I have often been given experiences to dive off the high dive of life. In the moment I say "Yes", I don't often know how deep the water is, but as the saying goes, you either sink of swim. Taking on the role of supervising producer was definitely such an experience. Although I had been a manager of my team at E! for several years, I had never managed an entire staff. To be honest, I felt overwhelmed in the beginning, but I went back to some wonderful advice a dear friend of mine gave me right before I did the Big Ride across the United States. She said, "Ash, just think of it as you're going on a little bike ride. Forget the 3500 miles, just think about a ride around the block." The most basic of advice that transformed my experience of riding my bike across the country also helped me manage, create the teams, the schedules as well as a supportive communication style to deliver 12 episodes of Women Behind Bars. Break it down one thing at a time and all the pieces will fall into place.The series would follow the format of the highly successful specials Women On Death Row. We would profile two women per hour giving the facts of both sides by allowing the inmates to tell their stories as well as that of the prosecution and or the victim's family. In addition to the interviews, we would use crime scene photos, recreations, local news footage and family photos to bring the cases to life.
I was a little daunted by absorbing the lives of 24 female murderers, but our role was not to judge these woman, but to do everything we could to be fair and objective. Certainly there were moments where I felt the horror in my gut, but I always tried to go back to our mission which was to stay neutral and seek to understand what led these woman to the place where they pulled the trigger.
As we dug into the lives of the 24 women, I noticed astonishing commonalities. In my opinion, none of these ladies just woke up one day and were overcome by the urge to kill. Their life experiences all contributed to that fateful day. These included childhood abuse, dropping out of high school, early marriages, divorce, more abuse, drug addiction and mental illness. And most women fell into several of these life situations. Certainly nothing that happened in the women's past condoned killing, but the fact that so many came from shockingly similar backgrounds was an intense realization.
While I missed being out in the field interviewing the inmates, the cops, and the attorneys, I found tremendous satisfaction in creating an efficient work flow and doing my best to support the staff.
In the end we delivered 12 hours of riveting stories. The series premiered and maintained excellent ratings and became one of the networks most successful shows. This project was most definitely a huge team effort. From the PAs to the producers, to the editors and everyone in between. Although the subject matter was intense, it was the friendships with the staff that connected us all and that will be with me always.
