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Ann
Donahue has over ten years experience writing and producing
TV shows. Read this exclusive interview about where she
gets her ideas from for the most intriguing CSI plots.
Find out more about her work in issues two and ten of CSI: The Official DVD
Collection. |
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How do you use forensic to inspire you? And how do you keep up
to date with all the technological advances?
I’m always reading about science and when I learned about
an electronic ‘nose’ that could differentiate the
scent of perfumes I came up with the story in Bully for You.
The eyewitness was certain of a killer, based on scent, which
is subliminal but misleading. I then looked for a character
who was young enough and vulnerable enough to run with testimony
based on the scent of the killer (since the killer was behind
a door, committing the murder). I wrapped that story around
the preponderance of bullies in high schools – something
that had been floating in the back of my mind since the Colombine
massacre.
You seem to enjoy writing amazing plotlines for CSI. Can you
give us an example?
Scuba was a perfect, bizarre story because the script dealt
with an unbelievable crime (a dead guy wearing scuba gear found
in a tree in the middle of a forest fire). We immediately dealt
with the question of that old urban legend – was the
guy picked up by helicopter in a lake and dropped into a fire,
where the tree broke his fall?
As an aside, the ‘B’ story to that script was
equally unbelievable. A man’s wife was missing, but there
was blood spattered over the entire apartment – the walls,
floor and ceiling. The guy said he blew blood out his nose
onto the wall, and it turned out to be true. What I loved about
that story is that it’s based on fact – it was
taken from one of Liz Devine’s case files [Liz was a
real-life crime scene investigator for fifteen years and is
now one of the producers of CSI: Miami].
Is there such a thing as a typical day at work and if so,
what is it?
I’ve since moved over to run CSI: Miami. The only thing
typical about the day is the pressure to get a good story on
the board and have it written in time for our amazing crews
to produce them.
Everything else is keeping the machine running – casting
(and you never want to cast wrong – it can ruin a perfect
script), working with editors and CGI artisans, making script
changes based on a location you want (or can’t have),
approving wardrobe, making sure guest characters look their
part, talking to the network about promoting episodes that
are coming down the line, talking to the network about script
changes, meeting with next week’s director to make sure
she understands the script, talking on the phone from the set
of this week’s director because something is confusing
or they have a better idea, and so on!
The beauty of it is that no day is the same. The only bad
thing is that you wish you had more hours in the day! |
