Bena Sketches A Suspect For ‘Miami’

Writers’ assistant Dave Bena created the police sketch used in the latest episode of CSI: Miami, “See No Evil”.

In the episode, Ryan Wolfe (Jonathan Togo) sat with forensic artist April Carrigan (Keelin Woodell) to create a sketch of their suspect based on Ryan’s description. Behind the scenes, Bena studied real forensic sketches to get a feel for what he had to draw. “Bobby Good in props gave me reference books and then I worked off that,” Bena explained in the CSI: Miami blog on CBS.com. The final sketch couldn’t be too perfect. Instead, it had to look like “something that somebody described. You didn’t want it to look like a photograph.”

Bena normally takes notes and types outlines for the Miami writing staff, and he co-wrote last season’s “Meltdown”. However, this isn’t the first time Bena’s art has been featured onscreen. He designed the Russian mafia tattoos used in “Raging Cannibal” during season seven, and he also created the comic book pages featured in season eight’s “Mommie Deadest”. This year’s season premiere, “Fallen”, included Mayan hieroglyphics written in invisible ink—more of Bena’s handiwork.

Creating art for Miami is different than co-writing an episode, but Bena enjoys both. “It’s cool to see your work up there,” he said. “I do like it. It exercises a different part of my brain. It’s still creative, but it’s a departure from writing.”

Source: CSI: Miami Blog via Twitter