Somehow the equipment stood up to grit, freezing fog and generally punishing conditions the landscape alongside the volcano threw at us. As we discovered in our third and final day of interviews with President Arias, the price he paid, was linked to the environment, stunning scenery and natural beauty of Costa Rica. Capturing it on film also gave us a decent break from the intensity of the interviews.

President Arafat’s wife was by no means the only one shedding tears across the first three films, and it wasn’t just the interviewees. Every member of the crew bawled their eyes out at one point or another. The impact of the sound of an on-screen sniffle before the inevitable tears that follow from the decisions faced, choices made and unforeseen consequences was a revelation.

It wasn’t really until the third and final day of interviews with Oscar Arias that he really opened up. You can hear the hesitancy in his voice before curbing his words - but that made the opening up all the more powerful. Everyone had warned us that though he might come across as arrogant in fact he was just naturally shy - making the choice of a career in politics extraordinary. In fact, one of his peers called him the anti-politician and by the end of our time with him in Costa Rica we understood why.

Despite visiting some fairly dangerous locations, the West Bank town of Hebron easily outstripped them all in terms of the feeling that at any point in time it could turn nasty. Just the sound of the wind whistling down eerily empty streets coupled with the sound of prayers followed by heavy military footsteps was enough to tell you this place had some bad Juju. It was particularly heartbreaking to watch this footage in the edit suite alongside the sound of former Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, thundering in outrage - declaring he was determined the Hebron massacre would have zero impact on the peace process. Within a year he’d be assassinated by rightwing Israeli extremist, Yigdal Amir and nearly two decades later the peace process is in worse condition than it’s ever been under current Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu.

Background noise was a real headache whilst filming David Wilder - the media mouthpiece for the Jewish community in Hebron. Distinctly adroit at side-stepping anything that might be seen as controversial with genuine insight into the problems presented to Israeli leaders by their own citizens. Then after his interview, one of the guys watching came over and said, “I’ve got something to say that David wouldn’t”... Somehow, with halftracks and armoured cars passing behind us we got it in the can. If ever there was a contrast between a media mouthpiece’s carefully constructed answers and the people he represents - this was it.

At one point Tirawi was one of Israel’s most wanted men. Arafat hid him in his offices (the Muqata) and chose not to hand him over - resulting in a three year siege, Arafat’s death and General Tirawi’s unstinting loyalty. The exterior footage captured some fantastic atmospheric noise of soldiers marching in the parade ground you simply can’t duplicate with a sound effects CD. Tirawi was cool, calm and collected until he started re-telling his last moments with Arafat - sitting on the floor crying and hugging Arab-Israeli Member of the Knesset, Dr Ahmed Tibi.

More freezing temperature to test the kit. But pretty much everywhere you pointed the camera, the view was stunning. You’d have to be a really good cameraman to get a bad shot in Costa Rica.

If it wasn’t the below zero temperatures atop Costa Rican volcanos it was the heat and dust of places like the West Bank town of Ramallah. Not long after this picture was taken two Range Rovers with blacked out windows showed up and unloaded a troop of armed bodyguards with the owners of the quarry we were filming next to. This was right behind the infamous Kalandia border crossing where thousands of Palestinians queue for hours on end to get through every day. Easy to see how things can get out of hand when you’re living under occupation and an extraordinary situation for Arafat to lead his people under.

Headed for General Tirawi’s Palestinian Security Forces training base in Jericho where we interviewed Tirawi as well as getting some fantastic footage of his troops training. Tirawi, was at Arafat’s side when he first fell ill whilst under siege in his Presidential headquarters, the Muqata.

Part of the conflict we found inside President Peres in Film 2 was based on current treatment of Arab-Israelis and discrimination in the state he was instrumental in building. Having dedicated his life to building a state born of the holocaust’s racism, he finds himself presiding over discrimination - so much so that he’d got to the point where he said he could only be responsible for his own views and that if others chose to discriminate all he could do was fight them.

The battle of El Karameh - a village in the inhospitable Jordanian desert was a crucial turning point for Arafat’s leadership. Israel’s army under Moshe Dayan had pretty much decimated the Arab forces in the six day war and were considered invincible. Arafat chose to stand and fight in Karameh where the PFLP and other guerilla factions chose to run and live to fight another day. Another of our interviewees, Bassam Abu Sharif (PFLP) was there when Arafat met with leaders from other factions in the caves above Karameh, trying to persuade them to stand and fight. Arafat emerged from the battle a hero, cementing his leadership.

As hard as we tried to convince Qurei to do the interview in his perfectly good English, at the last minute he wouldn’t. We had to rig up a system for the directors to listen to a live, in-ear translation, thankfully something sound recordist Simon Bishop had prepared for. Yasser Arafat said he’d rather cut off his right hand than accept Ahmed Qurei’s resignation. He was the lead negotiator in the secret Oslo negotiations - ultimately the closest Israel and the Palestinians ever got to peace, and resulting in Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Defying Ronald Reagan, despite Costa Rica having no army and being surrounded by warring Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras was a difficult decision but proven to be the right one. When he shot this look at the camera we got a glimpse of how tough the naturally shy Arias can be. No-one believed he could bring peace to Central America, let alone get men like Nicaragua’s President Ortega to the negotiating table

Munib flew supplies for Arafat in his company planes, helped his escape from Jordan during Black September, sent a yacht to rescue Arafat... the list goes on. Extraordinary revelations alongside fascinating tales from his early years as a revolutionary leader. We tried to get as much as we could into the film but could easily have ended up with a 3 hour movie featuring only Munib - ultimately we had to settle for including much of it in the DVD extras.

“What we call experience, the young generation call a chain of mistakes.” That was pretty much the first thing Peres said on camera. It felt like we got lucky and he was at a time and place in his life when he just wanted to offload. “OK, you really want to know how hard it is ? The price you pay ? I’ll tell you... but don’t blame me if you don’t like what you hear”... that kind of thing. By the end of our three meetings with Peres he’d gone full circle - there was some fairly unpleasant stuff in there, actually that’s a gross understatement - Peres pretty much faced the the worst possible circumstances and decisions a man can face, but by the time he’d revealed it all, on reflection, he figured the price he paid was worth it. What caught us totally by surprise was the price.