Free Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: The Unofficial Companion by Susan Green, Randee Dawn Page B

Jankowski, and NBC Universal seals the deal. Associate producer Sheyna Kathleen Smith is in charge of all the finishing touches, such as sound mixing and color correcting. Stern enjoys mastery of the “locale cards,” which indicate places where the detectives are going in their investigations.
    “We tell the audience where we are without an establishing shot,” she explains. “They situate the characters and give the viewer a chance to breathe. The script doesn’t tell us where to put them. We pretty much know when they’re necessary. I love locale cards.”
    Each address has already been vetted by SVU researchers so as not to portray any existing spot. But do the West Coast personnel really know the city where every Law & Order is set?
    Although mistakes apparently are rare, Stern often is amused by the make-believe. “I’m from New York. I laugh when a locale card identifies, say, 706 West 45 th Street: ‘Oh, that’s in the river!’ But the audience generally will go with us wherever we take them.”

CHAPTER TWELVE
    THE TWAIN SHALL MEET
    N ot quite a Hydra, the two-headed body that is SVU somehow functions with about six thousand miles in between each noggin. Is this bicoastalism ever a problem?
    “Not at all,” insists showrunner Neal Baer. “Ted (Kotcheff) and I talk five times a day. Mariska, three times a day. Chris, once a day.”
    East Coast-based executive producer Kotcheff says the dual nature of the series—like that of all Law & Order shows—can present a challenge. “Sometimes there are geographic mistakes,” executive producer Kotcheff acknowledges. “I try to bring the writers here. I’ve lived in L.A., so I’ve got both an outsider’s and insider’s perspective. I see what’s idiosyncratic about New York.”
    Otherwise, the arrangement is copasetic. “During Uncle Ted’s Story Hour (the brainstorming session for each episode), I weed out things from a script that I think are incorrect,” he says. “Then I speak with Neal and he speaks with the writers. We’re like partners.”
    Producer David DeClerque, who works at the New Jersey soundstage, says this about SVU ’s cross-country relations: “We ship, hopefully, wonderful footage to the West Coast and keep our fingers crossed that they’re happy with it.”
    He was a New York location manager for features, TV pilots, and movies-of-the week before the Mother Ship appeared on his radar. “I wanted to get into the production managing field,” DeClerque says. “They gave me the opportunity a few times. . . . But there didn’t seem to be a full-time position. In the middle of ( Law & Order ’s) season six, I landed a pilot with Dellaventura (CBS, 1997).”
    Three years later, friends from L&O recommended him to Dick Wolf for the spin-off. “I felt these guys know how to make television shows,” DeClerque says. “They taught me how to do episodic TV.”
    His SVU counterpart is unit production manager and producer Gail Barringer, who began as a production accountant on the show in 1999. “Dave and I alternate (responsibility for) episodes,” she explains. “We both oversee operation of the facility, the crew, and the needs of actors. We report directly to studio executives. We’re in charge of budgets and amortization. We make deals for crew, equipment, purchase orders. We oversee studio policies and procedures.”

    Gail Barringer
    Better yet, “I’ll ask them if we can afford to blow up a car.”
    Kaboom. Barringer hesitates when asked about the cost per episode. “Well, we’re given a template that the studio allows us to tweak,” she says. “On ‘Lunacy’ (season ten), the special effects budget is over the norm. That happens with stunts, using the Hudson River, a lot of blood. We have no wiggle room this year.”
    According to Barringer, SVU has approximately twenty-five vehicles, ten to fifteen trucks or trailers. She adds, “Our fleet includes some hybrids. We’ve had to double our fuel budget lately (due