Production Notes
A Conversation with the Director of GETTING OUT, Robe Imbriano

Leonard Marks, the parole chief in our film, says at one point that he doesn’t know a single family that doesn’t have someone in jail, prison, or on parole. My family wouldn’t be an exception. In fact, it’s a standard tale of the extended black family in America . I’ve had family on both sides of this story – addicts behind bars, cops and security guards (sometimes, both).

I know this story because it’s been a part of my life for decades – kind of like growing up singing, then getting to college only to see that there’s an entire department dedicated to studying music. Seeing the incarceration pandemic extend past my family and sweep the nation, I decided to study it too.

GETTING OUT is part of that journey. This is a complicated story – much, much more complex than any political sloganeering would suggest. There are so many reasons for failure and so many coincidences that lead to success. Of course, the opposite is also true. Austin , Texas has fewer people than the number that will return to our streets from prison in 2004. If you took all the people dying of heart failure this year, they wouldn’t add up to the number who come out of prison. They’re all around us, having an impact on the daily lives of countless communities, and we’ve barely paid this uniquely American phenomenon any attention.

To get this project off the ground, Carla Denly and I visited or called almost every organization in the New York City that deals with this population – non-profit, religious, vocational – looking for people who were about to be released. When two separate organizations suggested Veronica Flournoy, we contacted her to see if we could meet her. Anyone who’d come up on the radar of two different organizations before leaving prison was working very hard, indeed, to prepare for her release.

She was everything we’d imagined – bright, funny, keenly aware and relentless. Veronica was going to make something happen for herself, or she was going down with a fight. She was also willing to let us come along.

I met Ray with representatives from the Coalition of the Homeless. From my study, I knew that former prisoners were one of the fastest growing groups of homeless men, and the Coalition was incredibly helpful to us, introducing us to men at Bellevue in Manhattan and Bedford-Atlantic in Brooklyn . To a man, they all said they preferred prison to the shelter, where many were truly afraid something would happen to them or what was left of their personal belongings. To someone like Ray, a former addict, the shelters might as well have been crack houses. There were triggers everywhere, including crack itself.

Jasper was referred to us by the Fifth Avenue Committee, a remarkable storefront organization that serves just about every need in its working-class Brooklyn neighborhood. Fifth Avenue , like Exodus and the Fortune Society, is filled with people who bring the dedication of having been where their clients are, and don’t want anyone to get stuck there. After decades of purposely flying beneath the radar, Jasper, for some reason, decided to let us film him.

What’s not seen behind any of the vèrite pieces I’ve done is the courage it takes to let someone follow them around with a camera at what can be the most delicate points of their lives. Unlike reality shows, where “reality” is constructed to fit the needs of a TV narrative, these folks allowed us to accompany them through lives about as predictable as a twister.

Character profiles of key people in the film

Veronica
Veronica was sentenced to eight years to life for carrying cocaine for her boyfriend. She says that she was pressured to turn against him, but wouldn’t, out of fear for the safety of her family, and received a stiff sentence in return, guided by the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Her sentence was so severe that Veronica’s parole officer shakes her head in disbelief when she reads it for the first time.

Veronica had a 14-month old daughter at the time, and it wasn’t until her physical at Riker’s Island that she discovered she was pregnant with her second. Keyshawna was born in prison, and lived in the nursery of the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility until she was 13 months old, at which point she joined her sister and grandmother in Florida . When we meet Veronica, her mother is 76 years old, and her daughters are eight and five. We’re with Veronica on Keyshawna’s sixth birthday – the first with mother and daughter out of prison.

Her goal is simple, yet extraordinarily difficult: Veronica wants to be on her feet before she brings her family to New York to live with her. Wisely, she understands that she “can’t bring them into my chaos;” that she has to have a home, a job, and some level of comfort to be the mother she’s never been.

But Veronica has no home in New York . She is remanded to Providence House, a residence of women who were recently incarcerated, run by nuns with the support of Parole. Through Veronica we meet some of the women of Providence House who have a vastly different reentry experience. Veronica spent two years before her release relentlessly advocating on her own behalf for jobs and a place to live. She also benefits from an informal network of former prisoners unlike either of our two men or any of the other women in the house.

She quickly finds a part-time job, clothes, and healthcare through this informal network and its collective institutional memory. Luckier than most, when Veronica walks into a cell phone store to ask about rates, the clerk is a former felon who helps her get a phone.

We also follow Veronica as she navigates a maze of Catch-22’s that are the best options for former offenders to get on their feet. Medicaid, public assistance, mandatory drug treatment, and parole are all intended to ease her transition. Yet, they leave her exasperated to the point where she looks at camera, near tears, and says, “When can I look for a job? I want to find a job! I don’t want to be a drain on the system!”

Her parole officers are uniquely supportive. Old-school parole officers, throwbacks to the old social worker models of the rehabilitation days, run a program for the women in Providence House. These parole officers allow Veronica to go to Florida to see her children and we go with her as she reunites with her family for the first time. They have never been together outside of prison.

After a wonderful reunion, Veronica is overwhelmed with emotion. Her mother is tired and uses a walker to get around. The kids are growing. There’s little discipline, and Veronica feels an enormous sense of guilt for not being there. She weeps on the second day, then recovers to start raising her children. By the end of the film, she’s working and has brought her family to New York.

Ray
Ray married his high school sweetheart, had two kids, worked as a mechanic, and sold crack to fuel his own habit. By the time his second boy was four, his family had broken up, and he was a full-time junkie. By the time his second boy was eight, Ray was in prison on a possession charge. His ex-wife was living with her mother and the two boys.

We meet Ray on his first night out. It’s one of the coldest nights of the year, and he’s just arrived at the Bellevue Men’s Homeless Shelter in Manhattan . The next day, Ray leaves the shelter to roam the streets for the day. He’s got no money, and it will take 45 days for public assistance to kick in. On top of that, though illegal, the people who run the homeless shelter have told everyone to leave for the day and come back in the evening. Ray has no place to go, and decides – without telling anyone – to move into his mother-in-law’s apartment with his very angry ex-wife and two kids.

Ray-Ray is the oldest. At 23, he’s already been arrested for minor drug possession, and is on probation for a misdemeanor. Roy , the youngest, is a cherubic 14 year-old (he looks more like he’s 10), and is not doing well in school. He’s on the cusp of following his father and brother when his father comes home determined not to let him.

Unlike Veronica, Ray lacks the verbal skills and resourcefulness to get a job and alternative housing right away. He’s stuck, waiting for public assistance and food stamps to kick in. The only other possibility for him is to go back to his old neighborhood to look for part-time, off-the-books mechanic work, but that means going back to the same block where he became a junkie.

Anna, or “Cuty,” Ray’s ex-wife, is resentful from the start. She tell us, “I have nothing good to say…if it were up to me, he’d be in a shelter,” and “There’s no pity…nothing at all”. They are frank with each other but clearly want their lives to be better. Soon, however, Ray misses his curfews with increasing frequency and starts thinking aloud about selling drugs again to make money.

Jasper
Jasper is two people. There’s Jasper, the thoughtful, poetic, and artistic force of nature, and there’s “Born,” the street enforcer who spent a decade terrifying the people of Far Rockaway, then another ten years in prison for attempted murder for shooting one of his rivals in the face. Jasper wasn’t addicted to drugs, “I was addicted to the streets.”

As he puts it, “Jasper is trying not to be ‘Born.’” The task is as gargantuan as Jasper’s temper. All of the instincts he honed to survive the streets and in prison now serve him poorly. Shedding them is a process Jasper has invited us to see.

Formerly incarcerated adults need ID, so Jasper takes a driver’s test. When he’s told at the end of the test that he’s failed, he curses at the examiner and kicks her out of the car. He goes to his old hangout to pass out fliers to a show he’s producing, and ends up in an argument with one of the barbers. Eddie Rosario, Jasper’s counselor with the Fifth Avenue Committee in Brooklyn, says, “this is a crucial moment in Jasper’s development,” but that Jasper has gained insight to himself. Eddie is a former prisoner who’s been straight 13 years and he may be right.

GETTING OUT Production Staff

Robe Imbriano has produced for everyone from Peter Jennings to Diane Sawyer, Ted Koppel, and Oprah Winfrey. In more than a decade at ABC News, he was part of the production teams that first brought to air such shows as PrimeTime Live, Day One, World News Now, and The Century. He also spent two years at CBS News, garnering an Emmy nomination while at 48 Hours for his work on about accusations of child abuse in Wenatchee, Washington.

Recently, he has participated in two award winning series for Nightline. He was part of a team of producers that spent months shooting throughout the juvenile justice institutions of San Jose . This series was produced in conjunction with Frontline, and aired as a 90-minute broadcast for that show as well. Robe’s series on hip-hop with Robert Krulwich earned a Gerald Loeb Award finalist citation for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism in Television.

Carla Denly chronicled the first months of Veronica Flournoy’s parole. Before joining Crystal Stair Productions, Carla worked on numerous productions at ABC News’ long form unit as a field producer. Among her works are “State v.” a five-hour documentary series documenting criminal trials from pre-trial preparations to the jury’s verdict, and “Hip Hop Grows Up,” a three-part series for Nightline that was a finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism. She is currently field-producing a one-hour film on a high school in New York that gives non-traditional -aged students a chance at getting a diploma that will air on Nowwith Bill Moyers.

Gena Konstantinakos joined Crystal Stair Productions to follow Ray Diaz when he left prison. Gena started producing in 2000 and has already filmed several documentaries for MSNBC, A&E, and Discovery Times networks. She is currently directing a documentary about the relationship between a heroin-addicted couple.

Daryl Pendana has worked on documentaries and music videos in his 20-year career as a producer, director of photography, and editor. His recent documentary work with Crystal Stair Productions includes “Heat,” which was nominated for the James Beard Award; “Movie Club,” a 30 th reunion of a VISTA worker and the kids whose lives he helped by making films; and “Not So Black & White,” about life in Forrest, Mississippi, all of which aired on PBS’ Life 360. Daryl filmed Jasper Kelly’s first months of parole for GETTING OUT.

Contact:

Liz Reynoso
Crystal Stair Productions, Inc.
718-622-1414
crystalstairtv@hotmail.com