Guest Post by Amy Entelis

Shortly after Election Day 2016, CNN began filming inside the Obama White House to tell a story we thought had never previously been told: What is it like to work for the world’s oldest constitutional democracy as it transitions power from one administration to another?

We approached the White House with the concept of a film that could capture this history-making Administration, in the voices of key figures of the White House, in their twilight days. For “The End: Inside the Last Days of the Obama White House,” we pursued an inside-out view of the White House, securing exclusive access to many of the people who have worked most closely to the Obamas during their extraordinary journey.

Our subjects included White House press secretary Josh Earnest, senior advisor Valerie Jarrett, speech writer Cody Keenan, communications director Jen Psaki, chief White House usher Angella Reid, and assistant to the President and chief of staff for the First Lady of the United States, Tina Tchen.

We asked these people for their first-person perspectives on their public service with the Obamas, as well as their singular reflections on what their collaborations have meant to them. Set to film in the wake of an unprecedented campaign, following ultimately unexpected election results, we knew this would be a time of great emotion and enormous nostalgia for them, and we also wanted to capture that for our film.

We retained exclusive editorial control over the content, without oversight by the White House. Since we are a news organization, this independence was essential to our process.

We were granted access to meetings, meals, and work that ordinarily take place outside of the public eye. Inside Earnest’s office, he reflects upon how he steeled himself to “keep [his] emotions in check” for the first press briefings immediately following the election. Jarrett candidly recalls the election as ‘a soul-crushing defeat for us.’ While, in Hawaii during the holidays, Keenan described how he and President Obama cultivated optimistic notes as they wrote the President’s Farewell Address.

Despite this incredible access, there were challenges. Following any one of these busy people would have been challenging under ordinary circumstances, so following all of these people, multiple times, over consecutive days, presented not just ordinary, but exceptional circumstances.

From a technical perspective, the work spaces inside the White House are actually quite small. Maneuvering our crew in a way to make our filming unobtrusive took very creative planning. And, the normally sequential process of filmmaking — development followed by preproduction, then principal photography, followed by post production — was not possible given our time constraints. We essentially had to edit in real time, during principal photography, and carefully manage our timeline and film plan. We didn’t have the luxury of rethinking or reshoots.

And, from just a human point of view, we understood the election results were not what our subjects had hoped they would be. We were not quite certain some of them would want to talk as frankly as they did, but ultimately they also understood this film would serve as a record of their eyewitness accounts of the ambitions and the heartbreaks of this Administration.

They discuss the mood inside the White House as they learned about the mass shooting of school children in Sandy Hook, and the failure of their legislative efforts to close loopholes that could prevent a similar future tragedy. And, for the Affordable Care Act, Keenan and Jarrett describe their surprise at the deeply personal partisan nature of the opposition to the law, and Tchen cheerfully reveled in recounting the joy inside the White House when Obamacare was successfully passed by Congress.

The rest of us have watched this history-making Administration from afar. We wanted to take viewers inside the White House to give viewers a sense of what it has been like to have been an eyewitness. These voices take viewers behind the extraordinary moments — the highlights and the disappointments — that they have seen from a distance during these last eight years. We feel the result is an incredibly intimate perspective on the key moments that have defined this President and his Administration.

As the world prepares to witness the formal ceremony that is the inauguration of a new president, we wanted to reveal the emotions and perspectives behind the defining moments of this Administration. As the creative team for this film, which also included Toby Oppenheimer, Susan Chun, and Courtney Sexton, we aimed to produce a film that would yield a deeper appreciation of the uniquely American, peaceful transition of the enormous power of the American presidency that distinguishes our democracy. We hope viewers vote that we’ve delivered that.

“The End: Inside the Last Days of the Obama White House” premieres in simulcast on CNN/U.S. and CNN International on Wednesday, January 18 at 9pm Eastern. After the telecast, the film will be available via On Demand. Find more information about the film on CNN’s site.

Amy Entelis is executive vice president for talent and content development for CNN Worldwide where she established CNN Films, now in its fifth year, and oversees its strategy. She is an executive producer for this film along with Toby Oppenheimer, Susan Chun, and Courtney Sexton.