What really happens behind bars? Insiders make videos to show you.
Against a vista of rolling hills and palm trees, a five-man film crew is setting up for a shoot. They white balance the cameras, adjust the tripods, play with composition. One man roams among them with a smaller camera, getting coverage of the shoot.
That’s not the only kind of coverage they need, though. Lt. Sam Robinson of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) watches over them, because they must be under the supervision, or “coverage,” of a corrections officer at all times. The men, members of a filmmaking program called FirstWatch, are incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison.
Their work, part of a tradition of media and arts initiatives in prisons nationwide, offers an opportunity for participants to share what their lives are like in jail, and in some cases, to come
Better outcomes from arts participationSan Quentin’s media boom