Jennifer's book FORENSIC SPEAK from Michael Wiese Productions can be ordered here.
Dave Watson: You grew with a medical examiner and you and your sisters were around death investigation a lot. Was this a clear-cut career path for you? Where else may you have ended up?
Jennifer Dornbush: No, I never thought about going into forensics as a kid. My childhood was completely unconventional. My dad was a physician in a small town about an hour north of Grand Rapids in Michigan where I grew up. Dad worked at the small hospital there and the doctors who worked there were each assigned to do autopsies because there wasn't medical examiner or coroner in the county. My Dad found that he was intrigued by death investigation and eventually offered to take all the autopsies. The other doctors were really glad to let him! Eventually, he was appointed the county Medical Examiner, a post he held for 23 years.
The County didn’t have the money to set up his office, so he set it up in our home. When people would ask me what my dad did, I was mortified! People back then didn’t really know what a Medical Examiner did or what an autopsy was. I thought it was gross. Nowadays we all seem interested in death investigation and autopsies.
It didn’t occur to me to go into this field until I was well into my adulthood. I studied journalism, taught high school, college, then became a writer. When I was trying to figure out what kind of writer I was, all these stories from my childhood bubbled to the surface. I realized I had a treasure trove of stories to work from. If I did go into the forensic science field, there's one area of forensics that I’d love to work in and that is Forensic Linguistics. I have a masters in rhetoric and studied linguistics. There is a university in New York that offers Ph.D.s in Forensic Linguistics. Maybe someday.
DW: Standing around examiner tables in the lab or the morgue are where characters reveal a little about themselves. Have you seen this in your research as well as in TV shows and movies?
JD: I teach this: it’s a great script moment when you can lay down many story pipes, reveal personal lives while investigators discuss the case and what they are finding and you can also move the investigation along rather quickly. It can be a time for humor. You can touch on C and D stories. There can be all kinds of levels of things going on when people are hovering over a dead body.
DW: When A and B stories are established.
JD: Yes.
DW: Police and related investigations have been around for, let's say, centuries. With the rise of this genre in TV & film over the past 10-15 years, have there been any surprises for you?
JD: Well, the genre has been around since Cain and Abel, and there have been thousands of detective novels before TV and film. And in fact, among the first serialized shows on TV were cop shows.
DW: Especially over the last ten or twelve years has the forensic-cop-law show become popular, especially in TV.
JD: So true! It's only been in the last twenty-five years that forensics has EXPLODED. This has given us so much more material to play with now. DNA analysis appeared in the early ‘90s. My dad was a real innovator. Before 1990 he would tell a detective to save tissue samples, and that down the road you could determine a person’s traits from it. He was involved in the first trial in Michigan where a DNA sample that he saved led to the case getting solved.
I think we have seen more procedurals and mystery shows because they tap into something we all experience… not necessarily violent crime, but every one's lives are full of big and small mysteries. This genre satisfies a need.
DW: Even when they’re not solved. Kurosawa’s Rashomon comes to mind where a mystery isn’t solved and he makes a deeper statement about human nature. With theme in mind, then, the police procedural appears to be a common plot framework. Why do you think this is?
JD: It’s actually one of eleven crime story types I teach. There are variations of the police procedural such as the caper, the legal, the amateur sleuth. People like formula. In a way, it’s cathartic. People know what to expect on some level and that it’ll all turn out okay at the end. It’s like a roller coaster. Each one might be a little different and you might feel differently after you leave the ride.
DW: Your book covers everything, including blood-splattered terminology. Is this ever not followed on the screen?
JD: They do what they need to get the story told. I go by the one percent rule. If it's one percent possible, then write it. When we create shows or movies, we often deal with possibility, not plausibility.
Is it possible New York could be overrun by a Tsunami? Well, yes. Is it probable? Not really. But hey, if it's possible, write it! It's that "what if" factor. Interestingly, year ago, The Weather Channel produced a show about extreme weather and the possibility of a hurricane level 5 hitting New Orleans. It was made right before Hurricane Katrina. They ended up airing it later and it was amazingly accurate. I try to aim for accuracy, but my goal is first and foremost entertainment.
DW: The director Sidney Lumet once said some time in the ‘80s that he felt he’d given cops short shrift on the screen, before he made a few more cop movies. Do you think this is the case?
JD: This boils down to the story, the storyteller’s point of view, and how they want to portray police officers. My experience of police officers has always been very positive. I wish there were more positive portrayal. Ultimately it depends on the story teller's point of view.
DW: This probably goes with corruption is more interesting.
JD: You bet, corruption equals conflict, which is always more interesting and entertaining.
DW: Do you have a favorite legal thriller? Why?
JD: I’d have to say The Firm and I’m not really sure why. It’s just interesting how that protagonist, a newbie lawyer, works his way out of a tough situation. He’s basically an amateur detective (one of the crime story types).
DW: And it was the first of Grisham’s big screen adaptation. The main character has to take on a corrupt law firm, the higher bosses, and the mob. I recall seeing it right near the end of college and thought this might be what the work world is about. What are you working on currently?
JD: I'm always writing and working on some project. Right now I have quite a list. I’m working on a novel and TV series called The Coroner’s Daughter. I'm developing a couple of novels, both crime-related. I’m also developing a TV show set in the beginning of when forensics first became a viable science and a part of police work around early 1900. I’m also working on a Sci-fi piece, and one project that has nothing to do with crime… I'm co-creating a kids show for the Baby First network. My co-writer and I were just awarded the Rising Creators Project with the National Hispanic Media Coalition and Baby First.
DW: Do you have a favorite cinematic moment, one you saw growing up, that stays with you today?
JD: There are so many. Seeing Gone With The Wind at fifteen had a huge impact on me. What a monster masterpiece of a story. I wished I could write characters like that. Later, Amadeus made quite an impact on me as I am a huge Mozart fan. I loved how it portrayed an artist and his counterpart, Salieri, like real people. I could relate to them.
But if there’s one scene that captured me as a young film watcher, it was in Stand By Me, when the boys find the dead body. It’s very haunting because the four boys each react differently and reflect different attitudes on how they deal with death. They feel and say different things. Their innocence is lost. Death does that. I remember having these same feelings as a kid growing up in a home where dead bodies were part of daily life. You quickly learn how fragile and precious life is. You don't want to waste a single moment.
DW: And at that point in the story, we wonder where the movie is going afterwards. When Kiefer Sutherland and his gang of bullies appear and he says, “What are you going to do, shoot all of us?” and the kid holding the gun says, “No Ace, just you,” and then you see Ace’s reaction.
JD: Yes! It’s a coming of age and end of innocence story that shows how these four boys deal with grown up problems and confront mortality.
Clip: Stand By Me
Dave Watson is a writer and educator. He lives in Madison, WI.
Dave Watson: You grew with a medical examiner and you and your sisters were around death investigation a lot. Was this a clear-cut career path for you? Where else may you have ended up?
Jennifer Dornbush: No, I never thought about going into forensics as a kid. My childhood was completely unconventional. My dad was a physician in a small town about an hour north of Grand Rapids in Michigan where I grew up. Dad worked at the small hospital there and the doctors who worked there were each assigned to do autopsies because there wasn't medical examiner or coroner in the county. My Dad found that he was intrigued by death investigation and eventually offered to take all the autopsies. The other doctors were really glad to let him! Eventually, he was appointed the county Medical Examiner, a post he held for 23 years.
The County didn’t have the money to set up his office, so he set it up in our home. When people would ask me what my dad did, I was mortified! People back then didn’t really know what a Medical Examiner did or what an autopsy was. I thought it was gross. Nowadays we all seem interested in death investigation and autopsies.
It didn’t occur to me to go into this field until I was well into my adulthood. I studied journalism, taught high school, college, then became a writer. When I was trying to figure out what kind of writer I was, all these stories from my childhood bubbled to the surface. I realized I had a treasure trove of stories to work from. If I did go into the forensic science field, there's one area of forensics that I’d love to work in and that is Forensic Linguistics. I have a masters in rhetoric and studied linguistics. There is a university in New York that offers Ph.D.s in Forensic Linguistics. Maybe someday.
DW: Standing around examiner tables in the lab or the morgue are where characters reveal a little about themselves. Have you seen this in your research as well as in TV shows and movies?
JD: I teach this: it’s a great script moment when you can lay down many story pipes, reveal personal lives while investigators discuss the case and what they are finding and you can also move the investigation along rather quickly. It can be a time for humor. You can touch on C and D stories. There can be all kinds of levels of things going on when people are hovering over a dead body.
DW: When A and B stories are established.
JD: Yes.
DW: Police and related investigations have been around for, let's say, centuries. With the rise of this genre in TV & film over the past 10-15 years, have there been any surprises for you?
JD: Well, the genre has been around since Cain and Abel, and there have been thousands of detective novels before TV and film. And in fact, among the first serialized shows on TV were cop shows.
DW: Especially over the last ten or twelve years has the forensic-cop-law show become popular, especially in TV.
JD: So true! It's only been in the last twenty-five years that forensics has EXPLODED. This has given us so much more material to play with now. DNA analysis appeared in the early ‘90s. My dad was a real innovator. Before 1990 he would tell a detective to save tissue samples, and that down the road you could determine a person’s traits from it. He was involved in the first trial in Michigan where a DNA sample that he saved led to the case getting solved.
I think we have seen more procedurals and mystery shows because they tap into something we all experience… not necessarily violent crime, but every one's lives are full of big and small mysteries. This genre satisfies a need.
DW: Even when they’re not solved. Kurosawa’s Rashomon comes to mind where a mystery isn’t solved and he makes a deeper statement about human nature. With theme in mind, then, the police procedural appears to be a common plot framework. Why do you think this is?
JD: It’s actually one of eleven crime story types I teach. There are variations of the police procedural such as the caper, the legal, the amateur sleuth. People like formula. In a way, it’s cathartic. People know what to expect on some level and that it’ll all turn out okay at the end. It’s like a roller coaster. Each one might be a little different and you might feel differently after you leave the ride.
DW: Your book covers everything, including blood-splattered terminology. Is this ever not followed on the screen?
JD: They do what they need to get the story told. I go by the one percent rule. If it's one percent possible, then write it. When we create shows or movies, we often deal with possibility, not plausibility.
Is it possible New York could be overrun by a Tsunami? Well, yes. Is it probable? Not really. But hey, if it's possible, write it! It's that "what if" factor. Interestingly, year ago, The Weather Channel produced a show about extreme weather and the possibility of a hurricane level 5 hitting New Orleans. It was made right before Hurricane Katrina. They ended up airing it later and it was amazingly accurate. I try to aim for accuracy, but my goal is first and foremost entertainment.
DW: The director Sidney Lumet once said some time in the ‘80s that he felt he’d given cops short shrift on the screen, before he made a few more cop movies. Do you think this is the case?
JD: This boils down to the story, the storyteller’s point of view, and how they want to portray police officers. My experience of police officers has always been very positive. I wish there were more positive portrayal. Ultimately it depends on the story teller's point of view.
DW: This probably goes with corruption is more interesting.
JD: You bet, corruption equals conflict, which is always more interesting and entertaining.
DW: Do you have a favorite legal thriller? Why?
JD: I’d have to say The Firm and I’m not really sure why. It’s just interesting how that protagonist, a newbie lawyer, works his way out of a tough situation. He’s basically an amateur detective (one of the crime story types).
DW: And it was the first of Grisham’s big screen adaptation. The main character has to take on a corrupt law firm, the higher bosses, and the mob. I recall seeing it right near the end of college and thought this might be what the work world is about. What are you working on currently?
JD: I'm always writing and working on some project. Right now I have quite a list. I’m working on a novel and TV series called The Coroner’s Daughter. I'm developing a couple of novels, both crime-related. I’m also developing a TV show set in the beginning of when forensics first became a viable science and a part of police work around early 1900. I’m also working on a Sci-fi piece, and one project that has nothing to do with crime… I'm co-creating a kids show for the Baby First network. My co-writer and I were just awarded the Rising Creators Project with the National Hispanic Media Coalition and Baby First.
DW: Do you have a favorite cinematic moment, one you saw growing up, that stays with you today?
JD: There are so many. Seeing Gone With The Wind at fifteen had a huge impact on me. What a monster masterpiece of a story. I wished I could write characters like that. Later, Amadeus made quite an impact on me as I am a huge Mozart fan. I loved how it portrayed an artist and his counterpart, Salieri, like real people. I could relate to them.
But if there’s one scene that captured me as a young film watcher, it was in Stand By Me, when the boys find the dead body. It’s very haunting because the four boys each react differently and reflect different attitudes on how they deal with death. They feel and say different things. Their innocence is lost. Death does that. I remember having these same feelings as a kid growing up in a home where dead bodies were part of daily life. You quickly learn how fragile and precious life is. You don't want to waste a single moment.
DW: And at that point in the story, we wonder where the movie is going afterwards. When Kiefer Sutherland and his gang of bullies appear and he says, “What are you going to do, shoot all of us?” and the kid holding the gun says, “No Ace, just you,” and then you see Ace’s reaction.
JD: Yes! It’s a coming of age and end of innocence story that shows how these four boys deal with grown up problems and confront mortality.
Clip: Stand By Me
Dave Watson is a writer and educator. He lives in Madison, WI.
