Making Television The 'CSI' Way

Take a glimpse at the creation of CSI.

As previously mentioned on CSI Files, CBS has uploaded four behind-the-scenes videos for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. The interviews, which were filmed during the show's seventh season, explain how an episode of CSI is made, from the writers room to the sets to the music room. The set of videos is collectively called "Television: The CSI Way" and was produced by students from Capilano College Film Centre.

"The biggest challenge for me working on CSI is constantly coming up with new forensics that we haven't used for each episode," said executive story editor Rich Catalani. "We're not only competing with the 150 episodes that we've already done, but we're also competing with two other CSI shows plus numerous other forensic shows." If the forensics in an episode aren't tight, everything else will fall apart.

"So many of our cases are based on real crimes, and it's just amazing how many different ways people can kill each other," said Steven Felder, one of CSI's producers. Douglas Petrie, a writer and co-executive producer, went on to say, "This show itself is extremely dense in terms of the amount of material. It's almost twice as much material as other shows have and [we're] just cramming it into a very compact space."

"We're shooting 44 minutes of edited footage that's shot pretty much with feature length look in nine days," William Petersen (Gil Grissom) explained, "and we just shoot as fast as we can, as much as we can, as good as we can." Michael Slovis, co-director of photography for the show, said, "One of the cardinal rules here is to make sure the film is graphically pretty and tells the story in a striking way."

"CSI is one of those rare shows that actually goes beyond 13 episodes or goes beyond a year. It's gone seven seasons, which is very exciting. It's like being in a family," said executive producer and showrunner Carol Mendelsohn. "The collective vision that everyone has when everyone has a say actually is what makes this show so great."

"The great thing about this kind of show, and the length and longevity and joy of this show is getting to know all of these artists in an intimate and knowledgeable way … and being able to show up every day and see the same group of guys behind the camera and know that you're home," Petersen explained. "What we've made here is a home on CSI, and when it's over for me I will miss my brothers and sisters a great deal."

The videos can be watched on CBS.com.

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