Innovation of justice
This was the first location we filmed for the project and i aquired it through Liam and a lady named Sohpie Theis. We had contacted Liam through Twitter and he mentioned that he had started up the organisation Innovation of Justice and that he had a conference at Manchester University in a couple of months time. We thought this would be a great opportunity to go and meet Liam as well as get some test footage and experiance of what it is like filming live events/ things you won't have the opportunity to ask for another take. We asked and he said we were more than welcome however we wanted to liase with the University as well just so that all parties concerened were aware of what was happening with who. The last thing we wanted was to turn up with a load of camera gear and organisers/ university staff look at us as though we were from another planet. I went on to the university's website and looked in the staff tab, after scrolling for a second or two i found someone with the title of "Events Organiser", this was Sophie. I fired off an email explaining we were students wanting to film the conference for a project and that same day she replied saying that she would get in touch with the people who would have any concerns and get back to me in the next few days. Sure enough on the morning of the third day i recieved an email confirming we were fine to film just not to get any of the audience that were situated at the far left (as there would be a sign put up telling people that if they didn't want to be filmed they should sit there). I replied by thanking her and asking about the nearest parking as well as requesting a floor plan for the room that the conference would be in (i hadn't been informed which room it was being held in) so that i could plan where we would place cameras and not block fire exits etc. Again she replied hastily and i was able to plan for the shoot.
Forensic institute
One of our contributors, Proffesor Allan Jamieson who attended the Innovation of Justice conference, is a forensic scientist. He deals with proving or disproving evidence in cases all across the world, from Australia to Florida to as loca as Maidstone. When we spoke to him in person at the conference he said that we both seemed to be level headed mature lads and he would help us if he could. About a week after the conference i contacted his email however there came no reply, so i decided to email the his office's (The Forensic Institute) main email. His secretary got back to me a few days later and asked me to give more details about the project and when we were looking to film. I replied to her with the relevant information and after about a week i sent her another email asking if i could speak on the phone as it would probably be easier to talk about the project and how we would like to use Prof. Jamieson so she replied with her personal number and i phoned her up immediately. I told her about how Prof. Jamieson would be one of our "specialists" who will back statements up with his professional opinion. I also told her (again) the dates we would like to film. It was a possitive convorsation but the only thing she couldn't promise was his availability during our filming period, as he was a practising forensic scientist he is constantly being called to court at short notice. Unfortunately closer to our shoot week she confirmed that he had been called away and wouldn't be in the country however we managed to re-hire our equiptment and have a second shoot week and in that time he had not been called away and we were able to get our interview.
Jan's House
Jan was found through networking with people and organisations associated with Liam and the Innovation of Justice. We found out she would be speaking there and decided to contact her, so we looked into her organisation JENGbA and found an email we could use to cintact her. After emailing to and fro and two conversations with her on the phone (one before the conference and one after) she agreed to being filmed at the conference and being interviewed for the project at her own home. I would say that Jan has been the easiest contributor to aquire and most easy to establish a location for.
Eddie's House
We had actually heard of Eddie Gilfoyle before the conference due to his appearance on a website by the name of INSIDEJUSTICE.co.uk. He has been widely reported in the news in 2012 and 2017 when he tried to take Merseyside police to court for misconduct on his case and we started to become familiar with his case the more and more we looked into it. So of course when we heard that Liam had been speaking to him and invited him to speak at the conference, i jumped back into the research i had previously started and got in contact through Eddie's brother in law Paul Caddick. I said that i would be at the conference and that myself and a fellow student would be filming parts of it for our project, following this i asked if it would be alright filming Eddie when he speaks and they agreed. Then when we were at the conference we spoke to Eddie and Paul in person and they gave us a number and said they would help us. After a few phone calls with Paul we established a date (that was within the same shoot week as Jan's interview) and a location which was Eddie's sister's house. From there on it was just a conformation phone call a few day prior to the shoot week to make sure both contributor and location were still available and then we went oof to shoot.
Peter's Office
This location was by far the most challenging of them all. We contacted Peter through the CIPN (Counceling In Prison Network) but when we had our initial phone call to the company and he answered and we discovered he was the head of the organisation we thought he would be a good choice as he seemed very enthusiastic about the project. When we phoned a second time to confirm the date and to enquire about locations he informed us that he had already booked the village hall out and gave us the postcode for it, which was situated in Dorsit. This came as a bit of a shock to us however we couldn't afford to lose the only psychological specialist that was willing to talk to us on camera so we maintained a pleasant and respectful tone and politely inquired if he had a study at home or somewhere that as a back drop could reflect his link with academia. He said that he didn't have anything like that at home but he did have an "office" so we said we would really like to see what the office looked like could he send us some pictures? To which he replied that the office is within the village hall and that we could make a decision on where we would like to film when we arrived. We agreed and thanked him but knew at this point that it would most likely not look like what we were after, so we decided to bring a few things to dress the set with. By a few things i mean 3 carrier bags full of books and office style objects as well as a three foot tall flat-pack shelving unit. When we arrived he greeted us and we went into the entrance of the village hall, immediately we decided the office was better however it was literally a room with four walls and a table. We moved the table closer to the window, pulled the blinds, set up a chair in the right position for the field of depth and then set up the shelf behind the chair and with a few tweeks, it looked like an office.
Prison island
Prison Island was a bit of a last minute off-the-cuff light bulb moment idea really. We had been trying to get hold of prisons for months and months but everytime we got past the first barrier of contact and managed to establish a convorsation either written or over the phone as soon as they learned that we were not a large scale company such as the BBC then they did not want to co-operate. So it was towards the end of our final shoot week and we knew we needed GV's to cut to for when contributors talk about prison, however no prison was willing to help. It was at this point i had an idea, that idea was that it doesn't have to be a prison just look like a prison, which then lead to the question "where looks like a prison but isn't a prison?" Then i had the thought of an escape room, there must have been an escape room somewhere that resemled a prison? My first port of call was google, which promptly lead me to Prison Island in maidstone, i hadn't remebered seeing an escape room in maidstone high street but it turns out that's because it had only been open a week! All i did from there on was to phone the number given on google and it went through to to (quite coincidently) the manager and owner who agreed that we could come down on friday (i phoned on the tuesday) and film whatever we needed.
Goldsmith Chambers
The Goldsmith Chambers is where Jerry Hayes resides when not actively working on a case (which isn't very often) in a way you could say it is his office. This was one of the few locations on this list that required very little organisation and checking up on. Once we contacted Jerry through his email provided on the gold chambers website he suggested the chambers as a suitable place to interview and we agreed and we noted in an email a few days prior to the date of the interview that we would meet him in the chambers and he replied confirming that. We used google maps to get there (took the train and walked the rest of the way) and arrived with plenty of time to spare.
Liam ITV Gallery
The location we filmed Liam at was the most last minute of them all. Liam is due to speak at the house of commons in June 2019 and we had been in communication with the house of commons and the PR section for quite a few months going back and fourth between people explaining who we are what we want to film etc. So it came to our second and final week of filming and we still didn't have a confirmed location, 3 days before we were due to interview Liam we were trying to think of places that were relevant to him. Then i thought of the idea that maybe we could try and film him somewhere that reflected his involvement in the news and how much he has been covered by the media. I still had a contact at ITN and i emailed her asking if she had anywhere at all in the ITN building that we could film an interview in. She got back to me almost immediately and said that she will get in touch ith her boss and find out what is available but she did ask if we could tell her (so she can tell him) what the project is about, where we would like it to go afterwards, how long we will be etc. I sent an answer to all her questions and the next day she replied, we were expecting a litte unused cramed room somewhere out of the way but she said that she had reserved the second ITV Gallery for us! We were over the moon about this and when we arrived there were no hitches or problems, we simply set up, shot, and de-rigged.
My House
The Jordan Cunliffe reconstruction was shot outside my house from 6:30 pm. This location of course was easy to obtain and i told all surrounding nieghbors that we would be filming a large group of young people and to not be alarmed if they hear shouting. There was a slight delay in contributors arriving but appart from that there were no problems with this location and we wrapped at approximately 9:30 pm.
Garage
This was another off-the-cuff location that we hadn't even thought or planned to use. We were using my grandparents house in West Yorkshire as a base to travel back to instead of hotels to stay at overnight. We would travel to the shoot location, shoot and then return back on the same day to my grandparent's house. This did mean more petrol however we save way more money in lodging fees and food expenses. When we returned from one of the shoots that was closer to my grandparents house it was only midday and george pointed out that my grandad had a garage, which had never crossed my mind before but we knew we needed to film a agarage for reconstructions for Eddie. I asked my grandad if he had a ladder and my nan if i could borrow a pair of her shoes and they both said yes. I then asked if he could move his car out of the garage and once that was done we set the camera up and started shooting.
Courtroom - failed
Having a courtroom to film in would have been invaluable to our project, there were several poinnts in our project in which i knew i wanted to have tracking shots of a judge at the dock and people sat in a court however this proved impossible. Not to get people to act, but to get access to a courtroom. We emailed and visited in person; Medway Magistrates Court in Chatham, Medway County Court in Chatham, Maidstone Crown Court and Kingston Upon Thames Crown Court. I had convorsations with all of these places and they either passed me onto another phone number which dealt with media enquiries or told us there and then that they wouldn't be able to help. The reason we visited Kingston Court is because i was told on the phone by one of the media enquiry lines that places like the BBC often use Kingston when court isn't being held on a weekend. This of course was a dead end too as they said they could not help. The main thing i noticed which was the same for all the prisons, was that as soon as they found out we were not from a big company and that we were just two students they were not interested. The only place that held a glimmer of hope for a short while was Maidstone Crown Court. We walked into the foyer and through the metal detectors, had a chat with the security guard and was directed to a set of double doors on the left. As we walked there was a waist high counter with security glass from the counter to the roof, we stood there and rang the little electronic bell that was on the counter. A friendly gentleman appeared and asked what we were after and how he could help to which we told him about how we would like to film in one of the courtrooms for only half an hour just to get two or three GV shots. He gave us an email that wasn't on google and told us to email that with everything we wanted and what the project was etc. We sent the email off and after a week and a half we got a reply confirming that it would need to be approved by the Resident Judge, which inturn would need to approve it to the Senoir Providing Judge. Long story short, it was a no.
Prison - failed
Prisons are one of the hardest places to get access to unless you are either the BBC or filming something that will paint the government/ Prison Governers in a good light. Prisons we walked into and spoke to as well as left letters for the Prison Goveners are; HMP Maidstone, HMP Swaleside, HMP Stanford Hill, HMP Cookham Wood and HMP Rochester. Much like the courtrooms we emailed and had phone convorsations even face to face convorsations but they all eventually ended the same way. Even the prisons we hand delivered letters to sent letters back saying either they couldn't help or phone the MOJ (Ministry of Justice) media inquiry line. Months and months went into trying to find somewhere we could film but in the end just like the courtrooms as soon as they found out we were not with any large scale company we were told nothing could be done. George found a disused prison owned by Canterbury Christchurch University however and we phoned them up but after a few emails they informed us the minimum they could allow themselves to do for an hour of use was £500. We decided (we already had the Prison Island footage by now) that the footage we would have aqquired would not have justified the money and we declined the offer.
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