Post by TVFan on Jun 4, 2004 10:34:26 GMT -5
I was looking through some TV industry articles, and I came across this one on Cold Case. It's from New York's Newsday December 21, 2003 edition. There's some intersting info on how the show came about, where some story ideas come from, and lots of other neat tidbits.
Time And Punishment;
Convincing re-creations of the past blended with the present are the signature of 'Cold Case,' a drama about investigating old crimes
By Karin Lipson. STAFF WRITER
There's a character in "Cold Case," the first-season CBS police drama involving old, unsolved crimes, that receives no mention in the credits - but is crucial to every episode.
"We talk a lot about time as a character," says Meredith Stiehm, who created the show and is one of its executive producers. "Time changes people, time changes circumstances."
In "Cold Case," which airs Sundays at 8 p.m., it's the job of Philadelphia homicide detective Lilly Rush (Kathryn Morris) and her cold-case team to use the advantages of time - new forensic techniques, new witnesses, new attitudes - to unravel the mystery of long-unsolved murders.
As the lone female detective in the city's homicide squad, outsider Rush seems to have a special drive to re-examine cases that hit a dead end, often decades ago. If her digging rattles some folks who don't want the past dredged up (and that can include the guilty and the innocent), too bad. The sight of dusty cold-case files lining the shelves of a police storage room has convinced her of one thing: "People shouldn't be forgotten," as Rush says in the premiere episode.
In the show's signature effect, those people and the events surrounding their violent end are re- created for the viewer through evocative flashbacks, which have a different look and sound - right down to the popular songs of the era - from the "current" scenes. Characters who may be middle-aged in up-to-date scenes are portrayed in the flashbacks by younger actors who often bear them a strong resemblance.
The latest crime-series entry from the Jerry Bruckheimer television powerhouse (the "CSI" franchise; "Without a Trace"), "Cold Case" debuted in September to mixed reviews. While some critics found the show well-produced and praised the pale, blond Morris ("Minority Report") for largely shouldering each episode, others were less enthralled. Newsday's Diane Werts called the the pilot's murder case "disappointingly derivative" and the filmmaking "showily self-conscious."
Still, the approach has worked well enough to make "Cold Case" the most successful new prime-time show of the season, and in some weeks, among the Nielsen ratings' top 10.
Audiences, it seems, also have been primed for the subject by real-life events. Advances in DNA analysis and other forensic methods have led in the last decade or so to the creation of "cold case squads" that review old evidence, sometimes with new - and newsworthy - results (see sidebar).
The idea for "Cold Case" itself was born after Stiehm, a former writer for "NYPD Blue" who was looking around for "a new way to approach an age-old genre," noticed that "cold cases just seemed to be coming up more and more in the news." In fact, it was the much-publicized case of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, convicted in 2002 of the 1975 murder of neighbor Martha Moxley - when both Skakel and the victim were 15 - that provided the grist for the show's pilot episode.
"I was so interested that this crime committed when someone was 15 years old can still be addressed and solved so much time later," Stiehm says. "It wasn't solvable, and in 2002 maybe it is solvable." (For the record, Skakel filed an appeal of his conviction in November.)
Stiehm pitched her idea for a cold-case show to Jonathan Littman, who runs the Bruckheimer TV operations. It wasn't the first time he'd heard it, says Littman. And he had always taken a pass.
"People have been trying to do the cold-case show for years. It's been one of those elusive network dramas that no one has ever gotten to work," says Littman (also an executive producer for the show). The key problem, he explains, has always been "where's the urgency? The crime is old." When Stiehm "sat down pitching the show," Littman recalls, "she talked about flashbacks" as a way of "bringing the crime to life."
While Bruckheimer shows are known for their offbeat effects - those down-the-blood-vessel rides on "CSI" or the ghostly missing persons of "Without a Trace" - the "pitch" conversation for "Cold Case" ranged farther afield, according to Littman: "One of the motivators conceptually was 'Citizen Kane,' when you watched the characters young and [then] old. We talked about how fascinating it was that you watched them change over time."
While it's unlikely that viewers will compare "Cold Case" flashbacks with Orson Welles' movie masterpiece, the show does go to considerable lengths to create the right atmosphere. Each episode's flashbacks are shot differently, using different types of film stock. The pilot used Kodachrome, "which is rarely used for filming" because of its expense, Littman says; it was chosen because the episode's crime occurred in the '70s, "when Kodachrome first came out, and it gave it that kind of rich, lush, off-kilter look."
Another episode features a crime set in the '80s, and the flashbacks were shot in video. In still another story, "A Time to Hate," a 1964 murder rooted in gay-bashing is re-created in black-and-white footage. Songs from the '60s, including "Town Without Pity" and "Turn, Turn, Turn," also help evoke the era.
Both Stiehm and Littman consider "A Time to Hate" one of the best episodes yet. "It really showed the effect of time, how mores have changed," says Littman. While the episode concerns "the murder of a gay man in the '60s that was swept under the carpet because he was gay," such a murder now would be considered a hate crime, he points out.
So, other than the Skakel-inspired pilot, where do these stories come from? Not, as some may surmise, from the A&E cable network's documentary-format "Cold Case Files," which gets a tag line after each episode of CBS' "Cold Case" ("Watch the forensic documentary series "Cold Case Files" only on A&E Network.") (The promo, says Littman, was part of a licensing arrangement between CBS and A&E after the latter objected to the use of the similar title: "We were looking for alternate titles" when the deal, "beneficial to both," was struck.)
While writers and a staff researcher scour newspapers and the Internet for material (and Stiehm's sister, Jamie Stiehm, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, gives her occasional input as well), many stories are actual cases from the Philadelphia police department.
Philadelphia became the setting for "Cold Case" "because I went to college there, and so I knew the city somewhat," says Stiehm. "When I was researching it, I met the homicide detectives who worked cold cases. And they were so good to me, very welcoming and willing to talk about how they do their jobs." One of them, Det. Tim Bass, still serves the show as a technical adviser.
The real Philadelphia cold-case squad, by the way, was different from the fictional one in at least one key way: It had no female homicide detectives at all. The fact wasn't lost on Stiehm.
"Oh yeah," Stiehm says, laughing. "I was looking for the Lilly Rush there, and I never found her."
Time And Punishment;
Convincing re-creations of the past blended with the present are the signature of 'Cold Case,' a drama about investigating old crimes
By Karin Lipson. STAFF WRITER
There's a character in "Cold Case," the first-season CBS police drama involving old, unsolved crimes, that receives no mention in the credits - but is crucial to every episode.
"We talk a lot about time as a character," says Meredith Stiehm, who created the show and is one of its executive producers. "Time changes people, time changes circumstances."
In "Cold Case," which airs Sundays at 8 p.m., it's the job of Philadelphia homicide detective Lilly Rush (Kathryn Morris) and her cold-case team to use the advantages of time - new forensic techniques, new witnesses, new attitudes - to unravel the mystery of long-unsolved murders.
As the lone female detective in the city's homicide squad, outsider Rush seems to have a special drive to re-examine cases that hit a dead end, often decades ago. If her digging rattles some folks who don't want the past dredged up (and that can include the guilty and the innocent), too bad. The sight of dusty cold-case files lining the shelves of a police storage room has convinced her of one thing: "People shouldn't be forgotten," as Rush says in the premiere episode.
In the show's signature effect, those people and the events surrounding their violent end are re- created for the viewer through evocative flashbacks, which have a different look and sound - right down to the popular songs of the era - from the "current" scenes. Characters who may be middle-aged in up-to-date scenes are portrayed in the flashbacks by younger actors who often bear them a strong resemblance.
The latest crime-series entry from the Jerry Bruckheimer television powerhouse (the "CSI" franchise; "Without a Trace"), "Cold Case" debuted in September to mixed reviews. While some critics found the show well-produced and praised the pale, blond Morris ("Minority Report") for largely shouldering each episode, others were less enthralled. Newsday's Diane Werts called the the pilot's murder case "disappointingly derivative" and the filmmaking "showily self-conscious."
Still, the approach has worked well enough to make "Cold Case" the most successful new prime-time show of the season, and in some weeks, among the Nielsen ratings' top 10.
Audiences, it seems, also have been primed for the subject by real-life events. Advances in DNA analysis and other forensic methods have led in the last decade or so to the creation of "cold case squads" that review old evidence, sometimes with new - and newsworthy - results (see sidebar).
The idea for "Cold Case" itself was born after Stiehm, a former writer for "NYPD Blue" who was looking around for "a new way to approach an age-old genre," noticed that "cold cases just seemed to be coming up more and more in the news." In fact, it was the much-publicized case of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, convicted in 2002 of the 1975 murder of neighbor Martha Moxley - when both Skakel and the victim were 15 - that provided the grist for the show's pilot episode.
"I was so interested that this crime committed when someone was 15 years old can still be addressed and solved so much time later," Stiehm says. "It wasn't solvable, and in 2002 maybe it is solvable." (For the record, Skakel filed an appeal of his conviction in November.)
Stiehm pitched her idea for a cold-case show to Jonathan Littman, who runs the Bruckheimer TV operations. It wasn't the first time he'd heard it, says Littman. And he had always taken a pass.
"People have been trying to do the cold-case show for years. It's been one of those elusive network dramas that no one has ever gotten to work," says Littman (also an executive producer for the show). The key problem, he explains, has always been "where's the urgency? The crime is old." When Stiehm "sat down pitching the show," Littman recalls, "she talked about flashbacks" as a way of "bringing the crime to life."
While Bruckheimer shows are known for their offbeat effects - those down-the-blood-vessel rides on "CSI" or the ghostly missing persons of "Without a Trace" - the "pitch" conversation for "Cold Case" ranged farther afield, according to Littman: "One of the motivators conceptually was 'Citizen Kane,' when you watched the characters young and [then] old. We talked about how fascinating it was that you watched them change over time."
While it's unlikely that viewers will compare "Cold Case" flashbacks with Orson Welles' movie masterpiece, the show does go to considerable lengths to create the right atmosphere. Each episode's flashbacks are shot differently, using different types of film stock. The pilot used Kodachrome, "which is rarely used for filming" because of its expense, Littman says; it was chosen because the episode's crime occurred in the '70s, "when Kodachrome first came out, and it gave it that kind of rich, lush, off-kilter look."
Another episode features a crime set in the '80s, and the flashbacks were shot in video. In still another story, "A Time to Hate," a 1964 murder rooted in gay-bashing is re-created in black-and-white footage. Songs from the '60s, including "Town Without Pity" and "Turn, Turn, Turn," also help evoke the era.
Both Stiehm and Littman consider "A Time to Hate" one of the best episodes yet. "It really showed the effect of time, how mores have changed," says Littman. While the episode concerns "the murder of a gay man in the '60s that was swept under the carpet because he was gay," such a murder now would be considered a hate crime, he points out.
So, other than the Skakel-inspired pilot, where do these stories come from? Not, as some may surmise, from the A&E cable network's documentary-format "Cold Case Files," which gets a tag line after each episode of CBS' "Cold Case" ("Watch the forensic documentary series "Cold Case Files" only on A&E Network.") (The promo, says Littman, was part of a licensing arrangement between CBS and A&E after the latter objected to the use of the similar title: "We were looking for alternate titles" when the deal, "beneficial to both," was struck.)
While writers and a staff researcher scour newspapers and the Internet for material (and Stiehm's sister, Jamie Stiehm, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, gives her occasional input as well), many stories are actual cases from the Philadelphia police department.
Philadelphia became the setting for "Cold Case" "because I went to college there, and so I knew the city somewhat," says Stiehm. "When I was researching it, I met the homicide detectives who worked cold cases. And they were so good to me, very welcoming and willing to talk about how they do their jobs." One of them, Det. Tim Bass, still serves the show as a technical adviser.
The real Philadelphia cold-case squad, by the way, was different from the fictional one in at least one key way: It had no female homicide detectives at all. The fact wasn't lost on Stiehm.
"Oh yeah," Stiehm says, laughing. "I was looking for the Lilly Rush there, and I never found her."
