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Each month we will showcase a City agency employee or an industry specialist who helps to facilitate production in New York City.
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Sean Jones: Bringing Small Cells to the Big Screen
February 1, 2007 - Sean Jones is very familiar with what the inside of a jail looks like. That’s because since 1999, Jones has worked for the New York City Department of Correction in a number of capacities. He got his start working as a correction officer for two years before moving on to the DOC’s office of public information. But after serving in this primarily administrative role, Jones got an itch to go back to correctional office work. He moved up to the rank of captain after taking a captain’s exam, left the office of public information, and served as a correction officer once more. Eventually, an opportunity again opened up with the DOC’s office of public information that Jones couldn’t ignore - overseeing film production in detention facilities. It is in this capacity that Jones became familiar with the film industry and the intricacies of a shoot. “I learned from the ground level on what it’s like to be on-site of a shoot,” said Jones.
Jones’ work for the DOC requires sophisticated coordination skills. “Sometimes there could be up to 200 or 300 cast and crew members in Rikers Island. The DOC holds 14,000 inmates daily,” Jones explains. “It can be a big job to keep 300 civilian individuals separated from these inmates.” Everything is restricted to a point in a detention facility like Rikers, and all visitors to Rikers must wear ID tags. “We have to keep an eye out for these ID’s,” explains Jones, “and make sure that if 300 IDs go in, 300 IDs have to come out.”
To learn about filming in Riker’s Island or other detention facilities, call (212) 266-1000.
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