David Lane (00:00)
you know, cameras open a lot of doors that may not be open for the average person.

Madelyn (00:05)
Mm-hmm.

David Lane (00:05)
For some

reason, it's like it gives you access to things and people give you access to things that, you know, we normally wouldn't have. And you end up in places, you end up in places and situations where the average person would never need to end up.

Bradley Carpenter (00:25)
Hey, happy Friday. Welcome to the Unscripted Files. My name is Madelyn Cunningham. I am a development producer in the industry, bringing you candid conversations with the minds behind your favorite form of entertainment. If you do not want spoilers for Traders or Southern Hospitality, fast forward just a minute. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on it, but the Traders finale was so satisfying, you guys. Brittany betrays Danielle. Not a huge fan of Danielle, I'm not going to lie. Her performance, absolutely Oscar worthy.

kind of couldn't believe it, but that final betrayal of Brittany and Danielle, incredible. And then I just love all of the winners. I love Dylan, Misguided Efron, Gaggy Windy, Iva Mountbatten, and Dolores. Such a good group. And the tension that that show created all the way up until the end where we didn't know if they were going to continue to decide to out someone. It's just so good. Brilliant.

Mwah to Studio Lambert. Love that format. Absolutely amazing. And I love all the promo they've been doing since then. It's been so much fun to watch. Same night, Southern Hospitality finale and reunion. They get to watch what happens live reunion because they don't get a full dedicated set because they haven't quote unquote made it yet. They will. Southern Hospitality reunion, not bad. It really hinged on this whole arc of like will

you know, being accused of cheating on Emmy the entire season and whether or not that actually occurred. We have seen that in Vanderpump rules. I don't know, but the reunion was pretty satisfying. There was a lot of screenshots being pulled out. didn't even show up to the reunion.

Don't even wanna talk about how I feel about that. But for the most part, pretty satisfying. Also very heartfelt. We have a lot of LGBTQ plus characters in the show who really put themselves out there. And I thought how they expressed themselves during the show and the reunion was really beautiful and really heartfelt. They were having a lot of tough conversations with family. overall great TV guys. Can't wait for Southern Charm finale, Bachelor.

We're winding up to the end now. We just got through Women Tell All. It's a good, good time in TV now to our guests. Today we have Dave Lane. He is the head of recreation at Jupiter Entertainment. Jupiter Entertainment, guys, if you watch a true crime show, snapped, Fatal Attraction, Homicide Hunter. I mean, I could go on and on and on.

You have seen the work of Jupiter Entertainment. They are a true crime monster machine. So he manages all of the teams that do the recreation. But before that, he was in the field for over two decades, freelancing on every kind of content you can imagine. So he's got some amazing credits and some really interesting insights on true crime. talks about the commonalities he sees in some of the most

evil people he's ever spoken to, and then talks about his work specifically managing a 15,000 square foot studio, which is not a thing that a lot of unscripted studios have guys. It's pretty rare and really cool to hear how he manages that. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Dave Lane.

Madelyn (03:45)
I didn't ask you, Dave or David.

David Lane (03:47)
Dave usually is good, yeah.

Madelyn (03:49)
Okay.

Okay, cool. Great. Okay. Well, Dave, welcome to the Unscripted Files. Thanks so much for coming on and chatting with me.

David Lane (03:56)
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Madelyn (03:57)
Absolutely. You've been in the industry for quite a while and you've done, mean, the credits on your IMDB are like pretty insane. You know, over two decades in the industry, freelancing in the field, now more on the sort of executive side with Jupiter Entertainment, which is just an absolute machine in terms of programming, you know, responsible for hundreds, not thousands of hours of programming a year, which is just kind of insane. So talk to me about

Why you got into this? What's the story? I wanna hear the origin story first.

David Lane (04:28)
Yeah, the origin story is probably not so different than a lot of other folks. I, after high school, I needed money for college. And so I went into the Marines. And so I joined the Marines in 1995. And then I was in the Marines for eight years. And, you know, that gave me access to some funding for college. And I had a real interest in political science. And so I started to study political science and took a broadcasting class as a placeholder. I was waiting for my dream.

political science class to open up and like a lot of, I think, early college students do is, you you jump into a class fully intending to drop it, you know, when your dream class opens. And so it was a broadcasting class. It was easy to get into. And I think within the first class, I realized that it was actually really interesting. And that ultimately led to a shift in thinking.

And one of the of the fascinating parts to me about about broadcasting and TV production in general was the fact that you could make something tangible. could you could create something that people can see, can hold, can view and something that really has a lot of staying power. And, you know, I still have, you know, DVDs of the earliest projects I ever worked on and

You know, it's it that fascinated me. And so it created this shift.

I really loved TV from the start and that was the thing that I think most interested me. And then after graduation, I had a friend that started working at Jupiter Entertainment as an assistant editor I applied and got a job as a production assistant on a series called City Confidential, which ran on A &E. It's one of the early true crime series.

And City Confidential ran for 133 episodes. you know, I came in after our original narrator, Paul Winfield had passed away, and they had found a new narrator in Keith David, very famous actor with a lot of accolades.

And so I came in around that time and just fell in love with that series and the genre and, and Jupiter really, I mean, that was, I don't know. I mean, if you look back at 20 years, I don't know that I've ever had more fun than I did as a production assistant on that series. Yeah.

Madelyn (06:37)
Really?

what was the moment you were like, oh, this is, I love this. This is what I want to do.

David Lane (06:44)
Yeah, there was a real energy on that series. that time, Jupiter Entertainment, which is now over 200 employees who span multiple states, zip codes from New York to Knoxville, and then the freelancers who work across the country. At that time, it was a company of about 30. And so it was very small. It was very boutique. And there was a lot of energy and excitement in the company. It was really close-knit.

The first mission that I was given on City Confidential, I was introduced to the person who was going to be my mentor and this field producer. he said, welcome to it. Let's get right into it. Let's dig in. He said, I need for you to find a crack addict in Riggins, Idaho, who's probably homeless and probably doesn't have a phone. This is, this is really kind of like

cellphones existed but not to the point where they do the saturation that they do today. And so I just started making phone calls and I think within the first 24 hours I had her locked into an interview.

and she did an interview for the show. And so that was, that excitement, the thrill of the chase, you know, it was, I don't know, I've never escaped it from that moment.

Madelyn (07:54)
Mm Yeah. Do you feel like, you had done your stint in the military prior to this, right? In the Marines. What do you feel like in a way that, that you took skillsets from that time into this job?

David Lane (08:00)
Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, I have those conversations really still to this day. The military is an interesting place. think it's like a lot of places. It's all about what you take away from it.

You know, what I took from it was that there was a lot of professional and personal development that I gained from that. came from a, I came from a family of, you know, my parents were amazing in terms of the longevity of their relationship. They were married for over 60 years. You know, we were, we were really poor family. had siblings. We were all adopted into the family and all three of my siblings were drug addicts and

you know, lost a lost one of the siblings, a sister to addiction and an older brother who's an addict and a younger brother who's been, you know, on and off again with addiction. And so the Marines was also sort of a way out of that situation. And so it gave me I think some guidance and some purpose that I'd never had before. And what you learn in the Marines is that you come from, you you meet people from all walks of life and who have, you know,

really, really varying stories on how they got there and what they've done to that point. But you come together to do something really cool. that's the way TV works is, you know, that's the way a team works in television is that, you know, and you might not know many of the people that you're working with. And you have to make that click very quickly to have a good shoot, to have a good production, to have a good project.

Madelyn (09:30)
Mm-hmm.

David Lane (09:37)
And that could be a day, it could be weeks, it could be months, and it could end up being years. you know, knowing how to work with people, knowing how to communicate with people, just diving into the project, diving into the purpose with this common goal and common outcome in mind, I think you do that in the military. And I think that really transferred over to TV production as well.

Madelyn (09:58)
Yeah, bringing together a motley crew literally to make these things happen. Okay, so your first assignment, you nail it. Within 24 hours, you've done what you needed to do. So now you've got this high of reaching your goal. And so tell me then over the past 17 years as a freelancer, some of the most exciting or sort of wild projects you were a part of.

David Lane (10:02)
Yeah.

Yeah, that is, you know, there are so many stories that come about from the road. Some are some you can tell some you can't, you know, it is a it was a crazy, crazy existence to to be on the road, because I think one of the things about television that maybe a lot of folks don't realize is that, you know, cameras open a lot of doors that may not be open for the average person.

Madelyn (10:29)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

David Lane (10:50)
For some

reason, it's like it gives you access to things and people give you access to things that, you know, we normally wouldn't have. And you end up in places, you end up in places and situations where the average person would never need to end up.

And so I think in that sense, know, television, it provided so many interactions and experiences that I never...

never could have imagined having by not doing this type of work. you know, I might go from working on the White House Christmas for five days, and then

You know, have a 24 hour break and then I'm, interviewing a hit man in a Texas prison, And then just a few days later, you know, I'm in Montana, hunting and trapping with, you know, 76 year olds, off the grid, Hunter and trapper and waist deep snow and 30 below temperatures. six days later,

we were flying to Israel for three weeks, and exploring that country. And so that's one of the interesting elements of television and, know, the freelance world, especially, it was just such a, such a mix of different projects and experiences and opportunities that you just don't get access to.

Madelyn (11:46)
Wow.

David Lane (12:01)
I remember the first time I went into a women's facility, a women's prison to interview a killer, a woman who had killed her husband. We walked through the gymnasium during an aerobics class in an all-female prison and I got catcalled by 30 women. so I was like, I had that like,

Madelyn (12:06)
Mmm.

David Lane (12:22)
What am I, piece of meat? You know, like this feeling of like, yeah, exactly. I'm like, my God, yeah. So that's what it's like. You know, it's really has been fascinating. And there are a lot of figures, a lot of people that I've met and interviewed that I never would have had the opportunity to meet, you know, in a normal life.

Madelyn (12:24)
You had the feeling that all women have all the time. Yeah.

Right. Did your experiences growing up with your family that you mentioned before, do you feel like that gave you a level of sensitivity and empathy that you could utilize when you're in this line of work?

David Lane (12:58)
Yeah, absolutely. You you think back to certain circumstances and you know, you have to be a bit of a, and I know you know this, you have to be a bit of a chameleon, I think to be a good producer and a good crew member, a good team member. And so in production specifically, you know, I remember specifically being in Las Vegas and we were interviewing former mayor Jan Jones about

Teddy Binion who owned the the infamous and horseshoe Binion's horseshoe casino in Fremont in old Las Vegas. Binion was killed in this, you know, mysterious sort of an incident, possible overdose, possible murder. And Jan Jones was a good friend of his. She was a mayor of Las Vegas who had become an international business person for Caesar's Palace. And so, you know, we went to her office and it was

You know, we went to places within Caesar's Palace that a bellman who had worked there for 25 years had never been to. He had never been behind this set of doors, you know, and he commented on that. I've never been into this part of the building 25 years, and he didn't know that this section existed. And so we went into that section and interviewed Jan Jones. And then I think three days later, I was in a really small community in West Virginia, coal mining town, really sad.

Madelyn (13:56)
wow.

David Lane (14:17)
sitting in the living room with the family and I could see roaches on the walls and crawling out of the cabinets and sort of around and that's more of the environment I grew up in. so, to be comfortable in all those settings, I think really does take that sort chameleon personality and empathy because, you

They don't know who Jan Jones is. They don't care that I interviewed the mayor of Las Vegas, you two days before. They're just worried about their story and, you know, their life and their family. And so that's why, you know, I'm there to talk to them about those things and not to judge and, not to be a gasp at, you know, anything that happens in those situations either. And so, you know, you, you listen and, empathize and sympathize and, and,

And I do that every story that I've ever told. really, really, I've interviewed a lot of victims, families, interviewed a mom whose son was killed in a bombing in Austin, Texas. I interviewed her in the kitchen where the bomb had gone off and killed her son. We were four feet from where he died. And I interviewed that mom in that space. That was her choice. She wanted to do that as sort of an ode to him. you know, we're telling a story.

And, you know, I know that there's revenue that's made off of that. And, you know, the company makes money off of the shows that we pitch and sell and all that. but at its heart, you know, we were there for her and for that story. so I never have forgotten that. And, you know, we'll always carry that into any, any interview is that, you know, you never know what shoes that person wore to get there. And you just have to sort of.

Madelyn (15:42)
Mm.

David Lane (15:52)
listen and, you know, gather their story. That's why we're there. It's not, it's not my story. We're there for them.

Madelyn (15:58)
Right.

Right. There is so much to consider, you know, when you're whether it's, I don't know, going RV or murder comes to town, you know, there's, there's a lot of different considerations. And you said that cameras open doors to opportunities that wouldn't normally be there. Do you find that of all the experiences you've had when you are sitting in front of someone with a camera, do you find that people really are?

David Lane (16:07)
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Madelyn (16:24)
like, finally I get to tell my story. I finally get to talk about my experience, like that everyone's really waiting and that there is an openness usually to just kind of get it out there.

David Lane (16:35)
Yes, plain and simple, yes. think in terms of, if I look back at, I produced, feel produced over a hundred of the snapped episodes that we, that Jupiter has produced and, you know, really countless other true crime series and, you know, other series that aren't related to true crime reality shows and that sort of thing. But out of the thousands of interviews that I've conducted, yes, the answer is yes. People...

It's a cathartic experience oftentimes for people to talk about these situations or these events in their lives. And then I have had that comment and I cannot tell you, can't put a number to it, how many times it has happened because it's so many that people will say, God, that felt like therapy. one instance in particular we interviewed, I interviewed the...

Madelyn (17:14)
Mm.

David Lane (17:19)
It was a story in St. Louis, Missouri, sort of an outskirt of St. Louis, Missouri. And it was one of those very, very tragic stories of a mother whose newborn was stolen from her in a violent attack by another woman who had lost some, she had had some miscarriages and had convinced her family that she was pregnant and there's some psychological issues there obviously. And there was something

It was a sign, like a welcome home sign for this baby that triggered something in her. And she saw that sign and then she, for lack of a better term, snapped and went in and attacked the mom violently with a knife. Yeah. And she stole the baby. so I interviewed Shannon Torres, the woman who stole the baby. She was in prison in Missouri. I interviewed her. And then I also interviewed the mom who was attacked.

The dad of the baby was there with her. He was not happy that she was doing the interview. He felt that, you know, it should sort of live and let live and just be over. And we did the interview with the mom. was very emotional interview, both her parents. They were very emotional and the husband the whole time looked very uncomfortable, looked like he did not want to be there. I respected his decision, respected his face. And after we were finished, it was like.

It was like 10 30 PM. It had been a marathon day. They wanted to get it out. They wanted to tell the story. They're over there talking as we're sort of wrapping up and they're whispering and he looks sort of, you know, very unhappy. so I said, you know, is everything okay? You know, if there's anything we need to go back over or change or, you know, strike or whatever, you know, that's totally fine. And he said, he said, I want to do it.

And so he sat down and he told his story for the very first time. And wow, you know, I just, and he bawled, we bawled, you know, it was, it's really, I think no other term but cathartic really for him to tell that story for the first time and for his wife.

Madelyn (19:05)
Wow.

David Lane (19:26)
and for her parents to hear his story for the first time because he had not told them how he felt about it or his feelings on the situation. They heard it for the first time just like we heard it for the first time.

Madelyn (19:31)
Wow.

Hmm.

It's nice to hear because as you know, there are so many ethical implications with true crime but it does seem like overall there is again a relief. Again, we are all the main characters in our own story. So there is a desire, I think, to talk about what happened to you to

to get the word out for one reason or another, whether it's for yourself, whether it's for other families, other people. And so it is nice to hear that overall getting to process this out loud is positive for the majority of these cases, because I think there's kind of an idea that it's forced upon these people when in reality it's really a nice tool for them, like I said, to process. that's...

I remember that case very clearly.

David Lane (20:24)
Yeah, we take the, I mean, I have always taken the approach and when I say always, I really do, I'm not over exaggerating. I've always taken the approach that, and this is with any family that I've ever spoken with, is that if you say no, I walk away and you won't hear from me again, I promise. And so I'm not gonna push, I'm not going to pull the, know, we're gonna do it with or without you. You know, we really, I personally would always try to work, you know, with everyone to say,

Madelyn (20:37)
Mm-hmm.

David Lane (20:53)
It's only if you want to do it. You know, I do not want to force anyone into that situation because I really haven't lost anyone to violence. And so I really don't know what that feels like. And I've tell them that I tell folks when I talk to them, I don't know what that feels like. And so that's your story to tell if you want to tell it. If you don't, I completely understand. you know, you I get it. I'll walk away. And and so what you find, I think

Madelyn (21:10)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

David Lane (21:19)
What I have found with that approach is that that disarms a lot of people and they see that you're not just out to sort of get them and take advantage of them. And, you know, we would often have the paperwork conversation. I would often have that conversation after we would do the interview. So that, you know, they kind of felt in control of that conversation as well. Right. And

Madelyn (21:35)
Mm.

Mm.

David Lane (21:44)
And you know, you just let them tell their story and you have to be a good listener. so that approach goes a long way.

Madelyn (21:51)
Absolutely. I like hearing that, that there's sort of like a...

tell your story and then afterwards we can decide, you know, what the logistics are. So you.

David Lane (22:01)
There can be an ethical

approach to television. There can.

Madelyn (22:04)
There

can be, you're exactly right. I agree with you. think I've, you know, certainly in the earlier days of sort of reality, know your television and, and now there's a lot more conversation about producers being swimming sharks and things like that, but there absolutely can be, and there must be, especially with these types of stories. And so you went from being out in the field, more being face to face with these individual subjects.

And now you're really kind of more on the recreation side. You are head of recreation over at Jupiter and you're overseeing the sort of dramatized narrative recreation of these events, whether it's for, gosh, snapped, fatal attraction. mean, I could lit, there are a a million literally programs in pursuit with John Walsh, Homicide Hunter, ATL Homicide.

snapped killer couples for my man. mean, between Oxygen ID, A &E, you guys own such a large piece of this space and you oversee, like I said, the Recreate side of it. So tell me about that transition from being in the field to now overseeing this kind of monster over at Jupiter and why, like what led to that transition for you?

David Lane (23:18)
That transition is more of the business side of things for me. I did see a shift or the shift in production. felt like as a freelancer, at some point we may be seeing less and less freelance work as networks were constricting. I saw that and experienced that and lived through that in 2008, 2009.

and business picked back up, I think around 2010. And so I never forgot that. I don't know, I just saw a shifting tide in the amount of business that was being purchased by networks. And there was a, there was sort of a, you know, a perfect storm, if you will, of timing.

And I had just wrapped off of a long-term series that I had been on since day one. It was a sort of a more boutique series called Sins of the City. We looked at really impactful cases, stories from around the country that would often deal with really intense racial division or racial tones. And so we dug really deep into those stories from around the country and

And I was the field producer, the show runner, you know, director, you know, and really involved in that process from start to finish from day one to day end. And we were wrapping up with that series, weren't sure if we were going to get renewed. And Deborah Allen, the executive vice president of Jupiter and I had a conversation and

behind the scenes, they were looking at opening a new studio, a 15,000 square foot space studio here in Knoxville to support, you know, the reenactment side of things. If you look back at historically about, you know, the way that reenactments worked in Knoxville, those teams are often, they're often freelancers. There are some staff members with the companies who do reenactments. That's not just with Jupiter, that's with other companies who would do reenactments in town as well.

And, but there's a lot of, a lot of freelancers. so there was a sense, I think for a long time that they were sort of on their own Island, that they would kind of show up for the project and in the project and they wouldn't hear from writers, post producers, wouldn't really hear from show runners sometimes about, know, feedback that they were really hungry to get. And so there was a, you know, a definitive disconnect between

reenactments, it's, you know, and sort of the the main office or the hub of where a lot of the production and editing and, you know, writing and all that stuff comes out of and so Deborah had, you know, and her team had a lot of foresight and sort of identifying that separation. And, and she saw sort of an opportunity and a need to bridge that gap. And so as we were talking,

Madelyn (25:45)
Mm-hmm.

David Lane (26:05)
Having freelanced for 17 years, having served as a production assistant on sets and in the office, having served as a field producer, written some scripts, and then moved into showrunner capacity and then to an executive producer capacity. I never, never forgot that I was really a field person at heart.

And I'm a crew member at heart. I love just being out there. I don't like being in an office. I like being out and making things. And so we, we saw an opportunity to, to, to bridge that gap. And so she asked if I would be interested in stepping out of the field and into that role. It is a hard transition because I love the field. I love traveling. And, but we did it. And so when we did that, I think.

What we did is we were able to say, you know, to these teams that had felt isolated, that it felt like they didn't have representation, they didn't have connection to what was going on here is that, you know, let me bear your burden and tell me what you need. Tell me what will make life better for you. And I will go back to the office where I'm also very comfortable being and where I know all those people.

Madelyn (27:07)
Mm.

David Lane (27:18)
And I will relay that to them and I will help bridge that gap between these two divisions. And so that was really the initiative that was given to me. That was my assignment was to help bridge that gap. And so I've taken that very seriously and I very much love our freelancers and our staff members the same. And

want to be a voice for them so that we have a seat at the table, so that they have a seat at the budget discussions, at the production discussions, at the field production discussions, with production management, with financing. And so we didn't have that, and I don't think a lot of companies did. And I'm really thankful that this team from our president, vice presidents, they saw that need and worked to bridge that gap.

Madelyn (28:04)
Totally. Well, it's so nice. It's like having a coach who was a player, you know, so the fact that you can really see both sides and, facilitate that feedback loop because, know, you guys are getting messages, mandates, network down to execs. And then, you know, it's this trickle down effect that once it makes it down to the Recre crew, you know, a lot of these asks are very tough. The stuff that the Recre crews are doing both with, you know, these are

violent acts. there's special effects, there is late nights, there's, okay, we got to make Knoxville look like New York or look like, I don't know, Montana, Idaho, whatever. And so you being able to really be a liaison between the executives and the crew on the ground, speak both of their languages, and have everyone understand why the ask is being made and how

can we make it easier for you to achieve it? I think it's so critical because a lot of the times it does feel like a total disconnect and that leads to frustration and resentment and all the things. so the fact that you've been able to really smooth that over, I'm sure, mean, is the reason why Jupiter is so successful. mean, going on, again, the thousands of hours of programming that you guys create and the way that you've been able to remain such a pillar in a business that is

rapidly shifting, rapidly condensing is really impressive. At any given time during the week, how many crews do you have going?

David Lane (29:33)
We, on our busiest days, also, part of the oversight and involvement that we have is from, and by we, it's myself, the gear department, casting locations that all sort of falls under the same umbrella. so.

We also manage a lot of the support in terms of gear and production support for the field teams as well. so our gear department, they are constantly working to support all the field operations and recreation operations. if you look at field operations, we may have five or six crews.

you know, filming on any given day. And then just on the reenactment side of things alone, you know, we, the studio that we opened, you know, it runs pretty hot at about, you know, five, sometimes six days a week. Some weeks are busier than others. There are some natural, you know, downtime bridges between seasons, you know, and so we might have weeks where we just have a couple of crews filming.

On those weeks, we're doing a lot of catch up at the physical space of the studio to make sure that, you know, that Nix and the walls are being repaired. You know, we move a lot of lights, we move a lot of furniture, we move a lot of things around. And so the physical space to me, the 15,000 square foot studio that we have with the studio spaces is a living, breathing entity that needs to be cared for just like a crew member. And so we care for that as well.

On our busiest weeks, have six teams is probably about the busiest we've been. We've had six crews filming different series recreations in a given week. And so that's a lot of locations. That's a lot of cameras, that's a lot of personnel, and then that's a lot of studio time as well. we're there for it.

Madelyn (31:20)
Yeah.

David Lane (31:24)
especially coming from the freelance world, I love to be busy. know, as here is better, you know, so we see those calendars and we're like, you know, we get excited when we see six teams are filming, you know, there's, there's no dread. It's like, yes, this is, this is awesome. Cause I love to be able to see how logistically we're going to work that out as well. And our producers work really closely with each other. You know, we've, we've, I think

Madelyn (31:29)
We love it. Absolutely.

Sure. Right, yeah, absolutely.

Right, right.

Mm.

David Lane (31:50)
really supported communication between teams as well, not just the office and Recreate, but also Recreate Teams. so we're in it, know, like things that I think sound very simple, we, for whatever reason, we just didn't have them. We just have text threads now, you know, we have email chains where we're just all together and, you know.

Madelyn (31:58)
Mm-hmm.

Mm hmm. Right, right.

David Lane (32:12)
We talk about weather, we talk about all the things that just need to be disseminated very quickly. And part of that is that producers just talk to each other about, we're going to have a few scenes that we could use the studio for on this day. If we do that between 11 and 3, are you guys good to come in at 3.30? And then the other team's like, yeah, we have night scenes. We'll be there at 3.30 at 10.30, so it'll work out perfectly. And we find this nice symbiosis between all the teams to make it work.

Madelyn (32:17)
Mm-hmm.

Right. And you were a huge part of this studio space development and build. And I know that there was a lot of talking with the crew members, talking about, well, what do you guys need on a day-to-day basis? What scenes do you need? you know, we, okay, we need an interrogation room. We need these things. And so when it came to overseeing the process of building this or developing this 15,000 foot studio, talk to me about how you approached that because

the actual crews on the ground who are making the work, it was really important for you, I feel like, for them to have equity in this decision, for them to have input, because they're the ones who are trying to find these locations or doing this filming day to day. And then tell me what decisions you're really proud of. Tell me the spaces that you created where you feel like, this is exactly what we were looking for.

We did this in a really efficient way. Like talk to me kind of through that whole development process.

David Lane (33:39)
Yeah, when it was pitched to me by our executive vice president, Deborah Allen, when it was pitched to me by her about this studio space, I think at that time, I'm not even sure if I recall correctly, I could be misremembering, but I feel like the walls might not have been built yet. I know there were no doors or windows. There may have been walls. don't know that there were. I think it was just gravel at that point. There may have been a structure, just a primary structure there.

Madelyn (33:57)
Mm.

David Lane (34:06)
but no concrete, no doors, no windows. And I will tell you 100%, and I am not ashamed to admit it, I went in with complete imposter syndrome. I kind of pretended sort of that I knew what I was doing, but had no idea. so everything down to the electrical needs of...

you know, our grip and gaff, you know, and we were starting with a blank slate. This was not a building that, you know, had been built and was going to be, you know, sort of like, you know, remodeled or, you know, rebranded to fit what we needed. It was, from the ground up. And so we were able to sort of, you know, work with contractors to, you know, develop that space so that it fit what, what we needed that worked for production.

And so there had to be a little bit of a, there had to be some collaboration between the construction crews and us because the construction crews, they build warehouses for warehouse use. And so they, had to kind of help them understand TV a little bit and why we were making certain decisions, why we needed 12 foot tall doors, you know.

Madelyn (35:11)
Mm-hmm.

David Lane (35:17)
to be able to get equipment in and out of because that required some, you know, that required some really sort of bespoke, you know, structures that had to be sort of built in and designed. so, you know, we did that from the ground up. And I remember going in with blueprints. had the blueprints to the, you know, what we sort of came up with as the, what the layout would be. There were no walls in the space. And I remember standing in there looking and thinking I have,

Madelyn (35:18)
Right. Mm-hmm.

David Lane (35:44)
no idea how this is going to work and how this is going to come together. But we did it day by day and we did it as a team. so that was the key was communicating because no one person can do it by themselves. I immediately started reaching out to set designers, to GRIP, to GAF, to directors, to producers to get feedback on what was going to work for them, to be able to show them the blueprints and say, this is what we're thinking.

What do you think? Do we need to go bigger here, smaller here? Do we need to shift thinking here? And so we started with this sort of like, we started with a blueprint and then we were able to micro adjust that blueprint to really fit with what those teams needed. And so once the wall started to go up, once we started to see all the spaces take shape,

you were really able to see how those spaces might be used. And we made changes. I mean, we made changes along the way. were one of the spaces we fully intended to be cast holding in a small interview space. We even like tripled the soundproofing in this room because we intended to do interviews in there. And it ended up becoming our hospital space because in true crime, there's always like a hospital scene. Somebody's always getting shot or hurt. And so we

Madelyn (36:39)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Right?

David Lane (37:01)
through talking to teams, to crews, they said, this is a big room with a window. This would be awesome for the hospital. so, you know, Jupiter was fully invested in those changes, even though we had spent the extra money to, you know, to do the extra soundproofing and sound barriers and things like that in that space. There was never a singular second of hesitation. If the crews needed it, then we were going to do it. And so,

That's the decision we made. shifted plans. And then it was this sort of amalgas, you know, this amalgas design. And we just ended up sort of, and it's still to this day, like it never has stopped. I still communicate with the teams pretty much daily and they're always giving feedback on what could be different. We just had more electrical contractors come through and look at other things we could do to help.

you know, improve the spaces. And, and I saw it in some phases. I saw that the development of that space in phases of phase one was just getting in there. And then phase two was sort of tweaking and fine tuning. then phase three is really, really, you know, building it out and getting everybody what they need. so everyone has been invested. They love coming to work there.

Madelyn (38:06)
Right.

David Lane (38:12)
And I think all of those teams, everyone that comes into that space has had some impact and input into the development of that space, whether that be props, whether that be set design, or whether that actually be physical construction of the space.

Madelyn (38:28)
Right. Well, and that's, I mean, there's a whole prop house that's managed as well, which is as wild. But when you look at, that true crime is formulaic, but there's a lot of spaces and there's a lot of props and there's a lot of wardrobe and things that can be reutilized and you can like share resources across programs, which is one of the reasons you guys do it so economically and efficiently. So in the studio, you wanted to make sure these spaces were versatile. They had the electrical needs.

So you've got what? You've got a lot of hospital scenes, a lot of intero rooms. You've got a lot of what else are kind of your typical sort of setups in there.

David Lane (39:05)
Yeah, so when you first walk into the building, a lot of folks think that the lobby is actually like a working lobby because we have a reception desk that was built specifically for a set design. And so it has wheels and it will roll in and out of the space. But most everyone who comes in thinks that that is a working reception desk. It is indeed not. It is a lobby set. And then the hospital room gets a lot of use. That also serves as a crime lab or a medical examiner's office. You know, very clinical. It's big enough that you can

Madelyn (39:14)
Love that.

Mm.

yeah, very clinical.

David Lane (39:32)
stand in one corner and shoot one direction and have a hospital. You can flip around and shoot the other way and have a crime lab or a morgue or whatever you need in there. you know, we designed windows specifically within the space to be able to look into spaces. All of the doors that go into the set spaces have, you know, window kits that I installed in there so that you can see through them. And so there's a lot of like pass throughs that we intentionally put in.

Madelyn (39:53)
Mmm.

David Lane (39:57)
You know, we, we sourced some doors from Facebook marketplace that had age and patina. And so, you know, you get a sense of like, you know, oftentimes government, you know, buildings, they don't have a ton of money. And so we wanted it to look like a government building where you have some, some older, you know, older sort of bruised. Yeah. Some bruised things. Nothing's, you know, nothing's absolutely perfect. And so we have the.

Madelyn (40:01)
Love that. Yeah.

Right?

finishes and mm-hmm

David Lane (40:24)
modern bullpen space, which is a police department. And it looks very much like something out of, you know, law and order or SVU, something you would see in like a Dick Wolf type of a TV series. then just adjacent to that is another very large bullpen that has some retro feel to it that we often use for 80s, 90s. think one of the teams filming there today is filming a 1992 episode. And so that space can be

Madelyn (40:48)
Mmm.

David Lane (40:51)
can be situated to give you the look of 80s, 90s, 70s, even back 60s. then we have a couple of, we have like a captain's office that we designed specifically to be sort of the captain's office or an interrogation room or in true crime, there are always insurance policies involved. And so that could also be an insurance agents. I remember walking in one day and seeing that set up as an insurance agent's office and

Madelyn (41:10)
sure, sure.

David Lane (41:18)
I just happened to catch a moment where our actress was coming on to the insurance agent, you who was writing this life insurance policy on her husband. And I was like, well, that's not something you see every day, but it happened. so, yeah, so that is a very, very versatile room. And then we have a, you know, another sort of interrogation room that gets used largely for interrogations, very stark. Usually that's the one where you just have sort of the table, the chairs, the light and intimidation.

Madelyn (41:27)
man. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

David Lane (41:43)
The room is just filled with intimidation. And then we have a large, like a 50 by 50 foot studio space that serves as cast holding. And then we have a 120 square foot, which is bigger. It is not, but yeah, yeah, but we have, you know, quiet on set so that we hear that a lot there. we also have a jail set that we built that can be broken down if we needed to.

Madelyn (41:45)
Mm-hmm.

I hope that's soundproofed.

right.

David Lane (42:08)
It's in about six pieces, but it goes up and it looks like a brick and mortar gel set. And so it's 120 square feet, I think on the inside, which is bigger than any bedroom I ever grew up in. And so that feels like that would be luxury. think like our jail feels like luxury. It has its own toilet and its own, you know, prison mirror and, and yeah, yeah, the toilet. You got to have enough room, you know, for the, for the equipment and

Madelyn (42:09)
Mm.

wow. Well, you gotta have enough room for everybody to get in there. Yeah.

David Lane (42:32)
Yeah, the toilet actually came, I didn't know this was a thing, but it came out of a jail closeout or something like they liquidated or a jail liquidation in North Carolina. And so we, one of our set designers found a used, like, you know, lightly used prison toilet on the Facebook marketplace. And so we went to North Carolina and picked it up.

Madelyn (42:38)
A liquidation. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I know that that's great. I know that there's always, you you have your sort of, you've created this modular studio where there's a lot of, again, versatility for each space. You can kind of scale in terms of the period that you're working on. The fact that the 90s is considered period, I'm just gonna, that's painful for me, but I'm just gonna, I know it's the case. And then you have like these very, very passionate, very talented.

very resourceful and nimble people on the art team, which is such a critical part of this storytelling, who are not only working to get the accuracy right of, I don't know, what was this person's style? What were they wearing when it happened? You know, what were the actual details of the crime from the reports?

And so it's nice to have a team that's always on the lookout for, we could really use that. The team could use that and bring it in. the art is a whole other piece of it that is, again, so critical to the retelling of true crime and being able to source very specific things like a prison toilet. It's really just so wild.

So in studio and managing this, like what's the biggest challenge for you? there's not a lot of other sort of TV entertainment studios in the unscripted space doing this. It's a huge undertaking. So what is your biggest challenge?

David Lane (44:14)
Yeah, there are two ways that I look at that and that is that there's the physical space, you know, just maintaining that freshness to make sure that the spaces, you know, stay relevant and fresh. One of the struggles that you have in serialized television, like we have through Jupiter, is that we really have been very fortunate to

have long running series, snapped very soon will film at 700 episode. And so that's 700 reenactments. you know, fatal attraction, I think if I'm not mistaken, they are also in the triple hundred, they're like in the maybe the 300 range of episodes. And so, you know, they film fatal attraction, that team films two reenactments per week, generally almost year round. And so

Keeping the spaces fresh and not stale is probably the biggest challenge to make sure that when they come in, they can make it look like something new again. Now, the benefit you have to that is that a lot of police departments, they are government buildings and so they often do kind of look similar. They have a lot of the same type of propage in them.

You know, but we design the space so that all of our big set pieces, the heavy pieces are on wheels, so you can move those from space to space very quickly. Our set designers can set up and move the space around within just a few minutes, probably about 10 to 15 minutes, so they can completely redesign the space. And so, you know, when you come into the studio, you rarely see the same set twice.

We can set it back to sort of a working zero, but very quickly they'll move it around to what they need. And so we can change lighting to give us different color fields so that our walls are sort of a light gray or a mid gray. But the way that you hit that with lighting, it changes those walls to a brown, a yellowish. And so that's the way we keep that fresh. The biggest challenge really outside of the physical space is

is just keeping people happy, you know, is sort of, I feel like in this capacity, the biggest challenge day to day is just making sure our people are happy and feel taken care of. you know, that is sort of the mission really outside of the physical space.

Madelyn (46:37)
Well, and you ensuring that people feel heard, I think is a big part of it. And I think you as a crew member knows that, like just feeling like you have, you've been considered, you have a voice, you know, the work you're doing is being recognized, like all of those pieces sort of matter. When it comes to recreation, you know, and being in TV for 20 years, know, true crime recreation often is...

seen as sort of a very sort of like lo-fi, sort of, you know, storytelling. A lot of it typically has no dialogue. It's just vibes, you know? And so the evolution of recreation and where it was, where we see it now and where you guys are trying to bring it, talk to me a little bit about that, about how the, obviously the fidelity to the story, the fidelity to the event and the families is critical.

But the way in which you tell it and the sort of trying to elevate it, trying to continuously push, I know is important to you as well. So talk to me about how you guys as a juggernaut in this space are always trying to elevate and push forward.

David Lane (47:41)
Yeah, when I started on City Confidential, our reenactments for City Confidential were shot on still cameras. And so we used a, you know, at that time, a digital camera, very early digital cameras. sort of the running joke was that, you know, our photographers were the only crews in town who got paid to shoot underexposed and out of focus. And so they had this...

sort of ethereal feel, they were like very much in the movement and the motion of the shots. And so for those scenes, we often, were such a small team at that time, we often would serve not only as like a production assistant or associate producer, kind of setting everything up. And we would film at our own houses and we didn't have a locations department. We did not have a casting department. We just kind of got our buddies to do it. My wife played a nurse and other roles, know, and so.

Madelyn (48:29)
Mm-hmm.

David Lane (48:34)
We often were, I mean, I played good and bad guys, cops, you name it. But we shot out of focus and for each scene that might happen, whether that's like stabbing a knife down or pulling a gun, you would go through these sort of smaller motions and you would just hold the shutter down and catch 300 images of that one scene happening and then the editor could sort of pick and choose a range of images, maybe the

first and the fourth and the 17th image to give you sort of the feel that motion was happening. And so the viewer kind of got the sense without seeing what was happening, you know, what was happening in the abstract. And we saw that develop into snapped. We went with that sort of same approach on the initial run of snapped. then, and then we went to motion, you know, and I remember that transition of going to motion.

Madelyn (49:06)
Mm-hmm.

David Lane (49:27)
on snapped and then we started to we started to film the recreations and then that's when that's when we started to you know see more actors see more faces and so we started a casting department we started a locations department and you know wardrobe and props set design hair and makeup and so the evolution because it became more real and it became bigger

we needed bigger. And so that's where you saw the evolution of the crews and the cast that we see today. And to the point where, going back to the question of fidelity to the story, we really do try. We have production meetings weekly, usually a week out, sometimes 10 to seven days or so before a shoot might happen.

And each department, you know, they discuss the needs of that story. And so we pass imagery, you know, to each other. There's imagery that's shared so that the casting department can find actors that look like those people that look like that person. They get the age, they get sort of the body build and beard, no beard, hairstyle. so

Madelyn (50:31)
Right.

David Lane (50:39)
You know, we, look at locations, we share imagery from, you know, court records to see sort of like, you know, where that happened. And so, I mean, in, in Knoxville, it's, it's a big enough city that everywhere looks like somewhere. And so, you know, we can find a house that kind of looks like we need if that's wood paneling from the eighties, we got that, you know, we, we, we keep a database of all that information that we can source.

Madelyn (50:54)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

David Lane (51:07)
our location scouts all source and we can send pictures back and forth to kind of say, this the look you're going for producer? And the producer or director says, yes, that's what we're going for. That's the feel, that's the vibe. Is this the person, producer and director that you would want to play this role? And they can say, yes or no, let's look for other folks or let's get that person. so it has become, Fidelity story is really important and it is a big focus for all of our set designers, casting.

casting managers, our location scouts, all really want to capture sort of the real feel because we are telling real stories. We're telling real stories. And I think one of the biggest, you know, when you're when you're a field producer, you are kind of the face of you're the face of the company and you're the face of the project to that person. They don't see anybody else. They see you.

Madelyn (51:40)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

David Lane (51:58)
And even though you might not be involved in the reenactment part of things and you might not be involved in the show running part of things, you know, you're the person that they will call if they're not happy about a show or the way that something turned out. And so, you know, we always want to get that right. And sometimes, you know, like sometimes you might have to go with someone 10 years younger.

Madelyn (52:09)
Right?

David Lane (52:20)
Sometimes you might have to go with someone 10 years older, but we really do try, we really do try our best to get somebody who looks like that person and to get a space that looks like that space. Because the worst, the worst thing is having, you know, the parent of a child that's been murdered call you and say, you guys got it wrong. You know, that's the worst and you just don't want that.

Madelyn (52:38)
Mm, and that's happened.

David Lane (52:42)
It's rare. It is rare. You know, most of the time, what you hear the most are from are from police officers, from detectives who are like, you know, the guy you got to play me, you know, is like, dude, he was like, he was like a power lifter, you know, and you're like, well, you know, we always try to like, you know, you always try to sort of like, muscle it up a little bit. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Right. So that that's who you hear from the most in a very funny way. they're

Madelyn (52:53)
come on.

Yeah, but it's like, it's not about you, dude. Come on, we gave you muscles, it's fine.

That's funny.

Okay, I see.

David Lane (53:11)
They're generally

like really lighthearted about it. And that's one of the things you hear a lot in true crime is that detectives give each other so much crap about being on TV that if you have somebody playing them that looks like the 25 year younger, stronger, healthier version of them, they will hear about that for the rest of their career. yeah, yeah. fortunately we...

Madelyn (53:13)
Mm-hmm.

Right, right.

yeah, totally.

David Lane (53:38)
We do have checks and balances in place to really prevent failure in that regard on all, because casting doesn't make unilateral decisions on who they cast. They send that to producers and directors for feedback and showrunners for feedback. And so it is very much a collaborative effort and a lot of decisions, a lot of people sort of like.

Madelyn (53:41)
Mm.

David Lane (54:03)
giving feedback on that. The locations are not unilaterally chosen. That's chosen by committee, essentially. And so everybody has some input. And there is a comfort level that you have to have knowing that we are in Knoxville, that we are in a limited space when it comes to cast, that we are in a limited space when it comes to homes and available apartments and things like that, vehicles. We understand that a

Madelyn (54:09)
Mm-hmm.

David Lane (54:29)
a black Toyota Tacoma and a black Ford Ranger kind of can be interchangeable sometimes. And you just have to go with that. And there are some acceptance that we can have in that regard. As long as we get the heart of the story right, then that's what we're really going for.

Madelyn (54:36)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Right, exactly.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and there, yes. And you're, again, you've got access to, on the research side, you've got access to the documents. You've got access to a lot of information, some of which I'm sure you wish you never knew, because some of these stories are just so dark. but, trying to align as much as possible within your budget, within the constraints of

the talent, the team, the time of year, the location. I mean, there's so many things to consider and trying to get everything right is so challenging. And the fact that you guys do it and do it well and have done it so well for a couple of decades now is super impressive. I mean, when it comes to this, I mean, does it get to you anymore? Like the subject matter?

David Lane (55:31)
It, you know, honestly, and I don't want to sound, this is just personal, this is just personally from me. It never did. It never did. And by that, I mean, I have shed tears. I have shed tears with family members, know, parents who have lost children. have an 11 year old daughter and I've sat with families who have lost children.

Madelyn (55:35)
Yeah, sure.

Mm.

David Lane (55:53)
Who have lost spouses who have lost parents. have I've sat with them. I've shed tears with them. I we found outlets always found outlets to to sort of like get through that and remembering that you know It was their pain is unimaginable, you know my discomfort

sitting with someone for a couple of hours is that discomfort because they lived it.

And so you take solace in that and we walk away thinking like, you know, wow. And I think the way that it doesn't impact you is that you, you know, you're the source, you know, you are the

Madelyn (56:24)
Definitely.

David Lane (56:37)
the vehicle for them to get a story out that may not be told. mean, there may not, you know, sometimes these stories, you know, people aren't necessarily, it's not Dateline worthy, you know, or whatever, they're not knocking down the doors to get after them and, you know.

Madelyn (56:48)
No, well, no. And frankly,

a lot of the time they're not getting the coverage that they deserve for reasons that are pretty clear, you know, where there's not the attention that it should have. And so the fact that, again, you're offering an opportunity and a microphone and a platform to talk about their experience, to share memories of who they lost, to get to talk about who they were, how they were.

David Lane (56:55)
Right.

Yeah.

Madelyn (57:17)
is really critical and important. And I think that being able to access the empathy you need is important, but then to be able to just understand, to allow it not to penetrate quite so much because it is your job is something you have to figure out, I'm sure.

David Lane (57:34)
Yeah, you know, and the interesting, one of the really interesting parts about that is that on, you know, a Wednesday morning, give any Wednesday morning, at nine o'clock, you may be interviewing the victim's mom and dad, the victim's brother, the victim's sister, the victim's wife. You're doing that interview at nine o'clock and at four p.m., I'm interviewing the killer's mom or dad or husband or son or daughter. And so...

Again, going back to that sort of like chameleon conversation, to have empathy in both situations is really important. To give the outlet to the family who lost, but also give an outlet to the family of the person who took. Because they have a story too, right? mean, a lot of these people who end up committing crimes, born that way,

Madelyn (58:14)
Mmm.

Sure.

David Lane (58:21)
You know, they have a story. They do have a, you know, there's a way that they got there. And so that was always the approach. And I would have sometimes, you know, I would have victims' families say, you going to interview the other side? And I would be very clear with them and say, I've reached out to them. I have reached out to them out of fairness. And if they choose to interview with me, then we will do that. Or if they had agreed already, I would say, yes. You know, I never, never lied and said, you know,

Madelyn (58:40)
yeah.

What were the reactions?

David Lane (58:50)
The reactions were always, they were like, I would say nine times out of 10, the reactions were like, okay, I understand. Because, you know, it's not about like glorifying what they did, it's about understanding kind why they did it. And it was surprising how many families of victims would say, I wanna hear what they have to say because.

Madelyn (58:58)
Mm.

David Lane (59:11)
they didn't get to hear it in court. People weren't called to testify or they never heard the real story. They heard maybe what was told through the media, but they didn't hear it for themselves.

Madelyn (59:21)
Mm-hmm.

David Lane (59:22)
I've interviewed some pretty bad people. I will say I've interviewed some pretty bad people that were clearly pretty bad from an early age.

Madelyn (59:24)
you

Is there a commonality

with them that you see? I mean, other than the evil act, is there like a common thread amongst the individuals that you've talked to?

David Lane (59:43)
The biggest would be familial disconnect, a disconnect from family, a disconnect from meaningful relationships or healthy relationships. That's the biggest gap you see, I think, that I've seen personally. I can't speak for everyone, but that I have seen is that there were problems. There were problems early on in that person's childhood.

Madelyn (59:46)
Interesting.

Hmm.

Interesting.

David Lane (1:00:07)
That's not to blame it. That's not to say that we all, know, like anybody who has issues in a childhood, but it, it, but it snowballs at compounds. for some, some people can step over that crack and live a very healthy normal life. what you, what you have to understand, you know, without having a psychology degree is that some people, some people don't step over that crack. That crack grows and grows and grows and grows. And so.

We are not all built from the same mold and we all don't have the same, you know, mentorship or opportunities or, you know, random things, luck that might happen in our lives to get us over that crack. Some people don't have that and, and they, and they, it just grows. you, you hear that you hear people say, well, I had a bad childhood too and I didn't end up killing anybody. Right. Right. I get that. But, but they did. And so it is, and, but they did.

Madelyn (1:00:48)
Mm.

Yeah, but that is a through line that you're seeing. Yeah.

David Lane (1:01:00)
And so our job, my job, you know, is to try to maybe understand why that happened and how that happened,

Madelyn (1:01:08)
I mean, you look at Gypsy Rose, you look at the Menendez brothers, like there's a lot of sort of, let's actually look at your circumstances and what could have led you here. And there's a lot of sort of diving into their particular circumstances, especially with their family, if there was abuse and, and trying to understand just a bit more instead of

sticking a label on and saying you are this and you can't be anything else. Because there's layers, there's layers to every story, as I'm sure you've experienced a lot of the spectrum of humanity through your work.

But when you look at the future of true crime, how are we gonna tell these stories?

where it's going as a genre. What are your thoughts?

David Lane (1:01:49)
It's really interesting to see that the ebb and flow of true crime. so, you we go back to the early days of true crime, know, American justice and, you know, forensic files and city confidential, those very early shows in the genre. You know, I remember when we started Snapped and we had the premier party, you know, in downtown Knoxville. And so we were at that first episode and we, you know, there were a lot of us who were joking like this is one and done.

Madelyn (1:02:10)
Wow.

David Lane (1:02:15)
You know, we'll do one season of this and then we're done because it just seemed like it was fine for a season, but there probably wasn't going to be much of an interest in it beyond that. then 700 episodes were still going. And this, the ratings of snapped have gone up and they're at the highest there. Uh, this was from the network just recently is, that they are at the highest levels that they've been 700 episodes, 35 seasons in. And so.

Madelyn (1:02:15)
crazy.

David Lane (1:02:45)
I've never, this is sort of a confession I've never seen making a murderer, but I do know that that seemed to be the nexus of where we have ended up with this Netflix series, I think is what it started as, making a murderer. And so you would have to live in a cave not to understand.

Madelyn (1:02:57)
Mm.

David Lane (1:03:06)
the impact that that series had, even if you've never seen it on true crime and the genre and the interest, sort of this renewed interest in it. I know Dateline used to not be just true crime. They would have periodic episodes of crime stories on Dateline, other types of exposés, but then it became true crime. so they saw that as well. you know, it seemed like that really boosted

the genre. then I think there was the serial podcast as well, that really sort of amped up, you know, true crime also to even more audiences. And, you know, I do think you're right, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. And there is an innate fascination, I think about

Madelyn (1:03:34)
Mm-hmm.

David Lane (1:03:48)
how people like us end up in those situations because a lot of the people that end up in true crime, it's almost like a trope. mean, they had a great life until, and they were very happy. They had a great marriage until. so, the stories kind of start the same and you have the happy backstory images and then there's that, the but, or the until. And a lot of our lives are like that. And so I think when we...

Madelyn (1:03:58)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

David Lane (1:04:12)
true crime sort of fits a lot in the same way that we watch like the Real Housewives of New York, where most of us don't live that life, but it's pretty fascinating to look in to the windows of that life. And so I think true crime is the same where most of us fortunately will not end up in those situations, but it's kind of fascinating sometimes to look into that and to see why that happens and how someone like us can end up either.

Madelyn (1:04:22)
Absolutely. Yeah.

David Lane (1:04:39)
victim in that circumstance or the perpetrator of that circumstance. you know, that's the snapped and fatal attraction series that have, you know, hundreds of episodes running are anomalies in terms of the volume of stories that are covered inside the genre.

Madelyn (1:04:43)
Mm-hmm.

Well, and those

both deal with violence within relationships, really, which is like a whole, which could stand up the genre on its own. You and I both know. And I think, and those projects specifically, think the reason, one of the reasons they are so fascinating, violence against strangers we'll look at and we'll analyze and we'll break it down. Violence between loved ones or supposed loved ones is a whole other thing where we.

It seems unimaginable or it's just something that I feel like people are always going, could that be me? Do I know my partner? Do I know my husband? So even just those two shows alone and the fascination that they bring within relationships, I think is, like I said, enough to stand up the genre.

David Lane (1:05:41)
Yeah, life is so nuanced and there's so many ups and downs and things that happen. Especially with the advent of social media, when I started working on Citi Confidential 21 years ago,

The social media did not exist to the level that it does that really chat rooms were the social media. There were chat rooms and so we would find some stories through chat rooms or comment sections on web pages, you know, sometimes. But with the advent of social media, I think, you you see, you see the version of people that obviously they want you to see. And so when things happen that, you know, prove that they're human, just like us, I think there is a fascination for that.

Madelyn (1:06:03)
Mm-hmm.

David Lane (1:06:27)
you know, and they're.

You know, the victims of crimes and the families of the victims of crimes, you know, that's probably a hard pill to swallow is that there is a fascination for that. But by and large, what I find for them too is that they want to understand it as well. They have a hunger to understand the why behind it. And so I think that's one of the, that's why true crime has, you know, I think really grabbed hold is because

Madelyn (1:06:38)
Mm-hmm.

Right, right.

David Lane (1:06:56)
is because there is a fascination to understand not just what happened, but the why behind what happened. that sometimes is really dark and that sometimes is really deep. And sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's very surface oriented. You know, I needed a hundred bucks. I got a hundred bucks. I'd kill the guy to get it, but you know, I had do what I had to do. I've interviewed those people as well, where there's just not a lot of depth to it. I made a decision, made the, you know, like I did what I did. And...

Madelyn (1:07:03)
Mm-hmm.

David Lane (1:07:26)
You know, it's there is I think there's a hunger to sort of understand how people end up, you know, in those circumstances.

Madelyn (1:07:34)
Well,

it's an extreme. Ultimately, violence against another human being is an extreme. is against our, or it should be against our nature. And so I think that people are drawn to extremes and what led us there and how are people dealing with it, this unimaginable sort of thing. I think it's curiosity. I think it's being curious about how other humans are dealing with these things. I think it enraptures all of that. Do you watch?

True crime at home. What are you watching at home? Like you mentioned Housewives. Are you a fan? What do you like to watch?

David Lane (1:08:07)
You know, that's, it's in our house. know, we, I, we, we, do have a pretty unique situation. We don't really watch TV. I've never seen an episode. I hate to say this. I've never seen an episode of Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones. I've never seen an episode of Sopranos. You know, yeah, we, don't watch TV. you know, we, making TV, making TV for me was always enough.

Madelyn (1:08:22)
Wow.

Sure, sure.

I totally get it. I totally get it.

David Lane (1:08:32)
a friend of mine would say, you know, it's all just part of life's rich pageant, you know, and I loved that quote, because that's TV is that it's this rich pageant that you can watch, that you can live, that you can see, you know, whether that be something like fiction, Game of Thrones.

It just provides this rich pageantry to life that you're like, you know, the visuals, the sound, all those things coming together, the costumery, the locations, whether that be a small true crime series or a massive, you know, Hollywood blockbuster, like it's all kind of the same, man. And you just, it allows you to step out of your life for just a little bit, you know?

Madelyn (1:09:11)
Absolutely, it's hard work, but we're lucky at the end of the day. Yeah, and I think that's what you have to remember. So, well, thank you for this, Dave. This was so awesome. The rich pageant of life we will continue to enjoy, absolutely. So it was awesome to talk to you. Thank you so much.

David Lane (1:09:14)
for sure.

Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate

Bradley Carpenter (1:09:33)
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Got some really exciting guests coming up, you guys. Some people that are giving a really different perspective into the industry that I'm really excited for you to hear. So again, thank you so much for listening. Thank you for liking, subscribing, rating, reviewing, all the things. I hope you have an amazing weekend and we'll see you next week on The Unscripted Files.

Madelyn Cunningham (1:09:55)
The Unscripted Files is brought to you by Good Gravity Entertainment. Thank you to producer Bonnie Adams, Original Music by composer William Wright, Artwork by Lisa Schweikart, and Photography by Reid Schick.