Research into existing products-Louis Theroux behind bars

Louis Theroux behind bars  

Visits Northern California's San Quentin State Prison, it houses 3,000 murders, sexual predators and small-time criminals. It suffers from chronic over crowding. He spends two weeks in the prison and quickly discovers they inhabit a strange world within the place that hold their own rules.

It starts with an extreme long establishing/master shot of the prison, which sets the scene.

 It then goes to an interview with David Silva who is sentencend for 521 years, it starts with him being in what looks like a cage with barbed wire running across the top talking to Louis. The interview was filmed hand held showing realism through a series of pans.

Louis talks about facts of the prison on a voice over of a montage showing him walking around the prison showing prisoners in traditional orange jumpsuit, their daily routines and a guard walking with a prisoner in a white suit with his face covered which shows the brutality of the prison.
After the introduction the title appears which is what looks like a drawn image of Louis behidn bars, it uses three different shades of blue with black bars. It has what appears to be a spotlight on Louis, which is typically used for questioning in films.
The music used is a quirky pleasant sound which is representative of Louis but not typical for the type of documentary it is. As the documentary is about 'gangsters' music that would usually be used is music such as 'RnB'.
Louis is then shown how to wear a protective vest, he asks what the necessity is for him to wear it to which the prison guard replies that the prisoners have a tendency to spear or dart them. The purpose of Louis asking that question is for the audience, so that they realise quite how bad the prison is. The guard that is showing Louis the vest has a scar across the face which implies he has been stabbed.
There is then footage of him walking through the carson section which is where the inmates are segregated from the rest of the prison. You cannot even see inside the cell and the prisoners in this section are locked away for 23 hours of the day. In the background you can hear other prisoners which is said that they are doing it to show off because of the camera crew being there.
The police guard allows a prisoner known as playboy out to talk to Louis, his original offence was 'carjacking' for which he was inprisoned for three years, he is known for gassing the guards. Louis is then allowed to have a look around his cell which is extremely small.
The next scene is out in the yard, the prisoners are only allowed out there for a couple of hours a week. Louis finds out that the inmates stay segregated within their ethnic race.

Louis asks one of the new arrivals who is locked away in a caged area with others why they reoffend, to which he replies its too easy to do the time. We translated this that he feels its easier to be in prison than to live on the outside world.
Badger section is the worst section, they are the 'real bad guys' as described by the police guard he says that its the murderers and rapists. Louis meets one of the new arrivals who describes it as a playground and that its easy. He has been inprisoned for murdering his bestfriend, he claims he was wrongly convicted. His sentence is 50 to life, it is his first offence. Antony explained that it is easier in prison as in the outside world as you can wake up to hearing gun shots and people being murdered. As Antony walks away there is a fade out which represents the end of the day.

Louis sits and eats breakfast with two of the barbarian crew members, there are a certain amount having breakfast at a time in twenty minute intervals as they leave they are giving packs which they can eat later in the day in their cells.
The barbarian members informed Louis that people would be beat up if they stole food off someone elses tray, they described it as the 'rules of the prison'.

Louis talks to a guard on the gun rail who explains that he is authorised to shoot inmates if necessary. Later Louis walks down to talk to an inmate who is due to be relased. He wears a wig and prefers to be called Deborah, he was inprisoned for robbery and stealing cars. Deborah has a partner who he shares a cell with, they both want to continue the relationship on the outside.

Louis said that it seemed that the inmates seemed to be grateful that he had taken an interest in them as they feel that no one cares about them.
Louis then meets David Silva again, who informs him he has to serve 521 years and then eleven life sentences. This is because he carried out multiple home invasions, he said there were a lot of victims and he used a lot of torture tactics. He said he did this so he could live a better life and that many people would hire him to do this, David also told Louis that nobody was killed in these invasions but the victims were probably at a point where they wish they had died because they have to live with what David and his crew have done to them. David claims that it is 'pretty serious' and it ended with a shoot out at the end. David goes into more detail by saying some people had their heads held under hot tubs for long periods of time and that some claimed they were sexually assaulted by a pistol by him using the words people claim means he detached himself from that crime almost denying he did that. David was in a young offenders institute from the age of eleven until the age of twenty, he was then back in prison at twenty two.

There is a scene where they go back to yard time for alpine section who are segregated for their own protection. The prison guard says that the majority of the inmates in this section are usually gang drop outs who have to be protected. In here there are many types of people, Louis talks to the religious group who are carrying out a religious act. Louis asks some of them what they were in prison for but they refuse to say however they imply that he had been taken over by a demon which 'made' him carry out acts.

The prison guard then says that the atmosphere went quite tense because there are people in there that do not want people to know who they are or where they are, Louis then asks if they are child molestors to which the guard replies you could say that yeah.
After this Louis then has lunch with some of the homosexual inmates who make it clear that it is worse for the inmates who try and cover up that they are homosexual.
After lunch Louis then meets up with Playboy Vincent again whilst he is in his walk alone which means he has to have his yard time in a cage by himself, this is because he too is a gang drop out he says that gang members would class him as a rat. Louis refers to him as a marked man.

There is a prison hierarchy, with Paedophiles being at the bottom inmates would kill paedophiles if they had the chance. Louis asks a prison guard that surely its a better life on the outside world to which the guard replies that in here they are somebody, out there they are nobody. One of the release officers said that with the 27 being released that day he would see over half again some within days some within months.

There is a bookend in the documentary which means it starts and ends with the same thing which in this case is Louis having an interview with David Silva. Louis asks if David feels remorse for what he has done, David says he does and that he was wrongly convicted with some things but he has to accept what he has done and if he didnt feel remorse then he would just be a cold hearted person. David is also asked if he has ever thought about him being mentally ill and he says that at one point he thought that there was a chemical inbalance but now he has realised this is not the case.