Criminal Minds: Many Criminal Minds Fanatics had the pleasure of meeting Rick Dunkle, pictured on the set with Stacey Beneville the First AD on Conflicted and Jackson Rathbone (Twilight), last month in LA. Rick's first episode, "Conflicted," airs tomorrow! Rick will be a Staff Writer for Criminal Minds in season five and is also the script coordinator for Ed Bernero's "Washington Field" pilot. :)
Rick Dunkle studied broadcast journalism and theatre at the local school – Franklin College of Indiana – for three years before leaving his hometown of Franklin, Indiana, for Los Angeles where he earned his B.A. in Cinema & Television Production from Columbia College Hollywood in 2002. While studying at CCH, Rick studied television drama writing under then Third Watch executive producer Ed Bernero. After finishing his first degree, Rick started work on his MFA in Screenwriting at Loyola Marymount University and began interning at Paramount Pictures in the Domestic Television Research department. Rick’s internship led directly to a fulltime job as research analyst at Sony Pictures Television International where he studied viewing trends of audiences worldwide. Rick was promoted to lead ad/marketing copywriter for SPTI in January of 2005 and transitioned to working off-site when he accepted the position of Script Coordinator on Criminal Minds from former teacher now new boss Ed Bernero. Rick finished his MFA in 2007 and began work that Fall on a PhD in Media Psychology from Fielding Graduate University. Rick soon began teaching, returning to his alma mater to offer a course in Psychology as it relates to film at Columbia College Hollywood. Rick began teaching Entertainment & Cross Promotions at Emerson College’s Los Angeles Center in Fall 2008 and sold his first pitch to Criminal Minds in October. Rick has been the script coordinator on Criminal Minds for all four seasons and wrote episode 420 “Conflicted”, directed by Jason Alexander and starring Twilight’s Jackson Rathbone, Shallow Hal’s Susan Ward, and Nip/Tuck’s Roma Maffia.
From Rick: Personal Information for the Fanatics:
Though I’ve lived in LA for nearly 9 years now, I still (and always will) consider myself a Hoosier. I’ve lived in Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Wisconsin and now, California.
I am a sci-fi/fantasy geek, favorite shows being Doctor Who (ever since the original series), Star Trek: TNG (When Wil Wheaton guest starred in “Paradise” I told Deb & Erica how much of a fan I was and they actually cast me as the dead guy in the teaser who gets killed by Wil and then hit by the semi, so now I can say Wesley Crusher killed me!), Farscape, Battlestar Galactica (Ron Moore’s version), and everything Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog)… I still get all fan boy when Nick Brendan is on set. It was actually a Buffy spec I wrote in Ed’s TV drama writing class that put me on his radar.
In high school and college I spent my time either writing (yearbooks, newspapers, magazines, student tv news channel, radio station), acting (plays and student films), directing (one-acts, student films), or flunking physics (because I was always writing, acting or directing!). I was that guy who was involved in everything and wanted my senior bio to be the longest… and it was, lol.
I worked all through high school and college, and have worked a variety of jobs from newspaper reporter at the local county paper to Dairy Queen drive-thru guy to graveyard shift at a 24-hour telephone banking call-in center. (My first job was as a paper boy!) At last tally, I’ve worked nearly 50 jobs!
I love to travel. I’ve been to 47 states and three continents… I want to hit every continent (including Antarctica) by the time I’m 40.
I always knew I wanted to be a writer. My parents knew it pretty early, too. I would write “films” for them and have my stuffed animals be the actors and recorded it on our old VHS video camera.
I’m a Scorpio.
For more on Rick:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2021590/
http://criminalmindsfanatic.blogspot.com/search?q=rick+dunkle
