoot week we were informed that he had been called away and would not be around for an interview at that time. So we arranged with Farmhan UCA to re-book the equipment and had a secind week of getting any footage we hadn't managed to the first time, however this time i was in contant telephone communication with his secretary making sure (almost every day) that it was more likely than not that he would be there and that the date was still ok.
Jerry Hayes
Jerry is a leading junior criminal practitioner specialising in high profile homicide, large scale drug importations, rape and serious sexual offences, fraud, money laundering and people trafficking. He also prosecutes rape and serious sexual offences. Jerry has appeared in a number of reported cases and presents television and radio shows as well as being a best selling author. Jerry was a member of Parliament from 1983/1997 serving in the Northern Ireland Office and the then Department of the Environment.He has a very active social media presence, he had a twitter page and even his own political blog. We contacted him Via email and straight away he was very interested and up for the interview (he was also no stranger to a camera due to Liam Allan's coverage in the news). We emailed him a few more times asking about dates but he wasn't always very quick at replying so we asked for his number and we phoned him and had a lengthly detailed chat about the project. Jerry was very eager and a great contribution to the doc but in terms of responses we did have to work hard to get an answer from him however he is a busy man and an active barrister so this is of course completely understandable.
No comments:
Post a Comment