CSI Files
Captain
When CBS.com decided to make their website more interactive, the network added several blogs related to their hit shows. CSI: Miami was one of the first to launch a blog, and executive producer <font color=yellow> Ann Donahue</font> tapped Executive Story Editor <font color=yellow>Corey Miller</font> for the job. "I think she wanted me to have fun with it and strike up a good relationship with the fans out there that are interested in the show," Miller says of the blog.
Initially unsure of what fans were looking for on the blog, Miller decided to open it up to fan queries by offering up his e-mail address. He was thrilled with the overwhelming response from fans around the world. "At first I figured I would put my e-mail address up to get feedback from people as far as what they wanted to know about the show so I ended up doing some question and answer [sections] in the body of the blogs," Miller notes. "I [wanted to] give more information that people would really like to know because these are things I would have liked to know when I was enjoying a show, especially when I wanted to get into the entertainment business. A lot of people that have written to me want to be writers or want to know how to break into the business in general. It's been really gratifying to hear from people--I've gotten e-mails from all over the world, even people that are a season behind who read CBS.com just to catch up with what we're doing this year even though they're not going to be able to see the episodes for a year."
Miller also decided to broaden the blog beyond the perspective of a writer for the show by posting interviews with other colleagues such as Editor <font color=yellow>John Refoua</font> and Assistant Director <font color=yellow>Marco Black</font>. The interviews give fans a chance to see the many different tasks that go into creating an episode of CSI: Miami. "I figured that would be another thing people would be interested in hearing about, not just from the writer's standpoint but from all of the other standpoints because there are tons of people doing jobs you don't really think of as 'Hollywood.' A lot of the times the writers and actors get a lot of the credit for things but there're so many people that are doing such great work [behind the scenes]," Miller says.
Incidentally, Miller himself almost ended up in another field: when he first entered the business as a production assistant for Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, he was initally interested in pursuing a career in editing. "I started to really think I could actually [get into scriptwriting] when I was a production assistant on Lois & Clark," Miller comments. "That was my first real paying job. I didn't really know what I wanted to do in the business yet, but I just wanted to be in it in some way. I think I started reading a lot more scripts and I started thinking, 'I think I can do this; I might as well just try it.' At the time I was working so many hours and I didn't have time to really concentrate on writing a script. I was working 15-18 hours a day. I had a friend from school I partnered up with, and he and I would write together. My friend and I wrote a couple of different shows and tried to get some samples going, but the first thing we did was we wrote a Lois & Clark spec. One of the writers, <font color=yellow>John McNamara</font> used to come into our office a lot--he was a cool guy and we'd joke around a lot, and I started doing the thing that everyone does at some point: I just started stalking him until he read my script. A couple of months went by, and then one day he called me into his office and said he had started to read it and he had stopped because it was close to an idea they were already talking about but he said, 'I thought it was really good, you're on the same page as us, so why don't you come pitch some stories.' We went away for a day--we did it really fast--and we pitched five ideas and they actually bought one. Even though it took me years after that to do anything again…it's kind of unheard of that an office production assistant can sell a story to a show. It was the jump start needed to see I could really do this. I had to start over because I was in production and I had to get to the writers' area. It takes tons of good luck and timing and perseverance."
Miller's latest blog entries have revolved around the filming of the latest episode he's penned, "Fade Out." He teases that the episode revolves around "two college students who are writing a script that actually has a lot of true life parallels" and that there will be a revelation about Ryan's eye problems. Miller has been keeping a set diary of sorts, a blow by blow of the process of shooting an episode. It's a process Miller is thrilled to be involved in. "Both <font color=yellow>Carol Mendelsohn</font> (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation's showrunner) and Ann Donahue both grew up in the business where they had writers' rooms and they got to go to set and produce their episodes. They've carried that [over onto the CSI shows] and we all really appreciate that because we got to learn by actually doing as opposed to just hearing theories," Miller says of his on set experiences. "That does not happen on every show. There are many shows that the writers never see the set."
<HR ALIGN="CENTER" SIZE="1" WIDTH="45\%" COLOR="#007BB5">
To read the full interviews, please click here.<center></center>
Initially unsure of what fans were looking for on the blog, Miller decided to open it up to fan queries by offering up his e-mail address. He was thrilled with the overwhelming response from fans around the world. "At first I figured I would put my e-mail address up to get feedback from people as far as what they wanted to know about the show so I ended up doing some question and answer [sections] in the body of the blogs," Miller notes. "I [wanted to] give more information that people would really like to know because these are things I would have liked to know when I was enjoying a show, especially when I wanted to get into the entertainment business. A lot of people that have written to me want to be writers or want to know how to break into the business in general. It's been really gratifying to hear from people--I've gotten e-mails from all over the world, even people that are a season behind who read CBS.com just to catch up with what we're doing this year even though they're not going to be able to see the episodes for a year."
Miller also decided to broaden the blog beyond the perspective of a writer for the show by posting interviews with other colleagues such as Editor <font color=yellow>John Refoua</font> and Assistant Director <font color=yellow>Marco Black</font>. The interviews give fans a chance to see the many different tasks that go into creating an episode of CSI: Miami. "I figured that would be another thing people would be interested in hearing about, not just from the writer's standpoint but from all of the other standpoints because there are tons of people doing jobs you don't really think of as 'Hollywood.' A lot of the times the writers and actors get a lot of the credit for things but there're so many people that are doing such great work [behind the scenes]," Miller says.
Incidentally, Miller himself almost ended up in another field: when he first entered the business as a production assistant for Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, he was initally interested in pursuing a career in editing. "I started to really think I could actually [get into scriptwriting] when I was a production assistant on Lois & Clark," Miller comments. "That was my first real paying job. I didn't really know what I wanted to do in the business yet, but I just wanted to be in it in some way. I think I started reading a lot more scripts and I started thinking, 'I think I can do this; I might as well just try it.' At the time I was working so many hours and I didn't have time to really concentrate on writing a script. I was working 15-18 hours a day. I had a friend from school I partnered up with, and he and I would write together. My friend and I wrote a couple of different shows and tried to get some samples going, but the first thing we did was we wrote a Lois & Clark spec. One of the writers, <font color=yellow>John McNamara</font> used to come into our office a lot--he was a cool guy and we'd joke around a lot, and I started doing the thing that everyone does at some point: I just started stalking him until he read my script. A couple of months went by, and then one day he called me into his office and said he had started to read it and he had stopped because it was close to an idea they were already talking about but he said, 'I thought it was really good, you're on the same page as us, so why don't you come pitch some stories.' We went away for a day--we did it really fast--and we pitched five ideas and they actually bought one. Even though it took me years after that to do anything again…it's kind of unheard of that an office production assistant can sell a story to a show. It was the jump start needed to see I could really do this. I had to start over because I was in production and I had to get to the writers' area. It takes tons of good luck and timing and perseverance."
Miller's latest blog entries have revolved around the filming of the latest episode he's penned, "Fade Out." He teases that the episode revolves around "two college students who are writing a script that actually has a lot of true life parallels" and that there will be a revelation about Ryan's eye problems. Miller has been keeping a set diary of sorts, a blow by blow of the process of shooting an episode. It's a process Miller is thrilled to be involved in. "Both <font color=yellow>Carol Mendelsohn</font> (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation's showrunner) and Ann Donahue both grew up in the business where they had writers' rooms and they got to go to set and produce their episodes. They've carried that [over onto the CSI shows] and we all really appreciate that because we got to learn by actually doing as opposed to just hearing theories," Miller says of his on set experiences. "That does not happen on every show. There are many shows that the writers never see the set."
<HR ALIGN="CENTER" SIZE="1" WIDTH="45\%" COLOR="#007BB5">
To read the full interviews, please click here.<center></center>
Corey had a ton of really interesting things to say about what goes into making the show--stuff you don't normally think of when watching an episode of Miami. I feel like I understand the concept of a writers' room much better now, too.