Living Inside Out served as Erin Persley’s MFA Thesis film at San Francisco State University’s Cinema Department. After completing her previous work Empowering the Yard, which focuses on a peer education program at a Oklahoma’s women’s prison, Erin decided she wanted to explore the obstacles and successes of transitioning back into society after prison time. Choosing to focus locally in the Bay Area, Erin began preproduction in Spring 2008 with extensive research into Bay Area reentry programs, prison services and state prison facilities. She began meeting with local groups and women in various stages of reentry to gain knowledge and understanding of the issues and experiences at hand. In 2009, she connected with Community Works West and the Women’s Resource Center and met Chloe, whom she began meeting with regularly. Chloe had been out of prison for a couple years and was starting to work as a case manager at the Women’s Resource Center. Erin continued meeting and getting to know women at local programs and met Noelani the following year. Noelani had spent two 4-5 year stints at several prisons in California and was living in the Bayview neighborhood in San Francisco.

Later in 2010, a case manager assistant at the San Francisco County Jail contacted Erin about Tricia, a young woman who had been in and out of jail several times. Tricia was being held at the County Jail before she was transferred to serve her sentence at the Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW). Erin visited Tricia at the jail and began writing to her weekly. While staying in contact with Tricia at VSPW through letters and phone calls, Erin filmed interviews with Chloe and Noelani and began developing the visual style of the film. The style developed into spatial poetics that helped convey the memories and reflections these women experienced. Filming these private and public spaces helped to show that the women’s relationship to the world was forever changed due to their prison experiences. Noelani and Chloe were filmed in several interviews and the crew prepared for Tricia’s release in May of 2011.

The crew received permission and clearance from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in addition to the staff at Valley State Prison for Women to film Tricia’s release. The crew made several trips even toured the facility, to get initial footage. When Tricia was released, the small crew documented her first steps, first smoke break even her first trip to the store. Erin filmed Tricia’s first interview at her reentry program. This interview would be her one and only interview, as two days later Tricia would leave the program and return to the streets.

Production continued and Erin filmed several other interviews with Chloe and Noelani. On the last interview with Noelani, Erin filmed her playing “Freedom”, a song she wrote and composed in prison. Editing began in the spring of 2011 and continued for a full year. In the beginning of 2012, Erin began working on the comprehensive sound design with Javier Roberto Carlos Briones and on the original score with Gregory Sensibaugh. The film was finally mixed in August of 2012. In its short life, Living Inside Out has screened at the San Francisco State University MFA Cinema Thesis Show and started opening provocative discussion locally about incarceration, programs and understanding of formerly incarcerated women.