Making the Documentary Ernie & Joe'

Making the Documentary Ernie & Joe'

Hillary Lewis January 26, 2024

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Creative COW's Hillary Lewis sits down with Jenifer McShane at SXSW to talk about her latest documentary feature following two unique police officers who approach the mental health crisis in San Antonio, TX in a new, inspiring way.

Research estimates that 1 in 4 adults will experience a mental health issue over the course of their lives, leading to the largest mental health crisis in the United States and around the world today.

With higher rates of suicides, mass shootings and incarceration of the mentally ill, there has long been a profound misunderstanding on what mental illness is and how to help those dealing with a mental health crisis especially in law enforcement.

Ernie & Joe is a documentary following two San Antonio law enforcement officers, Ernie Stevens and Joe Smarro, who strove to find a healthier way of interacting with the mentally ill in their community. They now operate the first ever 10-person mental health unit in San Antonio and are trailblazing the way in educating law enforcement on a new humanistic approach: treating the mentally ill rather than criminalizing them.

With this solution-based film, we witness the enlightened success of creating human connection in place of using excessive force, and the bright hope of rebuilding lost trust in local police officers.

Jenifer McShane - director and producer of Ernie & Joe - spent four years filming her last documentary Mothers of Bedford in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison north of New York City. There she witnessed the disheartening link between incarcerating the mentally ill and the direct effects on their families and the entire community, especially between incarcerated mothers and their children.

Following the debut premiere of Ernie & Joe at the SXSW Film Festival and an emotional audience Q&A session, I sat down with Jenifer McShane and spoke with her on the audience reaction to the film, the obstacles of filming this subject in an unobtrusive way, and how she assembled the best crew for production and post.

(Q&A session with the audience at the SXSW 2019 premiere of Ernie & Joe', from left: E.J. Enr quez (camera), Paul Toohey (sound), Toby Shimin (editor), Andrea Meditch (executive producer), SXSW announcer, Jenifer McShane (director), Joe Smarro (cast), and Ernie Stevens (cast))

Creative COW: Did the dynamics of personalities on your crew affect your filming, in a way you didn't expect?

McShane: Yes, it was paramount to me that my presence and the crew's presence didn't change the dynamic of the work we were doing. The whole idea behind Ernie and Joe's work was about having a dialogue and communication with victims, and us being there could totally derail the work they were doing.

At the same time I wanted that intimacy too, and we ended up getting that through the sound. I wanted to preserve the privacy and respect but allow the intimacy so the audience gets why this was important.

But a nice side effect of that, Paul Toohey (sound) who's 6'3 , and E.J. Enr quez (camera) are crammed into the back of their police car, but thankfully they ended up getting along really well with Ernie and Joe. That helped Ernie and Joe feel really relaxed with them there. You never can be sure going into to something like this, but it was a very nice vibe.

Paul Toohey (sound) and E.J. Enr quez (camera) in production on a night ride

I felt really fortunate to develop a trusting relationship with them and the other officers as well, telling them how often I was going to keep coming back again and again. I got a joke from one of the head officers, Wow, you must have enough for four films , and having to explain to them how there's so many layers to capture. But I think we started off with a strong relationship with them and had such friendly vibes it made shooting a lot easier.

While you had a small production crew of just a camera, sound, and yourself, I realized most of your post production crew is almost entirely women. Was that a happy accident or did you set out to make an all female post team?

I'm a collaborator by nature and I love when it works out for an all female team, but I didn't pursue that necessarily. It was all very natural and I couldn't have been happier.

I had worked with a female editor, Toby Shimin, before and I knew there was nobody else I wanted to work with.

My crew, sound and camera, I wanted to be Texas-based since there were times when I was in transit or traveling home and they were able to quickly get on location since they were only an hour away from San Antonio. And I heard great things about E.J. Enr quez and Paul Toohey, who are not female but are super at what they do, and it worked out really well.

Our post sound mixer, Annie Medlin, was also great. She did our dialogue edit and sound mixing, and I didn't realize but there's not that many sound mixers that are female. There are lot of dialogue editors but not many sound mixers, so having her on was great as well.

What resources do you use to assemble your team and crew?

This whole project was funded through grants and foundations, so I've had a big posse behind me, but mostly by word of mouth. I put the word out through other filmmakers I knew and tried to find a crew that was going to be comfortable in an observational role riding along with Ernie and Joe.

But a lot of it was conversations. I talked to my editor and she put me in contact with so and so, etc. And I think sometimes women can network in a style that's a little more inclusive, but it was always important to me that I surrounded myself with people who got what I needed to do. So much of this project is about passion and persistence, you're always worried about funding a

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