Throughout the documentary, the Avery family — most notably Steven’s parents, Delores and Allan, and Brendan Dassey’s mother, Barb Tadych — are incredibly press averse. But Demos and Ricciardi not only secured repeated interviews with them, they also filmed them in their homes.

“Steven wanted his voice to be heard and he was sort of a gatekeeper in terms of our access to the family,” Ricciardi said of their unique access. “As with most of the subjects who became sit-down subjects, we would reach out with a letter. We wrote to Steven while he was in the county jail — this was after his preliminary hearing and he had just learned in December of 2005 that there was enough evidence to hold him for trial. He knew he was facing mandatory life should he be convicted, so things were pretty bleak for him and the stakes were very high. I would say he was immediately open to us and made it possible for us to meet his mother and his brother. We drove out to the yard and visited with them in the shop and basically, through that, we were able to find a way in.

“I think what they seemed to respond well to was that it was so clear we were not there to judge. There was no sense of urgency on our part — we could take our time. We were there to listen, we were as respectful as we could be, we would make appointments with them, and it wasn't as if we would drive up and start filming the second we got out of the car. We just started to build a rapport with the family and it was incredible. They were incredibly gracious to us. They had this 40-acre lot, which was not only their business, but also their home. They opened all of it up to us.”