INTERVIEW: Pam Veasey
Pam Veasey Credits
Best known for:
CSI: NY (Executive Producer/Co-Executive Producer/Writer) 2004–2012
Ringer (Executive Producer/Writer) 2011–2012
The District
(Executive Producer/Co-Executive Producer/Supervising Producer/Writer) 2000–2004
In Living Color (Executive Producer/Co-Producer/Writer) 1991–1996
Emmy Nominated
(Individual Achievement in Writing in a Variety or Music Program) 1992
Emmy Nominated (Writing in a Variety or Music Program) 1991
Nash Bridges 1996
Martial Law (Producer/Writer) 1998–1999
Gimme a Break (Writer) 1986–1987
NL: So you run CSI: New York, but you didn’t create the show? You’ve been on this one since…
PV: Right. I’ve been on since the beginning. I was not here when they did the crossover with
CSI: Miami to get the show picked up. CSI: NY didn’t have a traditional pilot. Gary Sinise and Melina Kanakaredes joined an episode of CSI: Miami and then CSI: NY was picked up. I joined the show right after that as the first season began.
NL: Did you come in as a co-executive producer?
PV: Yes, I was thrilled. I was working as an EP/showrunner on The District with Craig T.
Nelson [as Chief Jack Mannion], and they said, “Do you want to go over to New York?” And, I thought, “Great. I need a break. I’ll just be a writer.” And then, two years later, I was running the show.
NL: And now you’re going into production on your ninth season?
PV: Ninth season. I know. Knock wood. It’s such a blessing. We’ve been two years on the bubble [in danger of cancellation]. The first year we made it through. We thought we would.
But, last year, we were not sure. It was really close, so we had to go in and pitch and tell them what our plans were for the ninth season and really fight for our show to come back. And we succeeded.
NL: When you go into CBS and say, “This is our plan for the season,” how much detail are you giving them? Because they know the basic franchise of the show: there’s going to be a crime and the team is going to investigate it. And they’re probably going to solve it, so there will be a happy conclusion because it’s a CBS show. There will be redemption – some sort of justice. Are the arcs going to be more personal? How is it going to be different?
PV: I like to give a theme because we usually have a theme every year. We decided that this year’s theme was: “Do the unexpected in the personal lives of our characters and also in the crime stories.” Make sure there’s a credible, believable motive for the crime. That the characters make believable choices. But try to do the unexpected, so the audience goes, “Oh, okay, that’s great.” We also added an element this year where we decided we would do a day off with each of our characters throughout the season. So you’d see what they do on their day off and learn a little more about them. When you’re trying to get picked up, you bring in story ideas and what’s promotable, but you also talk about why to do a ninth season. We’re in New York City telling
New York stories. But now we’re also going to take the audience into our characters’ personal lives where they can learn something unexpected about them.
NL: That’s why people tune in every week. It’s to connect to your characters and what their unique perspectives will be on the case. When you’re breaking story, what makes a worthy A story? Is it that the case will not only be cool with interesting science and mysterious twists and turns, but that it will also bring out new aspects of the characters? How do you decide?
PV: We have a lot of requirements for a worthy A story: Is it heroic? Can we surprise the audience with the story? But the plots must always evoke some kind of emotion either from the victim in the story, the killer in the story, or from our team. What is the prevalent emotion that’s going to hook the audience and make them feel something at the end of the hour. We want our audience to have a conversation about what they’ve just watched. If it’s something we feel is one-sided, and everyone will say, “Oh, yeah, I expected that.” Then, it’s not the story we want to do. We want people to say, “Well, I agree with that person or I actually sympathize with the killer’s motive” or “I enjoyed watching that” or “I was surprised it took that turn.”
NL: I think it starts off right away with the very first episode when Gary Sinise as the Mac
Taylor character sees the wedding ring on the victim and he says, “Somebody’s wife is missing.”
And, right away, it creates the stakes. PV: It does, it does. Obviously, when we first met Mac, he was single, having had his wife Claire die in 9/11. You know he’s experienced loss. It’s something that makes him heroic and very understanding for all people who have lost family members in crimes – or have been violated in some way. He understands needing answers, getting closure.
NL: That is such a beautiful speech he has about the beach ball.
PV: Anthony Zuiker, of course, the creator [of CSI: NY], wrote that. He talks about what he could keep of his wife and that inside that beach ball was her breath.
NL: So it’s unexpected and poetic and everybody can relate to it. One of the things that I ultimately say to students who are writing not just crime stories, but stories with a lot of violence, is: “Make the body count – count.” It’s something that you do very well. Every life has a value and it’s not just, “Oh, here’s another case.”
PV: We’re so conscious of that – particularly if you take a story that’s been in the news. We’re not quite “ripped from the headlines” as Law & Order is and used to be. But you want to tell a story that evokes – again, emotion. I also teach at USC in the Cinema School, so I know what you’re talking about. And, I always say to my students:
“With every story you must have hope. I don’t care how dark it is, there has to be a thread of hope – whether it’s hope that your bad guy turns himself in, whether it’s hope that we solve a case, whether it’s hope that a relationship works out.”
And they’re like, “How can I find it in such a dark story?” And I say, “You have to – you have to find something to hold onto. That somewhere in this thread, there is hope.” Even hope that we capture the bad guy, but there’s got to be something that propels the viewer forward, if they’re going to spend an hour they should get something out of it. It may surprise them how we get
there – it may surprise them what we say – it may surprise them who the killer is, but they’re
hoping that that piece of science in act two turns out to be something. They’re hoping they can
laugh. Our fans are huge on hoping on relationships, when Melina [Kanakaredes] was here – will
Gary [Sinise] and Melina get together? Now that Sela [Ward] is a part of the show – is there
something there with that? An audience finds a way to hope for something. They were so into
that Danny [Carmine Giovinazzo] and Lindsay [Anna Belknap] when we first hinted at that
relationship.
NL: I was thinking about how durable the CSI shows are and especially with New York because there’s so much chaos. For my last book, I interviewed Andrew Kevin Walker, who wrote Se7en which is set in New York, and we talked about the metronome that the Somerset character
(Morgan Freeman) sets every night. I asked him what that meant, and he said, “In a city that’s so chaotic with sirens and babies crying and cars honking, it’s the one thing Somerset can control.”
And it seems like the CSI shows, and especially CSI: New York, create some sense of order out of chaos. That somebody is going to actually come in, and they’re going to clean up the mess.
Because stylistically, it’s very slick – you’ve got all of those great CSI shots, the music…
PV: When you’re the third of the franchise, you have to include the forensics and all those things that Anthony Zuiker imagined as he created CSI, but you have to ask yourself, “How do you sell
New York? How are we not like Miami and not like Vegas?” And for us, it was making New
York City a character. I always say to my guest directors who come in that we have to reflect the city. Our shows are very dense – there’s a lot going on, there are a lot of layers – New York is like that. You can’t walk down the street without bumping into somebody. If you stand on a corner – and I always use the Blue Fin restaurant in Times Square as an example, from storefront door to the curb, there are a thousand things going on. There’s someone selling something,
there’s someone running by, there’s a guy on a bike, there’s a messenger, there are tourists
stopping to take a photo, there’s a newspaper stand… there’s just so much. And you still haven’t
gotten to the middle of the street yet to get to the other side. That’s how we try to reflect New
York. We try to move quickly – we try to have a sense of urgency. Even on a relaxing day or late
night, New York City seems to have a sense of urgency. It just moves and it’s a city that forces
you to stay up with it to keep up with it. If you don’t, you might miss something, and that’s what
we try to reflect on our show.
NL: And Mac’s an insomniac.
PV: Yeah. He’s gotten better, but yes, it’s easy for him to stay up. The case pulls him through.
He’s moved by the conclusion. When we first introduced him, we established that he had folders
of unsolved cases on the edge of his desk. We actually completed that stack of folders at the end
of season seven. These cold cases were something that he could not let go of. And it was nice to
suggest that our team is not perfect – they don’t solve every case. So some old cases haunt him
and that was part of what was keeping him up. And with every new clue, he would look at each
folder, thinking, “Did I discover something today that answers a question?”
NL: I would imagine that when you went into CBS to pitch season nine that they brought up
Person of Interest – another New York show which uses a lot of very high-tech stuff. In the evolution from season one to season nine, what are the things that have stayed the same the most and what things have changed? I would imagine one of the things would have been the technology like using facial recognition. PV: What’s the same is the fundamental drive of our characters to solve the case. There are
many changes. In our first season, we had a completely different set. In our second season, we
moved the lab from a basement to the 32nd floor of a high rise, looking over the city to be
constantly reminded of the beauty of Manhattan. We’re a show that actually shoots in L.A. for
New York – and our wonderful location scouts have been awarded in past years for successfully
disguising L.A. as New York – which we’re thrilled about. Our set design also contributes to the
illusion that we are in New York City. We do go back to New York to shoot, but not as
frequently as we’d like. We envy Person of Interest which does shoot there and Elementary that
will shoot there this year, but we conquer it here and do it very well. We applaud our locations
staff, production designer and construction crews.
With regard to change in technology, we constantly read about what’s next. You would not have
seen tablets and touch pads in the first two seasons of our show. We find out what microscopes
have been ungraded and what new advances in forensic science have occurred. People contact us
and say, “We have created this and we think you can use it.” So any time technology – we have
someone on our show who constantly keeps up with that – is introduced, we get demonstrations
on the new equipment. There was a handheld x-ray machine that we used in the show, which seems old to me now, but was just four years ago. We were able to see a bullet lodged in a woman’s brain while she was still alive. It was a true story. We learned that a company had created a hand held x-ray machine for dentists, and we asked, “But, you can get any picture, right?” So we used it. We’ve worked a lot with Microsoft. We actually used a precursor to the tablet they’re about to come out with. It’s a huge table, which we call the “surface table.” We try to stay current. If you look back, you’ll see we had a lot of folders and notebooks early on. We never used to be able to touch the screen and drag things, so we’ve moved into the wonderful tablet world. Just two days ago, we were talking about holograms and how things can become
3D in our lab. How can we put that technology on television? Sometimes you have to get the education on how to film it. How does the camera reflect what you can see with the naked eye?
Does it show the magic?
NL: Do you try to keep things based in real science?
PV: Absolutely. We don’t make-up anything. Recently, we were talking about shoe manufacturers and how they have these pads that can tell you where the foot lands by recording the impact and creating a picture. We thought, “How can we use that on the show?” So new technology exist. It may not have been used specifically for science, but we then we translate it to forensic science.
NL: I believe and tell my students that all durable TV stories are about families. They don’t have to be related by blood. In fact, most of the time, they’re not. Your ensemble is like an extended family – somewhat dysfunctional mom and dad and you’ve got the kids and the black sheep. Do you agree with this idea? How might that apply to your storytelling?
PV: I absolutely agree that with every show you have to have a family and designate the leader of the family. Obviously, that’s Mac Taylor. And then you have someone who – and this was both Sela Ward’s character in Jo Danville and Melina’s character in Stella Bonasera – someone who can always be a strong companion voice for that leader. Mac’s strong for everyone else, but this person has a keen sense of who he is. Sela Ward does it wonderfully. She has a great
Southern flair. When she joined the show we said, “Be who you are Sela.” She’s from Alabama and has a slight accent. We decided to write to where she’s from. We’ve mentioned that Jo
Danville is a graduate of Alabama – Crimson Tide. She’s from the South and Mac’s from Chicago (so is Gary Sinise) and we’re in New York City. Jo brings that southern comfort and southern style and she can say things to Mac that others can’t. She can observe his personal life because she has a life experience herself as experienced FBI agent. Jo knows how to make Mac smile.
Danny and Lindsay are like Mac’s kids. He loves them. He finds them an odd combination like everybody did, but somehow the audience cheered for it. Mac has an incredible fondness for
Detective Flack [Eddie Cahill]. Flack is good at his job. It’s a mutual respect thing. Adam Ross, played by A.J. Buckley so beautifully, is the guy who makes Mac laugh, who surprises him, who does the unexpected, who deep down Mac really wants to teach. And then Hawkes, played by
Hill Harper, because his past is in medicine is someone Mac can learn from. Both Hawkes and
Sid [Hammerback as played by Robert Joy] have backgrounds in medicine. It’s a terrific family and each of them can relate to each other in a different way. You’ll see completely different scenes in interrogation with Flack and Danny because they’re young and have a shorthand.
We’ve even established that they met each other for the first time at 9/11. Hawkes has an absolute complete affection and respect for Sid because they both have experience as
Pathologists. They also have a shorthand when it comes to dead bodies. Lindsay came from
Montana and the audience embraced her immediately. She found an extended family and then began one with Danny. And now Danny and Lindsay have a daughter named Lucy. It’s been fun to see our characters grow and evolve.
NL: When you’re pitching season nine or when you’re starting a season, is part of that conversation how characters are going to evolve, but on some level also stay the same? PV: Mac, fundamentally, when it relates to his job, will never change. He is the same. He has the
same rules, the same fundamental belief as he did the first time we met him when it comes to the
job. And, he will never waver from that. He’s been challenged. He’s been pushed. There’s been
moments when he’s questioned it, he’s struggled with it, but fundamentally he’s the same guy.
Things are black and white. There is no grey. In his relationships, we’ve always had a woman
testing him, and in his fond memory of Claire [his wife] played beautifully by Jamie Ray
Newman, he had such a relationship. There was Peyton played by Claire Forlani, which the
audience cheered for, where she was the aggressor, and now we have Megan Dodds [playing
Christine Whitney] where Mac’s the pursuer. So, personally, he has changed. Jo [Sela Ward] is still new for us. Danny was a not as discipline when we first met him but he changed and now wants to pursue a higher level in the department. He’s also a family man – a father. Flack lost love. He had Detective Angell [Emmanuelle Vaugier] as part of his life, and it was probably his first serious relationship. He’s going to be challenged by a relationship again this year. And
Sheldon Hawkes, Hill [Harper] has had a brief but meaningful relationship. Because the team is under the tutelage of Mac Taylor’s rules, we don’t compromise anything when it comes to solving a case and doing the job. We don’t cheat anything. We’re not here to judge someone’s innocence or guilt. We’re here to collect the science that we give to the prosecutor and let them, a judge or a jury do their job. Occasionally, we’ve had our characters struggle with that principle, but ultimately they do the right thing.
NL: So, when you’re breaking stories, your A stories are always your crimes which will close at the end of the episode?
PV: There have been some crime stories left open. We don’t always say we’re going to catch our bad guy, we say we’re going to give the viewer a satisfying ending. In the first season of the series, we actually told two crime stories and we learned we weren’t allowing enough time for our characters to have an opinion or to feel something.
NL: CSI: Vegas, I think, has two crime stories, which is why I like CSI: New York the best!
PV: Yes, we moved away that. We decided to create one rich, complex A story for the crime, so that everybody could be involved. We even built a new set called the War Room where our team could gather to exchange opinions and this is where you’d get your conflict. This is where you saw the family together. It was our replacement for the dinner table.
NL: So, your A stories will close and your B stories which will be more of your personal stories?
PV: We used to have an A and a C (humor, runner). Now, it’s an A and occasionally the second story will focus on one character who may not be involved in the crime story.
NL: And a lot of those B stories will arc over the whole season?
PV: What we started about three years ago are personal stories that arc over the season. And I can’t say just personal because sometimes it’s a personal goal of someone to figure something out in the crime case. For example, we had a 333 Killer and it began with Mac going with Peyton to London and when he came back there was someone chasing him. We called it the 333 Killer because every night at 3:33, Mac would get a phone call from stranger. We chased all these great clues, and it took us back to Chicago where Mac grew up. So that was the first year that we decided that sometimes the crime story can be very personal and arc over a certain period of time. And, if you watch the show after that point, we do tell some crime stories in the span of three episodes. We have found that trilogies work. And we usually involve guest stars, for example John Larroquette joined us. We had a taxicab killer who our team chased for three episodes. Joey Lawrence come in and played a killer. We found that the audience could stay in that trilogy window and understand it and get attached and then we’re done. It works.
We also try to make our first half of the season running through December completely different than the second half. We still have the overall theme of the unexpected, but you’ll see that anything that was started at the beginning of the season rarely continues in the back end. That started because we were opposite American Idol. We had great numbers, and then boom, the dynamic would completely change in the second half of the year. We believed we needed to really satisfy our audience in the first 13 episodes to get them to stick with us in January and through May. So we created sort of a mid-season finale or cliffhanger in December. Sometimes you’re forced by your environment, your ratings, and your time slot to take chances and make changes to beat your competition. In the movie called The TV Set, Sigourney Weaver’s character says, “We’ve got to find something that’s going to beat CSI: New York.” We were elated.
Someone brought it in to show us, and we screamed, “We made it.” It was such a great honor.