IFH 755: How to Write for CSI Vegas, NCSI & Law & Order SVU with Jennifer Dornbush

Alex Ferrari 0:00
I like to welcome to the show, Jennifer Dornbusch. How you doing Jennifer?

Jennifer Dornbusch 2:52
Very well today. How are you?

Alex Ferrari 2:54
Good. Good. Thank you so much. You are the first author I've had, we're going to talk all things forensics, and it is a it is a niche of a niche of a niche. And it's actually really important considering the popularity of crime dramas and crime feature films and TV shows Geez, TV shows Can you maybe shows there's so many Um, and I mean, just on Law and Order alone, but like, I think there's three lifetimes we would have to live, watch all of the lawn orders, every episode of every

Jennifer Dornbusch 3:27
Don't even get me started in the NCIS

Alex Ferrari 3:29
NCIS. CSI is I mean for like multiple lifetimes left to get reincarnated many times to come back to watch all those shows. So I want to have you on the show. Because I think it's something that nobody really does talk about very often. I guess that's one of the reasons why you wrote your book. And it is something that I've seen in scripts that I've read, and TV shows, I've seen that like, oh, that doesn't, it doesn't sound good. Even even someone as you know, someone like myself who's not an expert, but I've watched a lot of those shows over the years that you start to pick up certain rhythms in the dialogue and certain rhythms in Well, that doesn't make any sense that DNA situations not working now, like you can't get DNA from that, can you like so we're gonna get into all of that. But before we get started, how did you get into the business in the first place?

Jennifer Dornbusch 4:20
The business of

Alex Ferrari 4:23
both I would love to know, I like to like to know, forensics and film and television and then how did you bring the two together?

Jennifer Dornbusch 4:30
Yes, they they do have emerging story. So I was I will start with forensics. I was born into it. I was born into the world of forensics, so I had no choice.

Alex Ferrari 4:40
So you were born into mercy. Got it? Got it. Exactly. Exactly.

Jennifer Dornbusch 4:46
That would make a good story

Alex Ferrari 4:47
that would actually make a really good story.

Unknown Speaker 4:50
My father was a medical examiner for three counties in northern Michigan and the office was in our house. So yes, Literally, now the autopsies were done at the hospital, but everything else came to our house. tissue samples, blood samples, files, detectives, victims, families. morticians always knocking on our door. video, you know, there was always like a set of like, there's always like a death certificate on the kitchen table next to the, you know, casserole or whatever. or pictures from the latest, you know, investigation. My mom would be like, Can you move those? Can you get those off the table? It's dinnertime now. I I did my first case when I was eight, my first death investigation investigation, and I just I grew up around it. So I didn't really I didn't think it was weird until I became a teenager. And then you get kind of self conscious and you're like, wait, nobody else's dad does this like you guys don't have like livers in your freezer? I don't get it. Any human livers? Yes, yes, yes. Um, it sounds very like Hannibal Lecter. But it was it was very interesting, because my father is very scientific. And he's also very much a teacher. And so everything was a lesson. Everything was a lesson in anatomy, biology life. And my mother, she worked the business, she was sort of the bookkeeper, the office manager kept track of all the records, when people came to the house looking for a death certificate, she would talk to them, and give them what they needed. So it was just, it was just how I lived. So when I grew up, and went off to college and tried to figure out what am I going to do with my life, I always kind of running away from the dead bodies. I always knew that I wanted to be a writer. And it took me a while to kind of figure out the path I did journalism, I did public relations, I did a lot of different things with my writing until I finally was like the thing I really want to do is write for the masses. And so I started to take screenwriting classes started to learn film and television writing. And as you know, when you when you start to become a creative person, especially a writer, a content creator, whatever that is director, producer, you're like, what is it I have to bring to the world? Like, what do I want to talk about? What do I know about what makes me different? In my storytelling, excuse me, that is going to kind of make me stand out. Because as you know, Hollywood is ultra competitive. And it's not enough to be a good writer, you have to have that thing that makes you stand out. And I really did not put this together my background and my writing for a very long time until other people were kind of starting to point it out. And they're like, Jennifer, you kind of had this proclivity for writing about mystery and crime. And like, you know, you seem to know a lot about this forensic world. Why is that? And I literally had, it was other people who said, Who said this to me? And then I'm like, oh, oh, I've kind of taken for granted that I have this whole wealth of knowledge about death investigation and forensics and how things work in police investigations that that most people don't know, right. But I really did not put it together for a very long time. And then I decided to go back to school to get some more forensic training because I realized that I kind of liked it a lot. I kind of missed it. I kind of I love science. I love that world and so much changes in forensics all the time. There's always new things developing. I mean, DNA science alone isn't ever emerging, emerging science. So went back to school, got some training in forensic science, so that I could actually build from the platform that I had. And that's kind of how it all landed. So it all came together.

Alex Ferrari 9:02
Yes, because it's we're always the we're always the last to realize what we're good at. Isn't Isn't that the truth? I literally sat when I was 18. In my room going, what am I gonna do with my life? And I looked around I had 3000 VHS 's of movies from my video store, walking around, and I looked around, I'm like, Yes, I like movies. Maybe I should have a director and that was pretty much the route.

Jennifer Dornbusch 9:27
I always funny, you know, because we just live it. We

Alex Ferrari 9:29
don't think about it, you know? Right, exactly. But that's a very unique story. Like you literally were born into it other than being born out of mercy. And you're the next best thing is literally around at the entire time. It's pretty amazing. Now, you've also consulted on a bunch of shows, haven't you? What kind of shows have you consulted and what have you consulted with them on if you could talk about?

Unknown Speaker 9:49
Yeah, yeah. It's Yeah, of course. So, out of that experience of going back to school, I wrote this book forensic speak, which is basically like a forensic boot camp. In a book, because I couldn't find anything that really kind of compiled all that forensic knowledge into a really easy, fast, understandable, authentic, comprehensive, other than a textbook, who's gonna read a textbook. And because of this book, I started to get speaking engagements. And then people started to find me. And I guess it was really just word of mouth because I really didn't advertise it. And then I would get calls or emails from like assistance on shows like Hawaii Five o or rectify leverage conviction, Bull just along the way, just these kinds of souls, and they would just have kind of random questions about mostly about like, if a person died this way, is that plausible? Or if we do this, what kind of evidence can we get off that body? So?

Alex Ferrari 10:52
Yeah, and that that must have been the that must have been exciting starting to get those kind of calls?

Unknown Speaker 10:57
Yeah, it's, I love it, because I love to research. And so if I didn't know the answer, I got a chance to learn something new.

Alex Ferrari 11:05
So can you give a definition of what is forensic speak?

Unknown Speaker 11:09
Yes. So forensic speak, is basically how do you speak forensics? There is authenticity to the language of DNA Crime Scene Investigation, death investigation, what happens in a courtroom? fingerprint investigation, there's a whole language to that. And so not just the science behind it, the book is about the science behind it. But it's also like, what does it mean? So I break it down into sections chapters that breaks all the like, fingerprint science, DNA science, how do you investigate a crime scene? What is a Google swab? What you know, what, what is mitochondrial DNA? what and how can you use it in your writing or in your content creating?

Alex Ferrari 11:53
It's funny, because I actually remember very vividly when I first got to LA, almost over a decade ago, I went to the California Science Museum. And they had a CSI exhibit out there like an hour from the show from the show. Oh, and I got to walk in and we go through three murder scenes. And it's like, and literally you go in and start playing the game of like, what's the blood splatter? How is blood splatter actually done? Like, how does it really feel? How do you buy the blood splatter you can tell if the how the body was hit or the how the injury happened. You probably can explain blood splatters much better than I can. But it was but it was kind of so fascinating to go in through all of that. And there was an autopsy table it was like insane stuff. So it was I know you're like what I wanted

Jennifer Dornbusch 12:44
literally have an autopsy table.

Alex Ferrari 12:46
So what was so what like so just a perfect example like blood splatter, you know, something as simple as blood splatter? How can blood splatter really determine how somebody might have died? Or, or got or the kind of injury or things like what can you get from that? So yeah, there's this data.

Unknown Speaker 13:05
Okay, so I actually have a whole section on and I'm gonna have to correct you. It's not spell splatter,

Alex Ferrari 13:11
it's better.

There you go. You see, that's why you're on the show.

Unknown Speaker 13:14
Now, right. So this batter is the thing, okay. So the splatter is how do I is it semantics is really semantics. The splatter is kind of what happens, right? The spatter is the image that it makes or the pattern that is so it is really fascinating because things like the spatter, you know, when a blood drops, it drops at a certain velocity. So it was it's a low velocity, if you can tell from the way they have tailed, they have bodies and tails. And so from the tail points you in the direction of where the person was going, when it the hit happened, or when the injury happened. And then whether it's low medium or high velocity, impact, so like low velocity is going to be somebody bludgeoning you with a hammer or crowbar, a high velocity is going to be gunshot wound. And so the spatter is going to look different it's going to it's just going to look different depending on what kind of velocity and so that alone can tell you a lot about how an incident happened. where an incident happened. There's this thing called arterial wave pattern in blood spatter. So if a person is still living and they're moving like they're trapped, they they get hit, they get injured, they get shot, and it's in an artery and but they're still trying to get away or move because the heart is beating, the blood is coming out in that that rhythm and so you can and it creates this wave pattern so like you can some I've seen pictures where you can see it like on the wall a wave of blood and so you know, that person was living while they were trying to travel that Makes sense

Alex Ferrari 15:00
makes absolute sense. I'm fascinated crazy,

Jennifer Dornbusch 15:02
right?

Alex Ferrari 15:03
It's insane, like just thinking about, it's insane to think about, like, how the blood is pumping. And then as they're walking away, you see the that kind of determine how long they live for how it determines so many things. And this is just simply alphabets a blood spatter. Which is, which is remarkable. And, and these are the kind of thing Well, let me ask you like, what is the biggest mistakes you see in crime traumas?

Unknown Speaker 15:34
Um, listen, I have a whole lecture on. And I want to preface this by saying, there are reasons why mistakes, or I call them fabrications are created, obviously. And a lot of them have to do with just the condensing of time. So we were talking about DNA, like you were mentioning DNA, one of the biggest things content creators have to do because we only get maybe 45 minutes to tell a story or an hour and a half to tell a story. So we can't in real in real life, it's going to take six to 12 weeks for a DNA result to come back to the lab. If it's not backed up, rape kits are backed up years. Yeah, so. So we don't have six to eight, or 12 weeks on a TV show to wait for that to happen. So that's one of the things that happens a lot. It's just the condensing of time. Where were you? You put a DNA sample into the lab, and like, you know, half an hour later, you have a result? Okay, probably not gonna happen unless maybe you bribe the the technician? I don't know. Sure. But I think it also gives us opportunity to create things in the story like that, like, say you have an investigator who's like, I need to know this by today, by the end of the day. So they go and they talk to the technician and and what does that conflict look like? So it gives us an opportunity to raise some conflict in the story. I think these are things we can use. So

Alex Ferrari 17:06
and so are there other mistakes specifically, not just like, condenses of time, like mistakes, like when you like something you should avoid?

Unknown Speaker 17:14
should avoid? There are so many. I always like to start from the position of try to speak it well. Like try learn forensics enough that you can speak it well that you don't, because you don't have to make these mistakes. I'm trying to think of one there, there's very much shades of gray, a lot of them some of it has to do with in the process of how do I say the the protocol of processing a crime scene or the protocol of getting evidence. So sometimes you'll see maybe people go, investigators go back to the scene, and they'll find a piece of evidence or see something in that scene that they didn't notice before that then they use to try to solve the crime. Okay, great. You can do that. But that piece of evidence you find after the crime scene is shut down, is totally not going to be admissible in court. That crime scene is done and over, it's been trampled on by 100 people, there's no way anything you find there is is how you can't use that evidence that you find after you open up the crime scene. So I see that up in a lot. And I'm like, you know, where they maybe go back to the location where the person dies? happens all the time they find a bracelet or I don't know. Sure. Well, I get what you're doing for the story. Sure, that would never even be considered good evidence.

Alex Ferrari 18:52
So So let me ask you though, and it because I think our I think the audience is for the films that are made today and TV shows are made today we are so savvy, we are so educated in the sense of the way things are done where things you can get away with in the 70s or the 80s you couldn't even begin to try to get away with now. It's just we're just too We're too sophisticated as an audience because we've just consumed so much of specifically this kind of content but a lot of different things. Even bad visual effects you could like I have my wife who's not even in the business like she's like oh that's a bad green screen I'm like what do you what No, that's just like looking at the comp is really bad I'm like oh jesus you've been listening to so there's so many there's so there's so many things that that so difficult for us to get to get past as writers now you have to really know your stuff. There's somebody out there listening right now saying Well, you know what, why do I need to know about forensic speak like it really is all about the story. It's really all about these are detail this is minutia that really isn't as important as the character development. This or that? So how would you like argue to the sense that I know my answer to that. But what why would you argue that to like, Well, look, you know, this is why this is kind of important. And it doesn't have to be exact because we're This is we're telling the story, right? But I want to hear what you say. And then if it's the same, as I say, I'll just say agree. If not, I'll have I want

Jennifer Dornbusch 20:22
to hear what you have to say.

Unknown Speaker 20:25
That's a great question. And I yes, I believe I'm a writer, I write film, I write TV, I write novels, I believe, first and foremost, we are here to tell a great story into entertain. And that is primarily done through character, not necessarily plotting. Plotting is important, of course, structure plotting, very important, but what I think some of the best some of my favorite crime shows, excuse me, are the ones who where the character is completely informed the character's motivations and all that are completely informed by the investigation that they're doing. So not only are they just uncovering, you know, a crime scene and investigating it and finding justice, that's wonderful. That's a good structure. But it's how is it informing their motivations, their wounds, their strengths? How is it playing to their strengths? How is it really digging out their wounds? How is it changing them as a person? So I think that that's like, first, you have to get the base level, right? You have to get, I always say, I love writing crime drama, because it's very left brain and right brain, you have to get the trails of evidence absolutely locked tight, you have to get the plotting, lock tight, you have to get that structure. But then on top of that, you have to get this a mate, you have to work in this amazing story about a character who really goes from A to Z, right? Who makes this 180 arc. And the thing that's doing that for that character is the crime that they're investigating. The people that they're meeting the victim, the victims, families, those suspects, those are all working to change them to transform them to test them to provide obstacles. So that's, that's my answer to it, I guess. So you need to know, you need you need to be authentic in your crime plotting and crime plotting has to do with trails of evidence, and trails of evidence have to do with forensic evidence.

Alex Ferrari 22:35
My answer to this is a little bit different. But I think it's a great idea if anyone even cares. But my point of view of forensics, or that kind of details, you look at a film like Titanic, which, you know, Jimmy Jimmy camera went a little crazy on that film as far as authenticity is concerned. But there is an underlining feeling that the audience can feel when things are authentic. And with forensics is even more so like I literally know that he used, like the napkins that were on the tables. were manufactured by the company that did the napkins 75 years, or you know, 100 years ago when they first did it. Like, would you notice that? No, what I noticed that no, but everybody else on this crew did notice that everyone in the crew felt that the actress felt it and that came right off the screen. You can't. And I feel the same thing with forensics. Like if you're just, if I write a if I write a scene that's forensic base, and all I'm going to use is my pre knowledge of all the shows I've written, I could probably write something that's somewhat acceptable, but will not and will not pass the smell test. It just won't. It won't pass the smell test, you know, as opposed to something that you might write or someone who's been who has read this book, or have you as a consultant were, like, perfect splatter. Like I thought I was flattered that spatter, like these kind of details, but you do feel it. And I think that's why it's so important to understand the language in whatever genre you're talking. Does that make sense? Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 24:07
I love that analogy. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You're right. I love that. That's really cool. It's very cool. Yeah, it's like infused then. You know, and when the actors that everybody on set, it's infused in in it, and yeah,

Alex Ferrari 24:21
like, like, er, I mean, like, or any of these medical shows, like, there's stuff that that gets spit out there that nobody knows what it means. But it's authentic. And I think we're now as an audience, expecting that we, we expect that you guys have gotten your stuff together enough to like really confuse us with this technical title. And it makes us feel like we're actually there. Does that make sense as well? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 24:45
Yeah. It's funny because I've actually had it work against me a few times where I'll get feedback from I think it happened more that with my novels, rather than my scripts where I got feedback from the editor that was like, Yeah, I don't Really think this is how it happens? And I'm like, no, it's exactly how it happens. Because we're so used to seeing things that aren't correct,right?

Jennifer Dornbusch 25:10
The CSI effect, you know, where they're like,

Alex Ferrari 25:12
what CSI the first show that actually really took it seriously. Like the forensics. First time forensics, like became a thing for me. axios is the first thing.

Unknown Speaker 25:24
I mean, you know, there was like, Homicide Life on the Street. There were cop shows. I mean, cops have been staple since the 50s. But forensics, because that's the first time. Yeah, people were actually like, oh, what there's a science. How do they do that? How do you figure that out? Because I know when, when I even growing up, I was kind of embarrassed about what my father did. Because when I would tell them, oh, he's a medical examiner, I would get these looks like I don't know what that is. And I'm like, Well, you know, he does autopsies he's in but he investigates death. And I would get these looks. I don't know what that is.

Alex Ferrari 25:59
But he wouldn't be in the crime scene. He wouldn't be in the crime scene. No, he would absolutely. Would he be a crime scene investigator like, as well? Or would he be a medical examiner?

Unknown Speaker 26:07
Or is there a difference? There is a difference. So in our county, there's a coroner medical examiner system. So it's a smaller County. So he whenever something happened, you know, a death and not all of them were criminal, obviously. But he would go out and he would take his own set of pictures. He would do his own investigation. Nobody could touch the body until he was done doing his examination first, which we

Alex Ferrari 26:33
see which we see a lot on these CSI kind of scenarios. You always see a guy there a girl there taking pictures, can't touch about it. So she's done.

Unknown Speaker 26:41
Yeah, yeah. And so he because there was nobody else to do it. You know, the detectives did their thing as well. But he had to do his investigation, because there you know, he was the coroner, the medical examiner, the death investigator, he was everybody. He was everything. So he would do everything. And then once his he was satisfied, then they would finish up their investigation and examination of the scene. And then they would bring the body to the morgue, and then he could do the examination of the body. Now in Los Angeles, for instance, we have a coroner medical examiner system. So the medical examiner's stay at the county morgue. They never leave the basement. They never leave the morgue. All they do they're just like churning out autopsies. Boom, boom, boom. Sad. But but true. Yes. They had butcher so they they don't they only examine the body. But then we have coroner's in LA who go out and coroner investigators who go to the scene and they do their own pictures and, you know, take temperature, the body and investigations. So it really depends where you're at what system.

Alex Ferrari 27:50
Now, in your opinion, what is the best show and the best film ever that has this kind of like forensic authenticity? Hmm. Gosh, there's

Jennifer Dornbusch 28:01
so many. Let's see.

Um,

show wise. Wow.

Alex Ferrari 28:10
I mean, I imagine CSI is pretty

Unknown Speaker 28:12
hard. I mean, yeah. I mean, they they do a really good job they cover I mean, obviously, they go beyond what is possible. And their labs look amazing. And I don't think any lab in the United States really looks like that even in New York or LA. But, but they, you know, I do think they have done a great job of, of exposing the science of what, and that and in the depth and intricacy of the science and, and how it's changing and evolving. And we're getting better at it.

Alex Ferrari 28:49
How about movies or any movies that you think

Unknown Speaker 28:54
you know, forensically? Gosh. You know, I have to say one of my favorite movies investigatively is prisoners.

Alex Ferrari 29:05
Oh, God. Yeah, I remember that movie.

Unknown Speaker 29:08
Yeah. Because the truth of the matter. And the thing is when I've broken down that movie extensively, and in terms of evidence, trails, and when you follow the evidence, trails, I think there are only I think there is only one piece of physical evidence in one or two in that entire case, because I I look at it also as cases. The rest is all circumstantial or direct evidence. And I think that is, I love this movie so much, because that is actually how it usually happens. Most cases are tried off of, of sorry, most cases are tried off of circumstantial evidence, or maybe direct evidence. It's actually a lot more challenging to find admissible physical evidence. than what we see on television. So forensically, I think that that's a pretty accurate depiction of how cases are more typically investigated through kind of detective, you know, detective work and talking to people and putting together inferences.

Alex Ferrari 30:23
Okay. Now with characters, I think this is a great a great thing that we could talk about to just to help the writing. If you create a crime and you create that crime, that evidence trail, that's kind of like plotting, and you're kind of outlining the story. So if you know a lot about this process, just doing the normal forensics, you know, situation kind of helps you write the story. Is that correct? That does that

Unknown Speaker 30:52
is that fair? 100%. I always when I start a new project, I always pretend like I'm the detective, or I'm the investigator, and I create a case file. And I start laying out like, Okay, this is what I think is going to happen with the murder. And I start laying out what are the trails of evidence to get there, even if I never use all of them, or I don't use everything. I pretend like I build the entire case first. And that becomes my structure. That becomes my, my foundation.

Alex Ferrari 31:20
That makes it makes writing a little bit easier, almost, if you're going down this road. One of my favorite shows, and it's not specifically forensics, but there's a lot of forensics, and it was bones. Oh, yeah, loved bones, and my wife and I just, we just found it like a year ago, and we just ate through the entire 12 seasons, just over six months. We just anytime we didn't and it was just and you're sitting there going? How does she finding out like this inflammation from the bone, like you can actually see where the hatchet hit and what kind of blunt instrument it is. And that's all that I'm assuming is true. That's just that's just like a sub Fiat within this in this world, right?

Unknown Speaker 32:00
Yeah, forensic anthropology is a completely different subfield where you're really just you have no tissue. Yeah, you just have bones. So it's very fascinating and, and ways to figure out the ages of the bones and the sex and gender and height and yeah,

Alex Ferrari 32:15
all all based on just bones. It was such a good show such a good show. Yeah, it was. Now I'm sure you've been asked this question a bunch of times, because you're in forensics. Oh, Jay, what happened?

Unknown Speaker 32:30
To you? No, we actually studied that case. I'm sure

Alex Ferrari 32:34
you you had been the other?

Unknown Speaker 32:36
Yes, in the forensics Academy. And we had guests come in who had worked that case. Okay. That's actually such a pivotal and it was just the anniversary of this.

Alex Ferrari 32:49
Yeah. Cuz

Jennifer Dornbusch 32:51
25 years?

Alex Ferrari 32:52
Yes. And I just found out that oj has a Twitter account. And I just was like, I mean, he was like, Hey, guys, you know, I got some payback to do. So I'll get ready to hear what I have to say. Like, you don't want oj to say he's got payback. That's just not so brutal. Ah, so what happened with that case, because we we all know he did it. So it's such a failure of the complete justice.

Unknown Speaker 33:20
But anyway, it is, you know what, it's a failure of forensics first. And that case, actually, was pivotal and was like a turning point. And they teach it For this reason, in the way that we, we handle and process evidence, because I know this is hard to believe, because we think we're so advanced, and things are advancing so fast. But 25 years ago, it was very common and not unusual for a detective to just slide a vial of blood in his pocket, it's three in the morning, I'm going to run home, get three hours of sleep, and then I'll bring it to the office. That was common. That was normal.

Jennifer Dornbusch 34:03
And, I mean,

Unknown Speaker 34:05
I remember times even like when my dad would be investigating a crime, or not even a crime, a desk, you know, late into the night, it's for, he's tired. There's snow all over the road. It's snowing, he's it's another 10 miles to the morgue. He's just gonna pull the car into the garage, sleep for a couple hours. And then in the morning to three hours later, he'll bring it to the morgue. He says leave it in your car, leave it in the car, lock the door, lock the garage. It's just us. But you can't do that anymore. I mean, that's but that's kind of that's kind of how things were done back then. So that's basically what happened with the oj case. They weren't trying to be you know, they wanted to prosecute this. Obviously they wanted to do the best they could but that was just normal procedure and adjust.

Alex Ferrari 34:51
And the attorney and the other side's attorneys. Oh geez attorney. Yeah, just just rip them apart. Yeah, just Tori.

Unknown Speaker 34:57
Then you have a huge hole. You have this huge break in the chain of evidence and boom, you're done you it's not admissible anymore.

Alex Ferrari 35:05
So and they just I mean it's it's a masterclass you mean Crocker was it's a masterclass to watch how you can literally just destroy heat. But there was so much. He was the chef, there was so much meat out there. I'm not sure if that's a good analogy or not at this situation. But he just, I mean, he cooked them. I mean it. Yeah. And I was one of the guy and I was I don't know how old was what year was that was 25 years ago. Or 30. Yeah, so I was I was just, yeah, I was just like, just out of high school. And I we all watched it like every we did we you know, it was the best reality show on television. You just turn it on and like, oh, there it is, again. And oh, there it is, again, or you hear the updates of what it was insane time.

Unknown Speaker 35:50
I know. Don't they say that? It's kind of the start of reality television to it kind of,

Alex Ferrari 35:54
I mean, arguably the stark reality shows where the real world which was on MTV, that was the first that kind of reality show. But yeah, this was like our obsession of like, what a reality show. It's cinema. verite. A it's what it is. It's it's cinema Veritate watching that that court case, but yeah, and I became you again, so many people started becoming like forensic experts by watching that, because there was so much speak, right? When did CSI come out? That must have come out really? soon? After? Late 90s?

Jennifer Dornbusch 36:28
Yeah, with the 899. Yeah, that came out after because it was

Alex Ferrari 36:31
such a, because forensics played such a part in that case. Oh, my God is such a thing.

Unknown Speaker 36:37
Yeah. things. I mean, really, policies and procedures really changed. First of all in LA, and then yes, spread throughout the county or the country. Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 36:47
So now what what types of evidence are there? Because you kind of mentioned a few of them, like, there are specific kinds of evidence and, you know, I always thought is, like, you know, so I circumstantial and physical. Those are the two that I know from watching shows, what other kind of evidence is there? Sure.

Unknown Speaker 37:03
Sure. Sure. Sure. So I mean, you have physical evidence, and you can break that into trace evidence, biological evidence, impression evidence, you know,

Jennifer Dornbusch 37:10
once an impression, what's impression impression is

Unknown Speaker 37:12
like, you walk through certain footprint, yeah, or somebody you know, hits a hammer through your drywall, that's an impression. And then you have direct evidence, which is really your video feeds your, your photos, anything, witnessed eyewitness testimony, anything that directly shows that thing going on, which we have so much of that now.

Alex Ferrari 37:38
I mean, it's big brother, it's 1984. everybody's watching everything. But so so in the Rodney King court case, that video that the guy took of the beating would be considered what kind of evidence

Jennifer Dornbusch 37:51
direct evidence

Alex Ferrari 37:52
that's direct evidence direct, which which meant, which meant nothing at the time. That's a whole other, it's, it's not your job. It's not your job. It's not It's not your job to judge the evidence, you just have to present the evidence.

Unknown Speaker 38:09
is science applied to the law, all we have to do is apply the science and then the legal system hopefully takes care of

Alex Ferrari 38:16
it. So what other kind of evidences are there?

Unknown Speaker 38:18
So what we did, we did direct we did physical, and then there's then circumstantial, which is really the gray area of evidence and actually where I think story can live very nicely. Because it hasn't, have you seen seven seconds. It's a show on Netflix. It's a limited series on Netflix, it's a crime, a crime series set in New York City, so much circumstantial evidence. So it's all about you look at what happened and you try to piece together like a dotted line. So it's like if somebody broke into your studio, you weren't there. And let's say you know, let's say you leave your studio, everything's perfect the way it is. You get your nice stools and your your pillow, and my Yoda, Yoda, everything's perfect, right, your fixtures, you leave for two hours, go to the Trader Joe's you come back, your stools are tossed across the room, your pictures are off the wall and broken, your yodas are all smashed up or maybe missing, maybe your yodas are missing, and your equipments missing. What can you assume happened while you were gone?

Alex Ferrari 39:31
That someone broke in and generally speaking, someone broke in and was searching for something or actually there was some theft involved. That's one case scenario. Another case scenario is an ex girlfriend from 30 years ago has found me and just wants to ruin my life. I don't have one of those but just you know, so for this case for the state for the state of the of the podcast. Three, my uncle came home and he was drunk. Like there's a I mean, I don't have a drunk uncle but that's another There's so there's many scenarios what the first place you go to was foul play or someone tried to break into a deal.

Unknown Speaker 40:06
Right? Right. I mean, another option is, you got drugged, you came home and you did it yourself and then you woke up and I mean, there's so many 1000s there's 1000s of great story options, but the point is you look at what happened. And you say, what are the circumstances that are possible in here and then you start to talk to people like okay, so did you have an ex girlfriend? Did you have a drunk uncle? You know? Did somebody drug your drink while you were in the Trader Joe's?

Alex Ferrari 40:35
My little coffee the little coffee? That free coffee you get a Trader Joe's that really

Jennifer Dornbusch 40:39
wasn't creamer

brutal, brutal. I'll never drink Trader Joe's coffee again.

What is in the syrup?

Alex Ferrari 40:51
We're writing shows right here as we speak. We're literally writing shows the Trader Joe's murder.

Unknown Speaker 41:01
So yeah, so circumstantial is where you're, you're looking at the things that happened and trying to piece together a dotted line that leads to the truth.

Alex Ferrari 41:09
And that's but that's basically why there's so much of that in, in cinema and in television, because of anime, but also in novels and things like that, because that's where it's a gray area. So you really, like literally we just you throw a scenario, I threw out three possible scenarios. And you could have started to and we could have literally had 20 or 30 always the ex girlfriend Oh, was the daughter? Oh, it was the bottler that did it in the, with the candlestick and Exactly. So there's so many that but then forensics would come into that scenario, and then like, okay, let's see what evidence has been left behind. So maybe, maybe there's some blood leftover or some sweats or, you know, things like that from and then you and then like, who has access to this place? Okay, right, this exactly. I'm speaking purely from watching shows for the last 20 odd years. That's how I'm even able to even have this conversation with you. It's purely from watching, right? So many of the shows just like Well, there's this and there's this option, and then this could happen and this it's funny like but let's seriously like you're like a forensic specialist and I'm literally having a conversation I'm not by any far by any stretch. Am I an expert, but at least I could have a conversation with you like oh, well, DNA could have been blood it could have been sweat it could have been spit. A hair follicle could have been left behind soil from the shoe. Maybe somebody's shoe left a piece of dirt. Yeah. Where is that soil? It's, it's it is it? What is it from I see Beverly Hills Cop to like, oh, the shoes, they have mud on it, where's the mud from the oil fields where he used to jog over at the oil fields, that's where he's at and all of these things. And this is like literally decades of information that gets flown into your head as a writer of all these shows and all these experiences that you start throwing in there. It is fascinating and it's really fascinating. It is fun to write this stuff

Unknown Speaker 43:00
right and what you just did with that I mean that's okay that's how we do it. We're storytellers and and so you what you just did with the shoe to the jogging to the oil that physical evidence physical trace evidence and you made a circumstantial jump to the oil fields that's perfect. That's that's you know, you're building a trail of evidence that's awesome.

Alex Ferrari 43:21
Right? Is that what that was literally the plot of of Beverly Hills Cop? No, always never forgot that. Like at the bottom of the shoe, there's this kind of sand well, where have I seen that sand before? Oh, it's over down like a blocker to where the oil fields are because there's oil in it because it's he jogs at the end this is jogging shoes on the must be that's where he is. And that's where the bad guys were. So but that's how that's how you construct the story like this. It's it's really really fascinating.

Unknown Speaker 43:48
And see how Beverly Hills Cop right? Yeah, to look up to you guys kept you. That's a comedy, but it's a crime.

Unknown Speaker 43:58
It's a detective story.

Unknown Speaker 43:59
Yeah, so people think that detective stories are just this one thing, but there's actually like, I have a whole lecture on there's like 11 types of crime stories and one of them is comedic community. What

Alex Ferrari 44:09
are Can you give us a few examples of those kind of crime stories because everyone thinks of CSI everyone thinks of homicide or lawn order that kind of stuff. Which

Unknown Speaker 44:18
is Yeah, obvious. Absolutely. Okay, there's the first one Beverly has got you. But then another one I loved this show it was on Pushing Daisies. We are great. It was great show.

Jennifer Dornbusch 44:29
It's sad. It went away. You have monk

Alex Ferrari 44:34
monk was so

Unknown Speaker 44:35
good comedic. Oh goodness. Of course. Now that you ask I'm like totally blanking on all these bones has some humor. psych has a lot of humor. There. They're even Brooklyn nine nine, which is like one of my favorite shows right now. Nine Nine is a forensic comedy. It's a it's a detective cop comedy, and they solve cases every episode

Alex Ferrari 44:59
right in a funny ridiculous,

Unknown Speaker 45:01
right? Yes. And so when would these obviously the forensics doesn't have to be as Loctite? Because that's not the point, you know, processing it for that, you know, how did they get the killer,

Alex Ferrari 45:11
but there still has to be some, but there still has to be some basic understanding the forensics because the audience is so well, so well educated and so sophisticated that if they're even in the comedy, yeah, there's some basic things like DNA, you can only do so much with DNA and you can't go too far off the off the reservation makes sense.

Unknown Speaker 45:32
Yeah, absolutely. And if you were to just break down an episode of Brooklyn, nine, nine, purely just for clot and for the detective elements, the trails of evidence, it would work, it would totally, it would totally work every single day. So that, you know, this is like the character, the plot character, left brain, right brain.

Alex Ferrari 45:51
And that's great. I'm glad you brought that up. Because a lot of people again, only think of like CSI think of those kind of shows for this kind of stuff. But it is everywhere. And it's anytime there's a detective story, anytime there's a cop story. There's always forensic, even if like Beverly Hills Cop, for perfect example. Or even just fun, stupid comedies, there's still always some sort of forensics involved or evidence based stuff involved. Now let's talk DNA, because DNA is a very broad term. And what is the truth about DNA? What can we really truly get out of DNA in today's world? And how long has DNA been around? Is it been like 30 years? 40 years? 50 years?

Unknown Speaker 46:35
Um, okay. So yeah, I love starting DNA. I mean, the first sort of inklings of genomes and all that were back in the 50s. But truthfully, the first case that was used, sorry, the first case that used DNA, legitimately in a court to solve a case was in England, and it was at 1988. And so, really, you did not see DNA really start to become widespread? Why'd you have widespread use in a courtroom until probably the mid to late 90s. So that's kind

Alex Ferrari 47:14
of like exactly when oj happened. So it was in its infancy, basically, DNA was in its infancy.

Unknown Speaker 47:19
Yeah. And and at that time, too, it was difficult to test it because you needed larger quantities of it. There were limited testing, right? yet. It's evolving so much. I just wrote two newsletter articles in my newsletter about DNA and the different. The last one's all about kind of the different things that are evolving in DNA right now DNA research, like they're starting to do research and develop tests where you could actually get, it's not really DNA, it's considered more of like a chemical compound that can determine your, your if you're male or female, because DNA doesn't determine that it can't determine male or female. You can do y DNA tests which determine male, but you have to know first that it wasn't a male. So it's a little tricky. To so it's constantly evolving. It's constantly getting better. But, for instance, this is a fascinating statistic I learned recently. It's sad, actually. So there are over 400,000 rape kits sitting in laughs

Alex Ferrari 48:26
Yeah, what's his name? Last Last Week Tonight, john oliver did like, Oh, I love that 25 minute, just rant on rape kits. It's

Unknown Speaker 48:35
insane. That that total? No, and he did one before that on death investigation, which was hilarious. And also very true, by the way. Yes, yes. Um, anyways, he, I think something like only point 2% of those kids, let's just say right now or whatever is getting tested. Only point 2% of those cases of those kids are actually solved based on DNA. Wow,

Alex Ferrari 49:02
that's, that's it. And you would, you would think that that has the best option of actually using the DNA to solve a case.

Unknown Speaker 49:11
This just illustrates the point that most times either DNA isn't available at the scene or its partial DNA, they can't get a full reading or it's degraded. It's just not what we think it is based on television. It's good. It's wonderful. It's getting better. But also, it's expensive. And so another thing people don't realize is that when an investigator investigates a scene, DNA is not necessarily the first thing that they go test. Like if they have certain things that they're testing because it's expensive. So they'll try other tests first, a lot of times, test on I don't know fibers and and shoe prints and things like that. They'll send those off to the lab first before Cuz they're cheaper, they're easier to get. And then the DNA tests again, it takes six to 12 weeks to get those back. It's sometimes it's backlogged. They're expensive. And you got to and you, you were talking about police budgets and investigative budgets across the country that are constantly being challenged. And there's not enough money to do things that really need to be done. And I mean, that's, and there's not enough technicians to be to be tested. That's another big problem. There's not enough labs and not enough technicians trained to test all of this, on top of funding resources being a bit scarce, too. So yeah, we need some reform in that area.

Alex Ferrari 50:45
I mean, just just talking to you in this episode. I mean, I there's being being a storyteller and a writer myself, it just seems that there is endless amounts of just ripe story ideas in forensics, you know, just to create, I you know, that I mean, literally just having conversations with you, right now, I've had five or six different story ideas, like just what we could do this. And we could do this detective story here. And they could, and that's basically what TV shows are like, they just, there's just this one every week, there's just, that's why you could do 3000 5000 episodes of CSI in multiple states in multiple different genre, you know, there's just so much so much to be mined, so much to be mined. So, as a beginning writer, if any writers out there who are beginning, you know, this is possibly a really nice niche, to walk into without question, and if you know your stuff, and you can actually write really well in this niche, chances of you getting hired at a at a show or streaming service becomes a lot, a lot better, would you would you agree?

Jennifer Dornbusch 51:52
I would, I would agree. I would hope that would be true.

Alex Ferrari 51:56
Well, in the in the magical world, of course. Now, also, I wanted to ask you really quickly, any advice on how to make a courtroom scene a bit more realistic? Because I've loved courtroom drama. I love a good cop courtroom drama, like a few, A Few Good Men. So like the verdict, you know, these all these amazing courtroom dramas? What can we do to make those a little bit more realistic?

Unknown Speaker 52:23
Okay. Well, I do have a section in forensics speak on courtroom talk, because you should be able to understand, because I know I wasn't even complete. When I started diving into this. I knew a lot about death investigation. But I was like, Yeah, what does happen in a courtroom? So I started to really talk to judges talk to attorneys. Fine. I've sat in on murder trials before and and I love it, I love doing it. So I think that's a really good way for a writer just spend a couple days sitting in on a trial on a criminal trial or civil. I mean, I think criminal ones are a little more interesting. Now. They're not the most exciting things in the world. But you get to understand how the process works and who asks what and what they can ask or can't ask. And that's probably the best advice I have is just to experience it. And then if you know people who are criminal trial attorneys, or judges or whatever, talk to them, I've sat down and talked with the judge and asked, and she was just so gracious asking me, as I asked a bunch of questions about what does this really mean? And can you how Why isn't this thing admissible? And how does the process work?

Alex Ferrari 53:34
Yeah, I mean, it's do you'd be surprised that attorneys and judges, they're not often asked to be interviewed. So if you ask them, like, Hey, I'm a writer, I'd love to talk to you and kind of pick your brain about your process. It's a very high likelihood that they're gonna say,

Unknown Speaker 53:50
yes. Especially the retired ones, because they just they want to talk and share and

Alex Ferrari 53:56
Exactly, exactly. Now, tell me about your book. I mean, we've been talking about your book a lot in this episode, but tell me a little bit more about your book. And where can people find it? And then where can people find you and your other work as well?

Unknown Speaker 54:09
Sure, sure, sure. Okay. So it's forensic speak. It's over 300 terms on forensics. It is a forensic boot camp in about in a book. And you can find everything super easy on my website, Jennifer dornbusch comm You can find links there to purchase it, and that you can find my blog, my all kinds of information. There's some free videos on crime writing there as well. And yeah, so Jennifer dornbusch comm will be the I also have Twitter and Facebook, and you'll find those links too. And so I like to just talk a lot about forensics on my forensic speak Facebook page. So I'll put a lot of just fun facts and you know, things that I run across,

Alex Ferrari 54:55
and then you don't you have a book coming out to the sequel to the corner.

Unknown Speaker 54:58
Oh, yeah. So this is a novel that came out Last year, and the sequel comes out January 2020. Nice. So yeah. And we're actually pitching this as a TV series. So

Alex Ferrari 55:09
as you should, as you should. Listen, there's so many streaming services out there. There's so many shows out there. I mean, come on someone's good finance, and get it out on this. One.

Jennifer Dornbusch 55:24
We'll see Fingers crossed. Now,

Alex Ferrari 55:27
I'm gonna ask you a few questions to ask all of my guests. What advice would you give a screenwriter wanting to break into the business today?

Unknown Speaker 55:34
Yeah, oh, my goodness, that's such a great question. Because the business is so different than when we tried to break in. I think it's so much friendlier. Honestly,

Alex Ferrari 55:44
it's there's more opportunity now than there was. But there's also a lot more competition,

Unknown Speaker 55:48
there's a lot of competition, there will always be competition, because what we do is unique and special, and people want to be a part of it. So that's amazing. Um, my path has been so odd in in trying to break into

Jennifer Dornbusch 56:02
the world. So get born into a forensic family.

Unknown Speaker 56:06
Yeah. So if you could just, you know, get born in to forensic family. That's the first step. I have no magic beans on this. It's been so much hard work and perseverance and honestly, just never quitting. Just never quitting. Find that circle of support, because you need it, you need that support along the way. Just keep challenging yourself. In your craft, cuz I'm not a natural networker, but I had to learn. And so now I actually love meeting new people like you, I love going out to meet new people. And just keep adding to your your contact list and keep in touch with people. I think the biggest thing and I think this is a little challenging, and I don't mean to pick on millennials or Gen or Gen Z's. But I think one of the things that has gained me the most progression is that I stay in touch with people, like I've met, I met people 12 years ago that I just put them in my contact and you stay in touch, you let them know what you're working on. Because it's a marathon right? As we know, it's a marathon. It's like five marathons, maybe even 20 I don't know. ran like 5000 miles already. So everybody knows that. And they're in it for the long run. And so just develop friendships and relationships and keep developing those and and I think they work best when they're on a personal level not on social media. On

Alex Ferrari 57:40
a phone call and personal and fit in face. That's always it's always in person. So

Unknown Speaker 57:45
yeah, just have a coffee fun because that's what you're gonna do. You're gonna go out for coffee a lot. Like,

Alex Ferrari 57:51
fair enough. Hey,

Unknown Speaker 57:51
take people out for coffee go for just honestly, I really think it's about building relationships and persevering.

Alex Ferrari 57:57
Fair enough. Now, can you tell me the book that had the biggest impact on your life or career?

Unknown Speaker 58:04
Yes, I can. I mean, I love to read so I have a bazillion books on my love book list. But I honestly I'm going to tell you this is maybe a little shocking, but the biggest I actually this actually came to me this year. The book that has had the most impact and influence on my life, and my career is the Bible.

Alex Ferrari 58:28
Okay, fair enough. That's actually that's that's happened in this show before it fantastic stores are fantastic stories. Sometimes brutal, sometimes brutal.

Jennifer Dornbusch 58:41
There are x rated stories in the Bible,

Alex Ferrari 58:43
people I love I like the second part more than the first part. It's a little nicer, a little nicer. Not too much, but a little bit, a little less wrath. But anyway,

Jennifer Dornbusch 58:51
more about more about grace and mercy. Yeah.

less blood less blood, not by much but a little less. The crucifixion is pretty bad. But like I said, a little. A little less.

Unknown Speaker 59:03
Less wars. I don't know. Okay. I honestly Yeah. Because and and my, the the story that I keep going back because you know how they say you always continue to write about the same story model. Sure. For me is the prodigal son. I find that my work. Right. Like, I just, I write about that in so many different ways. I even if I'm not trying I find I come back to that those themes. Oh, okay.

Alex Ferrari 59:32
Now what is what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film industry or in life?

Jennifer Dornbusch 59:39
I'm still learning it patience.

Alex Ferrari 59:42
That's mine. That's my patience. Yeah, patience is mine, too. Yeah. And the universe has a way of forcing you to learn, forcing you to learn that lesson. Whether you like it or not, it's because no matter how much you're angry about things not happening the way you want it to at this timeframe. You want to no one cares? No one cares. No one cares. No. What did you learn from your biggest failure? Oh, man.

Jennifer Dornbusch 1:00:15
That's a good question biggest failure?

Alex Ferrari 1:00:19
That means you've learned a lot, then that's a good thing. I always say fail and fail often. Oh, man.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:25
You know, I guess most recently, in the last, say, two years, my biggest failure is, has been, and it's, you know, failure is a great thing, right? Because you learn has been learning focus, because I was split in so many directions, scattering the energies, yeah. Oh, awful. And I thought I could do it all. And society tells us we can do it all. And especially as women, they're like, you can have it all you can do it on like, well, maybe, but I don't think you do at all. Well, when you try to have it all. So, focus,

Alex Ferrari 1:01:02
I suffer, I suffer from that belief. And a lot of people listen to like Alex suffers from focus on like, I focus, but I focus on a lot of things. And I do a lot. But I wish I could just focus on one thing at a time. And when I do those small times, I do actually focus on one thing, I get so much more done. I know it's called Deep work. Have you ever read that book? Deep work? No, I would love to. It's a great book. It's just all about athletes and entrepreneurs and scientists and all these kind of people that kind of just what they do it when you go into deep work to great book. It's just called Deep work. And and because we're all distracted with so many things in life, that when you can actually just turn everything off and an hour of deep work is much more valuable than five hours of scattered work. Very true. It's it's very true. Now, what is the biggest fear you had to overcome for writing your first book novel screenplay?

Unknown Speaker 1:02:00
Mmm

Unknown Speaker 1:02:02
hmm. I wrote my first screenplay in 2002. We were living in Phoenix. And I was teaching high school at the time. So I would come home after being exhausted from teaching high school all day. brutal, brutal. Oh, no. And because I didn't really have time in the morning to write and I was like, No, I'm gonna write from three to five. And my biggest fear was just that I wouldn't be able to do it to get in the habit and really make it happen. Because I came to that kind of writing later in my life. I really ran from my calling for a long time, as we did.

Jennifer Dornbusch 1:02:36
He has as one does as as one does,

Unknown Speaker 1:02:38
as one does. But there's a great book called The late bloomers that I'm wanting to read. Maybe you've heard about that? I haven't heard that one, though. I'm embracing that. But yes, I was just so fearful that I wouldn't be able to be disciplined enough to actually not do what I knew I was supposed to do.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:55
Very I trust me. I know a lot of people listening right now are in the exact same boat. It's like I can't I actually do this. And if you just what I always found was like, just set yourself a goal every day. And if it's one page a day, write one page a day, it could take you five minutes, it can take you an hour, but just write that one page a day. And in 90 days, you'll have a screenplay. Exactly. And if you're feeling Froggy two pages a day, and you'll have it in 45 days, and so on and so forth. And not to rewrite, don't rewrite, rewrite, just keep it going. And then go back later. And then now this is the toughest question of all three of your favorite films of all time.

Jennifer Dornbusch 1:03:39
Uh huh.

Huh. Oh, my goodness. I hate these questions, because I have so many. All right, definitely gone with the wind.

Alex Ferrari 1:03:50
Just been on the show many times.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:52
Yeah. I mean, I saw it at 15. And I fell in love with Scarlet. And

Alex Ferrari 1:03:57
I saw at around 16 or 17. I was just like, this is good. Like, even then when john club went down was the greatest actor of all time for me. That was that it's still cut through anytime a movie can cut through in your teens and still hit you. That means it's really,

Unknown Speaker 1:04:12
really good. It's funny because a lot of these are not crime related at all, because people will say, Oh, you must watch a lot of crime like Yeah, I do for research. But what I love to watch is is comedy or lighter things so Amelie is definitely another one. I really, I just turned it on till just so sweet and beautiful. And yeah. Amelie got Oh, oh, no, I have to pick another one. From what Okay. All right. Here's another one. And this is actually this is actually a crime. A comedy crime. Movie. Gross point blank.

Jennifer Dornbusch 1:04:48
Oh, so good. JOHN, Zack, as

I wish I could have written that

Alex Ferrari 1:04:55
film. So good. So So yeah, it's good. Jennifer, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. It is a very, this is a morbid conversation topic, if you will, without question. But it is the realities of life and also a wonderful, in very fertile ground for writers to dive into and has been diving into them. Since the since the late 90s. Basically, since CSI kind of showed up, people have taken this entire sub genre of writing into a whole other place, and it really can't help every genre. Yeah, you know, completely in every genre. So it does help a lot. So thank you for shedding some light into the dark places, as you like to say,

Jennifer Dornbusch 1:05:39
that's what I do.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:40
Thank you, Jennifer.

Jennifer Dornbusch 1:05:41
Thank you. Thank you.