CSI Files
Captain
<p>Viewers of <i>CSI: New York</i> are familiar with writer <font color=yellow>Bill Haynes</font>' episodes, but what they might not know is that he also servers as a technical advisor on the show. Bill started his career not in Hollywood but in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's office, working as a criminalist, first in the narcotics division and then in the forensic biology division. Haynes' experience as a criminalist has influenced several storylines in <i>CSI: NY</i> and his scientific savvy informs many of the show's twists and turns. Haynes took the time to speak with CSI Files' <font color=yellow>Kristine Huntley</font> about his career, the episodes he's written for the show and his upcoming season six entry.<p><b>CSI Files:</b> How is the new season going so far?<p><b>Haynes:</b> It's good! We've got a lot of great stuff. We've got a serial killer arc that we're working on, and my episode which [is shooting now] takes place in the world of hip hop dance battles. So I'm really excited about that--it's going to be a really high energy, visual show. We've got some great stuff. We left off last season with a shootout into the bar and everybody's in jeopardy. [You'll see] the ramifications--physically, emotionally, our people are injured physically and emotionally by that. There's a lot of good stuff to play there, so we're having fun with that.<p><b>CSI Files:</b> How will the resolution affect the team?<p><b>Haynes:</b> Let's just say there are a lot of surprises that come. I don't want to give anything away, because that defeats the purpose! But there's a lot of good stuff that's coming down the pipe.<p><b>CSI Files:</b> When you first joined the show, you were a technical advisor. How did you make the transition from tech advisor to writer?<p><b>Haynes:</b> As a technical advisor, you're naturally working with the writers anyways, honing the technical dialogue, they're coming to me for science ideas--what's the newest thing out there, what's the latest thing out there? How can we make this more visual? We have this piece of evidence, but we don't want the results to come in until act three, how do we do that? Things like that. So you're already having to mold your mind to think like a writer in terms of the story and trying to think visually. As far as the first year, I was on the set a lot, just because I had to get our actors up to speed on handling evidence and how to work pipettes and that kind of stuff. Once you get them up to speed and comfortable with it, then you can gradually turn away from the set, and I was spending all of my time in the writers' room. Like I said, I owe a lot of it to [Executive Producer] <font color=yellow>Pam [Veasey</font>] for first giving me the opportunity to first do some co-writing and then to branch out on a solo script and again, I have another solo script coming up. I'm just trying to do my best to make the transition. Before I came into the television industry, I never would have known how much thought and work goes into one hour of TV. I knew it must be hard, but I never realized how hard it is until I actually did it. There's so much to think about.<p><b>CSI Files:</b> What made you decide to leave the real-life lab for the <i>CSI: NY</i> writers' office?<p><b>Haynes:</b> My supervisor at the time, <font>Liz Devine</font>, got hooked up with <i>CSI</i> from the very early days of the show's inception. As that show was growing, she was needed on set, the writers also needed her, and soon after that, they were putting <i>CSI: Miami</i> together, so there were more writers who had questions, and more sets that needed attention. So she tapped me as one of the people to help her out. I was filling in on the set for both her and <font color=yellow>Rich Catalani</font>. And then I was also taking phone calls from writers on both shows and helping them out with questions. That's how I met <font color=yellow>Anthony [Zuiker]</font> and <font color=yellow>Ann Donahue</font>. So then when they decided to launch <i>CSI: New York</i>, they looked to me to be their full time person. It was left to me to decide if I wanted to leave the safety of working for a government agency and jump into the fickle world of entertainment. And I thought that these opportunities don't come along all that often. I feel like I got a good opportunity to test the waters by filling in for other people on a part time basis. I knew it was something I was enjoying, so I decided to take the leap.<p><b>CSI Files:</b> Was it a tough decision?<p><HR ALIGN="CENTER" SIZE="1" WIDTH="45%" COLOR="#007BB5"><p>To read the full interviews, please click <A HREF="http://www.csifiles.com/interviews/bill_haynes.shtml">here</A>.<center></center>
It's always interesting to hear about how people came to work with the show and how everything comes together behind the scenes. I'll definitely have to check out the interview over on Level26.com.