Post by Naj on Sept 30, 2004 15:51:23 GMT -5
Probing a fresh dossier
'Cold Case' probing a fresh dossier of new-old crimes
By LUAINE LEE, Scripps Howard News Service
September 30, 2004
CBS's "Cold Case" returns Oct. 3 for a second season of new-old crimes to solve. One thing unique about the program is that much of it takes place back when the crime was committed, and the rest is set in the present. Helmed by executive producers Jonathan Littman and Meredith Stiehm, the show stars Kathryn Morris as the single, relentless cop hot on the trail of cold criminals.
The challenge of period pieces, according to Stiehm, is that "we're faced with the wall of: How you do a story from the '20s or the turn-of-the-century and still have people that are alive today that have an investment in that story and that you want to solve the case for? We're still struggling with that."
Solving old crimes is sobering business for Morris' character, Detective Lilly Rush: "Cold cases are not exactly the most chipper kind of work," says Morris. "She's not that perky about it because it's very serious. But there are moments of levity among the detectives. But I think she's more interested in getting the job done than trying to be a romantic-comedy sort of typical TV actress, in my opinion."
Morris, the youngest of six, had an atypical childhood. "We had a little singing group when I was a kid, sort of Partridge Family-like. I think I was 5 when we started that. ...we traveled around the South (and) sang gospel music.
"It was some wonderful times. I didn't know what the other families were doing, but I knew what ours was. So if I had a late-night gig and I rolled into school, and we got in at 3 in the morning, then I still had the spelling test in the morning. So I somehow got it done. It works really well for what I do now."
Eventually, "we all wanted to get on with our own lives. But then acting became something that I was more interested in. When you grow up in a family of performers, you want to find what you're best at. And I felt like that was something that had less limitations. If you're not born with the Barbra Streisand voice, it's not going to work out."
The show makes effective use of popular music, and has a period feel.
"You'll notice it (the show) from the color or sometimes lack thereof," says Littman. "You can talk about the timeless quality of the show, you want to have this great contrast between past and present. And our present has a very cool feel to it. Then you get the past. We work very, very hard to use actual ways of shooting that were done at the time.
"In the pilot, we used 16 mm Ektachrome, which is slide film which nobody's ever run through a movie camera before. We had Kodak make special actual reels of it. But it really looked like the '70s. We've done the '80s. We've shot on video. When we did the '40s, we used sepia. There's a lushness and a richness and an incredible sense of detail, and they're just a little darker ..."
As for the soundtrack, Littman says, "We've had songs that have just been too expensive. We've had people who would not want to give us the rights. We spent all year trying to get Bruce Springsteen.
"Initially (he) had said no. And we just kept going after him for different episodes, a couple that worked really great with a Bruce Springsteen song. And finally they said yes."
Stiehm adds: "It was 'Walk Like a Man.' It was at the end of an episode called 'The Lost Soul of Herman Lester.' It was about a basketball player, and there was sort of a father-son story. And that song just seemed dramatically right for it. So we wrote him a letter. We really campaigned to get him to say yes because he sort of is known to NOT clear for television. And Mark Pellington actually helped us. Mark Pellington is our consulting producer and he had done a video of Springsteen's. He sort of helped us get to him more personally than the usual channels."
'Cold Case' probing a fresh dossier of new-old crimes
By LUAINE LEE, Scripps Howard News Service
September 30, 2004
CBS's "Cold Case" returns Oct. 3 for a second season of new-old crimes to solve. One thing unique about the program is that much of it takes place back when the crime was committed, and the rest is set in the present. Helmed by executive producers Jonathan Littman and Meredith Stiehm, the show stars Kathryn Morris as the single, relentless cop hot on the trail of cold criminals.
The challenge of period pieces, according to Stiehm, is that "we're faced with the wall of: How you do a story from the '20s or the turn-of-the-century and still have people that are alive today that have an investment in that story and that you want to solve the case for? We're still struggling with that."
Solving old crimes is sobering business for Morris' character, Detective Lilly Rush: "Cold cases are not exactly the most chipper kind of work," says Morris. "She's not that perky about it because it's very serious. But there are moments of levity among the detectives. But I think she's more interested in getting the job done than trying to be a romantic-comedy sort of typical TV actress, in my opinion."
Morris, the youngest of six, had an atypical childhood. "We had a little singing group when I was a kid, sort of Partridge Family-like. I think I was 5 when we started that. ...we traveled around the South (and) sang gospel music.
"It was some wonderful times. I didn't know what the other families were doing, but I knew what ours was. So if I had a late-night gig and I rolled into school, and we got in at 3 in the morning, then I still had the spelling test in the morning. So I somehow got it done. It works really well for what I do now."
Eventually, "we all wanted to get on with our own lives. But then acting became something that I was more interested in. When you grow up in a family of performers, you want to find what you're best at. And I felt like that was something that had less limitations. If you're not born with the Barbra Streisand voice, it's not going to work out."
The show makes effective use of popular music, and has a period feel.
"You'll notice it (the show) from the color or sometimes lack thereof," says Littman. "You can talk about the timeless quality of the show, you want to have this great contrast between past and present. And our present has a very cool feel to it. Then you get the past. We work very, very hard to use actual ways of shooting that were done at the time.
"In the pilot, we used 16 mm Ektachrome, which is slide film which nobody's ever run through a movie camera before. We had Kodak make special actual reels of it. But it really looked like the '70s. We've done the '80s. We've shot on video. When we did the '40s, we used sepia. There's a lushness and a richness and an incredible sense of detail, and they're just a little darker ..."
As for the soundtrack, Littman says, "We've had songs that have just been too expensive. We've had people who would not want to give us the rights. We spent all year trying to get Bruce Springsteen.
"Initially (he) had said no. And we just kept going after him for different episodes, a couple that worked really great with a Bruce Springsteen song. And finally they said yes."
Stiehm adds: "It was 'Walk Like a Man.' It was at the end of an episode called 'The Lost Soul of Herman Lester.' It was about a basketball player, and there was sort of a father-son story. And that song just seemed dramatically right for it. So we wrote him a letter. We really campaigned to get him to say yes because he sort of is known to NOT clear for television. And Mark Pellington actually helped us. Mark Pellington is our consulting producer and he had done a video of Springsteen's. He sort of helped us get to him more personally than the usual channels."
