Bonus: Interview with Supernatural production designer/director/executive producer, Jerry Wanek

Mid-season bonus! We sat down with Jerry Wanek, production designer, later producer and director on Supernatural, and the guy behind basically every set you've ever paused the screen to stare at. 

We get into how a $35-a-day PA fetching Ronald McDonald's coffee ended up building the Men of Letters bunker, the real story behind that telescope, the Eric Kripke love-fest, a finally-answered fan debate about the dungeon devil's trap floor, the legend of "mud flap girls," the disco motel reveal that had the boys dancing on the beds, hidden sigils we never noticed, and one extremely chaotic Friday night involving Jared and a vintage Buick.

Jerry was generous, funny, and an absolute joy. Let us know which detail blew your mind most, and we'll be back soon with the second half of Season 9. Cheers! 🥂

Transcript

Berly 0:01

Welcome to Denim Wrapped Nightmares, a tipsy exchange podcast, where we explore the supernatural series, episode by episode.

LA 0:10

Over drinks, we'll discuss the lore, the gore, and what we adore about the Winchesters and their adventures.

Berly 0:17

I'm Burley, and I'm a new fan of the series.

LA 0:20

I'm LA, and I'm here along for the ride. Now let's begin.

Berly 0:26

Hello, LA. Hey Burley. It's time for our mid-season bonus episode. And once we saw this bunker, we knew exactly who we wanted to interview next. Oh, yeah. Why don't you tell our listeners who we spoke to?

LA 0:43

All right. Well, we spoke to Jerry Wanick, and he is a production designer with over three decades of experience in film and television. Born in Manitowak, Wisconsin, he studied fine arts at the University of Wisconsin Madison before building a career that has earned him four Art Directors Guild nominations and an Emmy nomination for outstanding art direction on the Ridley Scott Produced miniseries, The Andromeda's name. He is best known for the production designer and later producer and director on Supernatural. Over 15 seasons and 327 episodes, he and his art department created the visual world of the entire series, building nearly everything audiences saw on screen. He also curated the coffee table book, Supernatural 15 Seasons, The Crew Members Sineuvre? Souvenir. Here is our conversation with Jerry Wong.

Berly 1:41

And look where I am.

Jerry Wanek 1:44

Wow. That's so freaky to me because I'm still not used to all that.

Berly 1:50

You know, I mean this doesn't hold your dreams, does it?

Jerry Wanek 1:54

Oh my god. That's great. You got even get my favorite piece back there, the telescope.

Berly 2:02

I love that. We're in the middle of season nine. So we haven't seen them do anything with a telescope yet, but I'm hoping they do.

Jerry Wanek 2:10

Um, I don't want to, you know, ruin anything, but uh they they don't really do anything with it, you know.

Berly 2:19

Okay.

Jerry Wanek 2:20

Well, I I oh I can there was a whole big discussion about the telescope. Um, and I really wanted it because the men of letters were like the Freemasons, they were versed in everything, like astrology, astronomy, chemistry, you know, all of you. So, and I needed a really cool piece to be at the end, you know, of our set, and we didn't have much room. So I created this dome. And, you know, my dear friend Phil Segrisha, who was the one who was fighting me, and he goes, Well, it's underground. I go, Did you ever see Batman? You know, the original TV series, the side of the hill opens up and the thing comes out, and there you go. So, anyways, I I did it anyhow because I I love the look and uh and it's it made made sense to me, you know. It's like if they can do the stuff they were doing, they can certainly find a way to get the lens up through the ground. You know, you're both in the metal letters. Yes. What's what's up with that? I'm not even in the metal letters. Yeah.

Berly 3:27

I'd love to hear more about your background, Jerry. So let's go ahead and turn to our pre-prepared questions here because you've worked in the industry for several years. I went and took a glance at your IMDB. So how did you get started?

Jerry Wanek 3:40

Yeah, and that's not the IMDB is uh just a snapshot. I actually got started um by moving out to LA and begging to uh tell somebody let me come on to a you know, any kind of film set. You know, I was I dropped out of uh I was an artist, I was uh in fine arts at the University of Wisconsin, dropped out, ran away to LA because Wisconsin had enough of my shenanigans. Um I was actually bartending like people do to uh get by. And there's a couple of guys that used to come in there that worked in you know commercial world. And I would just beg them, you know, I said, are there anything, you know? So there was actually a fire at one of their production houses. And I said, I'll go clean it up, you know, and I did. And then they had this big Ronald McDonald uh campaign after that. And the owners of the company said, Well, this guy's willing to go in and clean up that crap, you know, let's give them a shot because it's just a PA, you know, I got $35 a day for, you know, 25 hours or whatever. You know what I mean? It doesn't matter. You're you're on a flat. But I I go into my the first day, I go onto the set, and there's this crew that are lighting this beautiful set. And I started listening, and all of a sudden I realized this is the crew that just got done doing ET. And it was Alan Davio and his whole crew. And I went, wow, you know, and then later on I worked with both Ridley and Tony Scott and Adrian Lyne on commercials and stuff, because what happens is especially the big feature guys, they can make a lot of money on commercials. Commercials pay really well. And so after between projects, because you know, movies take so long to get developed and they take so long to shoot, and then editing comes in and so the crew goes away. I mean, you know, until they get another project. So all these guys would um, you know, uh sustain their, you know, uh livings by doing commercials. But, you know, my big job was getting Ronald McDonald coffee and also had have a chilled case of Heineken by noon. And that's what made, you know, him the guy's name was a character actor named King Moody, and he was funny as hell. And the ad agency loved it when he got half blitzed because he would ad lib and be funnier. So, but that that's where my start came. And then I just parlayed, you know. I just when once you're once you get into something like that, it's and at the time it was all word of mouth and just making phone calls, but you would ask all the PAs like where are you going next, you know, and who you work with. And and so then you just kind of keep on going. And I just started working my way up, you know, from being like helping on set with because PAs can kind of do anything. So I, you know, I knew how to load cameras, I knew how to, you know, set lights, I knew how to do, you know, any of the grip stuff, because whoever needed the help, the PAs would just go over and you know, bolster that that department. But it was great for learning. You can't do that anymore. You know, they don't they don't allow that. But that's that's how I got started, you know, it's just doing commercials and then I moved on to music videos. And I was lucky enough to um work with this guy named Vance Lorenzini, who was doing like the Madonna videos and and stuff like that. So I got to be a part of that. And that was David Fincher who was directing them. The the cool thing was this guy was really an incredible designer, and I got to see like he expanded my universe as far as like what could be done, right? Because, you know, like the Ronald McDonald stuff was great, but it's you know, it's Ronald McDonald. But the big Pepsi commercials and the big music videos with Poison and Madonna and stuff, that's that's otherworldly, you know. And and so those things were all really important. At the time, I was just kind of a you know punk and and probably didn't uh you know realize as much as I did what how cool it was. But um anyway, so that's that's really where I got my start, you know, just doing commercials and music videos. And then I had a a friend of mine came out to visit me, and we both I was a tennis pro for a very short time at this place where we taught tennis. I left, I came out to LA, but my friend stayed there and he taught Kenny Rogers. And so my friend Kelly uh was out visiting me in LA. You know, we had taught celebrities before, and Kelly is at my house and it's his last day, he was going to go back down to Florida. And he goes, Should I call Kenny? I said, he said, you know, every time you know we we contact these celebrities, I go, you know, Kelly Who, Jerry who, Jerry Who, you know, because once you're not giving them a service or, you know, teaching them or being their friend, then yeah, they don't have a lot of use for you. But anyway, Kenny just said, Kelly, and he basically moved him into his house.

Berly 8:30

Oh, wow.

Jerry Wanek 8:31

And and Kelly is a guy that I went to like junior high with. So then Kelly moves out to LA and I'm doing my my stuff, you know, I'm working my way into you know bigger commercials, and then I started doing my own stuff instead of just being assistant. Like the Gambler Five, you know, uh first it was Rio Diablo. These are these are things that I don't think are on my IMDB, but that was with Naomi Judd and and Travis Tritt and and uh Stacey Keach. And but it was it was you know it was a fun western. And Kelly just told Kenny that Jerry's gonna be the production designer. I I met Kenny a few times and Kenny goes, okay, you know, because Kelly was producing it right by that time. So, you know, there's all these catch 22, so you can't do an MOW unless you've done an MOW, right? If you're a commercial guy, you know, they don't want you because well you have never done a you know movie of the week. So then I I checked that box. Then we did Gambler 5, and Gambler 5 was a mini-series. So now I got to do mini-series, and I was kind of doing these Western things, which I loved because like Supernatural, there was so much texture, you know, and the you know, all the age stuff. And I mean, I got to play with so many different materials. And then I did some big Larry McMurtry stuff like Streets of Laredo and um Dead Man's Walk, and got to be good friends with him. And you know, that was just uh unbelievable, just because he's one of the greatest American authors in the history of America. And uh I did The Rough Riders with John Millius, who's another, you know, wrote Apocalypse now. And I mean, John Millius is a you know pretty big guy. But all these things, you know, once you get in it, then you then it's up to you to just kind of through word of mouth and through hustling, just kind of get your next gig. But as if you do good work and you, you know, then I started to develop a reputation, and then I did the TV series, the uh Magnificent Seven, I did the pilot for it and did the that TV series. So then now I could do that, I could do a TV series. So then I was open to that door open uh because I I didn't even want to do one, you know. I thought I like I you know, I was kind of full of myself and I was building these huge sets, I was building whole towns, and they, you know, so then I I did Magnificent Seven because I really liked the the producers and the writers. They they I did a movie uh called Believe about this about Houdini, and they were the same producers. So I I you know went with them on this ride on Magnificent Seven, and um, you know, uh, and they did Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. I mean, these guys, so they're all like, you know, it's kind of a it's a big industry and a small community, you know. And once you meet certain people, and as long as you do a good job, because that's really all they care about, and you're in there, do a good job, and it's for the you know, you don't blow their budget, yeah, you're gonna work. So, you know, messed around doing that. All the stuff started going to Canada, and I refused to go because I had my crew in L and I said I'm not gonna, you know, and my agent just looked at me because I I it had been a while, you know, it's been like nine months, and I never had off. I never had any downtime. I just went from project to project. And he goes, Well, you know, either you go to Vancouver or I don't know if you're gonna, you know, what you're gonna do for work. Anyway, um, so I went up there uh and I did Dark Angel with James Cameron. Jensen during the first season came and did one episode. And he was so, even though we killed him, he was so good that Cameron and you know the other people just wanted him back. So it like you know, Supernatural, they were all mutants or ex-gens or whatever you want to call them. So we we brought him back for season two as a regular cast member. And you know, I liked him the one episode I saw him, but now when I see him every episode, I'm just looking at him and I'm going like, wow, oh, there's a star. Like that guy's he's got it. Because he's with Jessica Alba and Michael Weatherly, who were both established actors. You know, they they they had you know high profile. And Jensen was stealing every scene, and we had a lot of great guest stars too, because uh Rain Wilson was one of them. I mean, we we just had a lot of just people because it was a James Cameron thing, it was a huge budget and uh great, and I then you know you also get to meet these great directors, like and some of them um because Jensen remembered him when we did Supernatural, like Tom Wright, who is dear, dear friend and one of my favorite directors. You know, I worked with him a lot on Dark Angel, and then Jensen and I were talking one day, and we said, Hey, you know what? Who we need to get on the on Supernatural? We need Tom Wright, and uh then it happened. So, but how I made the transition from all that, and there's so many more projects, but when um I had just done the pilot for criminal minds, and um it was pilot season, so I'd done that, and I was kind of just I had five offers like for shows, and I never had five offers. I mean, you know, I was gonna take this one show. I mean, I'd semi-committed, and then my agent called me back and he goes, I just want you to know Jensen's coming up to Vancouver with a show. I said, I'll take it. I didn't know the name, I didn't know what it was about, didn't know anything. I said, nope, I'll, you know, he's a nice guy, he's a great actor, and I'll I'll I'll do that. And that's how I that's how that started. That's a risky move. Well, you know, it was, but I didn't want to go to LA because they were doing criminal minds in LA. Oh yeah, and I, you know, uh LA's great when you're 20, not so great when you're 40. You know, it's just like uh been there, done that, and I'm from uh a small town in Wisconsin and I like the slower pace, or just the people that are nicer and you know that are more normal. So I so my wife and I moved up to Vancouver and people started being so nice to us and we're going like, what do they want? You know what I mean? Because you're in LA. When somebody's nice to you that you don't know, they're usually gonna ask you for something.

Berly 14:56

Yeah, you know, or they're trying to sell you something.

Jerry Wanek 14:59

Yeah, no, it's like, you know, there's a scam, somebody's scamming something. So, anyhow, um Eric Kripke, who's you know, uh one of the smartest and nicest and most creative geniuses I've ever met, and that includes Cameron and John Wu and you know, all these other people that I was uh blessed to work with. Uh Eric's right at the top. You know, he's just that good. I knew nothing about that, but he is that good. And and uh in fact, when I was doing a John Wu project, the writer was being such a jerk that they kicked him off the set. And I was doing FaceTime with Eric in LA, but I never remembered it because it was so long ago.

Berly 15:44

Right.

Jerry Wanek 15:44

It was a uh it was a pilot for Lost in Space that never saw the light of day because it got so screwed up. But you know, great sets. And anyway, I thought they were good.

Berly 15:55

And um Jerry's like, I did my job good. Yeah, it was everybody else.

Jerry Wanek 15:59

Yeah, and John Wu did his job. It was just like uh the writing and some of the uh, you know, anyway. Uh, but but Eric remembered, you know, me from that, you know, and I and and he he told, you know, so that was that was cool. Uh because you know, he's got to okay me, right? You know, but I also had I just finished Dark Angel, which, you know, my agent said, look, you gotta do Dark Angel because because I was supposed to go do this other movie. And he goes, he said, if you do Dark Angel, you're gonna get work for 10 years because you're gonna have James Cameron at the top of your resume.

Berly 16:34

Right.

Jerry Wanek 16:34

And I said, and you know, so I backed out of the movie and and did that. And and uh and he was right, you know, um it it was a gift that kept on giving, as was supernatural, you know.

Berly 16:48

So I have a question coming back to when you were a PA, based on what you told us, you really could have gone any direction. So what pulled you toward production design?

Jerry Wanek 16:59

Well, you know, I I was a art guy. I mean, I went to art school, I flunked, I mean it didn't flunk out, I just left because I, you know, I didn't really I after you get in there for a while, you don't see the point because I'm certainly not gonna be a teacher. I was way too wild for that. And um, there's not a not a lot of great opportunities and ad agency, not quite, you know, so and I was really restless, so I just blasted to LA and and hustled and and did what I did. I don't know, I think it was like since birth. I was exposed to a lot of stuff. My dad was a contractor, and we were, you know, we worked on his houses from the time I was like 10, 12, you know, and so I saw how things went together. And it's funny because um I would pick up little pieces of scrap lumber that, you know, the next to the saws and stuff, and I'd take them home and I would arrange them in like Louise Neville, you know, uh box sculptures, but I didn't have any clue. I just I just did that stuff, right? You know, and and you know, I'm I'm very I was very, very ADD, or now I'm just real A D H D. And I mean, if I was, if they had Adderall and that stuff when I was in grade school, I would have been bathing in it, you know what I mean, because I I was just pretty unruly. Yeah. Um, but you know, that's the one thing that the film industry it, you know, because there's a lot of lot of us in the film industry, because you you're always multitasking and you're always going all these different directions and you're always thinking out of the box. So the same thing that the nuns would write on my port report card saying, you know, he's a smart kid, but all he does is daydream. Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's exactly what I was doing, you know, and it's doing it ever since.

Berly 18:55

And now I'm getting paid for it, yeah.

Jerry Wanek 18:57

Yeah, yeah, you know, but it was like it's funny, especially back then because they didn't understand any of that. Right. You know, it's like, you know, reading, writing, arithmetic, and you know, you can work in the factory, you can, you know, go be a lawyer, you can whatever. But, you know, like the art world was just not, you know.

Berly 19:16

Once you found out what kind of world you were going to be building for this series, what was your initial vision of supernatural?

Jerry Wanek 19:27

Well, to be honest, I wasn't happy because I'm I'm not I don't really doubt, you know, like that's not one of the areas I've ever really been that interested in.

Berly 19:38

The road trip area or the supernatural area?

Jerry Wanek 19:40

No, no, I love the road trip area, just the whole supernatural vibe and the you know, all that. You know, I I I'm okay with horror movies and and other stuff, but not really my jam. But as I got into it, it was because I missed doing the period pieces, like the Westerns and like Houdini, which you know, everything had a texture and everything was tactile. And I quickly found out that when you do spooky places and dark and creepy and gothic, well, this whole world opens up and it really becomes like these wonderful 3D paintings. And I got I had such an incredible crew. I mean, I mean, the artists I had and the construction guys I had and the graphics, I mean, art directors, they're they're all so talented. I mean, I really miss them and I keep in touch with all of them, but you know, meeting Jared and Jensen, well, Jensen I knew, uh, but then watching them like come together as like true brothers was really interesting. And it was really episode three. So you have the pilot, and then you have one Digo, and then we have the airplane crash, you know, one. And uh, you know, Bob Singer was a director, fantastic director, and it was our executive producer and show winner for the whole 15 years. But he got a performance out of them that oh, you know, it was like they started finishing each other's sentences, and it was like, okay, I get it, you know. And then uh Peter Roth sent Kim Manners up. And Kim Manners, he's a legend, you know. He's uh I just didn't expect him to be such a wonderful human being and lovely man, talented beyond belief, but just such a sweet man. And he had a way of bonding with uh Jared and Jensen, as did Bob and Phil and the and Eric and those guys, but they were in love with Kim. Kim was in love with them, and and it was it was just very cool to see. If Kim Manners didn't come, you know, it hopefully we'd have kept on like the way we're going, but it definitely took it to a different place and it and it was a better place and really got the confidence at the studio. Behind us, more you know, like like myself, he embraced it and took it to a new level. And I was just looking at one of the motel rooms. And remember, after Kim had passed, and um Kim liked to be on the water, he loved to fish. So we did this one screen, and that's what you call those little room dividers in our motels. And it was these canoe paddles, and I we had burned in Kim KM as a little bit, it looked like a trademark on the paddle, but every paddle had KM on it, and then the barbers were in between the rows of paddles, and and just seeing that, just I just went, yeah, that was that was special.

Berly 22:40

LA and I both noticed in those first five seasons or so that whenever an episode was one of our favorites, it was almost always directed by Robert Singer or Kim Manners.

Jerry Wanek 22:51

Yeah. I mean, the great storytellers, you know, just great storytellers. They weren't um wasn't about like tricky camera or anything like that. They just really knew story. And um, you know, uh we we had such a great stable of directors. I mean, Charles Beeson was another one who did yeah, like the French Mistake and the and the changing channels, and you know, Phil Sagrisha for sure, John Sherwalter. And I mean, they just and then, you know, toward the end we had Nina Lopez, who now is just kicking butt. I mean, she is she's one of the most sought-after directors in our business, period.

Berly 23:32

So coming back to Supernatural, do you happen to have not the first set you built? I'm gonna I'm not going to expect that of you, but the first set that you really recall putting together for Supernatural and being excited to see it filmed.

Jerry Wanek 23:47

You know, there were so many. I mean, we I don't know, Tina. It's like we built 173 motel rooms alone.

Berly 23:55

Right. Wow.

Jerry Wanek 23:56

So, you know, I mean, and so there's some some bigger sets. I mean, obviously the men of letters is the most memorable. Uh, but you know, a couple of the hell sets we did, um, you know, with I like Bobby's because Bobby's was a sense of home and it was like very personal. So there were a lot of touches in there that reflected, you know, Bobby, his friendship with John, you know, all the all the stuff. And uh, and the boys basically that was the only place they had to kind of like be safe. Um, but I it was a really good looking house, I thought, you know, I mean, I could I could stay there, you know, I could live there. Um, so Bobby's was important. And then we built the the little you know circular uh bunker or retaining room down where Sam got with the with the big devil's trap and the round cylinder and uh and then the the door on it was uh there was a stamped steel door that had the name of Eric Kripke's grandfather's scrap metal business from from Cleveland, Ohio. So we we did all we did that stuff all the time. You know, I mean there's a ton of stuff from my hometown of Manitowak. So, you know, there's I yeah, because you got to name it something and you got to name it after somebody. So we, you know, I mean the beer bottles are named after my mother, you know, the Margie Kugels. So if you go to Wisconsin, there's a very famous sort of craft beer ish uh brand called Leinenkugel. And everybody, you know, in the Midwest kind of knows Linenkugel. So my mother's maiden name was Margie Kugel. So I just took basically the same font, the same, you know, design. And my dear friend Leanne Alezicek, who was my head uh graphics person, just morphed it into mergy cools, you know, and then my mother's pictures on the like on the label, and you know, it's but it's and then she wrote this story about Manitowak, Wisconsin on the back. But so all that's fun stuff, but you know, and the boys just embraced it, you know, they're you know, so it yeah, we had we we got to do some cool stuff, but to your um to address your question, uh I was paging through this book today, and you know, there's there's like some of the hell things we did I love, I loved. Um Crowley's I liked a lot because we got you got to play in gothic, and gothic is always fun. It's kind of like a sucker punch, you know. I mean, you're doing gothic if you screw that up, you know.

Berly 26:42

Somebody said that the the floor of the dungeon and the men of letters bunker came from Bobby's bunker, that it's the same devil's trap floor. Is that correct?

Jerry Wanek 26:52

No. I mean, we did it, it it's this uh it is no. It's because they were on different stages and you know, they weren't even we basically recreated it because we needed to have the same devil's trap.

Berly 27:06

I did think it was odd. I was like, they hold on to stuff for that long? That's crazy. Okay, that makes more sense. Yeah.

Jerry Wanek 27:12

No, no, that was uh it was very similar design. I'm sure there was a few little sigil changes and things like that. Um, but no, that was uh you had to completely rebuild that and you know, and then you have to make it look like it's steel embedded in the concrete. Uh, and then it has to also be flat enough so that you can dolly over it and there'll be trips and stuff like that. So it's there's there's a lot more into that than what people know, and that's okay, you know. But but I'm I'm sure there's a lot of stuff out there that has probably become kind of like fact-based, but fact, yeah, based.

Berly 27:54

Guy Norman B made it seem like you worked magic with Frontierland. Do you remember? Like he said, it was like some old Western world or something and it was dilapidated, and you went in and worked magic.

Jerry Wanek 28:08

Well, thank God, thanks, guy. Guy's great. Guy's a great guy. No, I really enjoy working with Guy. Um, you know, it's funny because yeah, we did a lot of stuff to that frontier town because it was just was in neglect for I don't know, for many years. But because of my background with the Westerns, like the miniseries and all that, I mean, I literally did like 10 years of Westerns. So I was well versed in what to do with what and how to get there. You know, I just had to bring my crew along, you know, because they none of them were with me in LA when I was doing that stuff or in Texas. Again, I I love the end result, but to me, the stuff that is more challenging, you know, even if it's um the heavens not even mentioned yet, right? Yeah, we seasoned.

Berly 28:58

We saw Naomi up in heaven. Oh, you did with her drill and all that kind of stuff.

Jerry Wanek 29:04

Good, good, good, good. Yeah, because that's a nine too, right? That's when you first see heaven.

Berly 29:09

That was an eight that we got to see the business people up in heaven, yeah.

Jerry Wanek 29:13

Oh, okay. Because there again, you know, that was somebody, everybody had an idea of what heaven was supposed to be. And I said, okay, wait, you know, I don't like that, you know, and we'll let's try this. Let's just make it white and ethereal and everything. It's very different than anything we we've done before. And it's got to be a contrast to the gothic. So it's very modern and you know.

Berly 29:34

So as far as redressing the room, you've mentioned that that was something you've had to do more than once. What were some of your favorite tricks to give the same set an all-new look?

Jerry Wanek 29:47

It's never as easy as that sounds. And it's funny because producers always think you can just, you know, change it over by moving furniture around. It doesn't work that way. Not if you're serious about what you're doing. So our motel rooms, we usually had about two standing because you know, we'd be shooting in one and then we'd be prepping one for the next thing. So the square footage stayed relatively the same. But in paging through this book again today, I I was amazed at at how many different wallpapers and and you know, really out there wallpapers, because you know, again, I'm just looking for something that's sort of kitschy Americana, that could be anywhere, you know, USA, and all of a sudden, and I I used to have literally 30 wallpaper books around my desk, and I would just go, okay, okay, ah, all right. And you know, something would click and then and then you take that pattern, and then maybe that becomes part of the screen. And but, and then, you know, like for the one in Montana, Monique Meese, my uh very talented uh scenic artist, painted like she would paint. I would have to, you know, because she was like one of those artists that you just had to keep busy and keep stimulated because she was so good and they want to lose her. So I'd say, Monique, I think this motel room needs a mural, like maybe some cowboys in the, you know, on the range and and a windmill and a da-da-da-da-da. And so we did for a while we're doing murals, but you know, you always have to change like the uh well, the furniture, but you also have to what um I would always change like any of the surfaces. Like sometimes we put paneling up, sometimes it was leather, sometimes it was, you know, plaster, you know, it was always a change, you know, and a lot of times it was wallpaper. And then you move the bathroom from one side to the other, or it would be at the front of the motel room as opposed to the, you know, you got you gotta change it up because fans, especially our show, fans are they're paying attention, right? You know, and I I don't want somebody to say, oh, they're they're in that motel room again or whatever. But I remember that one of the first ones, and I don't even know what the name of the motel room was, but it I called it the mud flap girls. It was this um, you know, and it had noggahyde walls that were, you know, with silver studs in it, and then the mud flap girls were part of the screen. And then we had this wild, uh, like it looked like a girl on a image of a girl like sort of on a stripper pole with her hair flowing. But I mean it was all it was, I just love the colors, I love the vibe. And that's the first motel room where I use the velvet paintings because you know, we're in that world, yeah, right. And that became a running thing, you know, just because they just fit, you know, they worked and white, you know, and then we used to do our own velvet paintings. So um, but I remember that because after about um 12 episodes, 15, whatever. I mean, all of a sudden Eric just started to go, you guys just kind of do what you do. Like he didn't they didn't describe as much stuff. They just said, you know, see what you come up with and then run behind me and then we'll you know go for it. So we did, you know, probably half a dozen motel rooms or a dozen by then, and then I did the mud flap one. And Eric said, you know, it was a pretty serious scene in there, and uh, you know, but he didn't that's all he said. You know, he just thought maybe we were making light of this, you know, this the the brothers' heavy conversation, but he got over it, you know, he didn't uh you know, didn't hold it against me. But the bet the best reveal was um the disco motel. Uh yeah because I wouldn't let people go in, you know, because it was really cool to just have this reveal. When you do a set that you really like, you open the doors and then everybody comes in. It's sort of like your art opening, sort of like being in a gallery, you know. It's like here it is. And you can tell when you've really hit something, is when everybody on the crew just immediately whips out their iPhone and is like and so that's your barometer. I I should fill this, you know, the motel room just before the boys came to set. And he goes, Oh my god, you know, he's just like, oh my god. Well, I'm having I have to get a reaction because you know, so he put the camera, he started by putting the camera inside and just having the boys open the door, and then it was like, you know, they just went crazy. And the first thing they did, you know, was come in the room and started dancing, and they're both they're both up on the beds dancing with each other, and you know, but um it was fun stuff like that, you know. The WB wanted to have us make a deal with Motel 6, so we would have be in a Motel Six every episode. Oh, so that would have been very boring.

Berly 34:53

And yeah, that's not Sam and Dean, right? Like that's not that wouldn't be what they do.

Jerry Wanek 34:58

No, it it was a dumb idea. And my art director, John Marsenick, really said, no, no, you can't let him do that. And we didn't, uh but the um like for Phil, because he's from Michigan, so we did the Escanaba in, and it was like the the screen or my dividers or whatever you want to call it, uh, were made out of real birch trees, you know, and and things like that, because that's what up there, there's a lot of birch trees, and and then we put little blackbirds, you know, or crows in the branches, and you know, that we just we just kept on going with stuff. And we really pushed a lot of boundaries and like with the wild wallpapers and whatever. But my edict was always you know, you can't do something just for the sake of being different, because then it's just gonna take you out of the story and it's gonna just be odd. But if you like start with this really wild wallpaper, then match it with you know, complementary uh bed spreads and your screen and your flooring, you know, that might be a shade carpet and what have you. So as a unit, it looks like somebody actually, you know, somebody put this together. It's not because too many times, uh, you know, even friends of mine, I'll look at those shows and we're like, you know, that's a very cool item, but that there's nothing else that it's there's no reason for it to be there, right? And you can't do, you know, I don't think you should do that because your job as a designer is to tell a story, you know, and to you know, give the and really give the actors a place to feel comfortable in and believe it. And that's that's the the some of my favorite compliments I ever got was like even from Gary Busey say who's kind of nuts. He came up to me after the Rough Riders and he said, you know, you you know, you made my job very easy because I always believed I was where, you know, your sets told me it was supposed to be, like I was actually in, you know, the White House or whatever, you know, and uh and that that's you know, Jared and Jensen Ross very complimentary about the sets, and it's it's so much fun, you know, and I miss it dearly, but what are you gonna do?

Berly 37:12

LA and I are always fascinated with the amount of detail that you put into rooms. Like we've definitely hit pause on some of the hotel rooms to take try to take everything in. It's not possible to take it all in, but no, and and you know, the that was happening during the show too.

Jerry Wanek 37:28

We get feedback like that, and that's when you just gotta go, okay, you know, but I everybody was so committed. I mean, it was such a wonderful crew, you know, and everybody was, you know, just trying to do a really good job and tell a really good story. And and that's why it lasted 15 years. You know, we had a fantastic crack uh uh cast uh that was unbelievable. Like they keep they kept on coming. I don't care if it was, you know, Crowley or if it was Jack or if it was, I mean Castell, I mean Misha, I mean, he changed, you know, the whole, if it wasn't for that character, uh, I don't, yeah, we wouldn't have probably lasted that long because you know, extending out into heaven and getting into that whole theology realm brought in a lot of people and a lot of interest because it's infinite, right? You know, and we all have preconceived notions growing up and stuff, and and Eric certainly tweaked them, you know. You know, when he first started making the angels like real badass, and we're like, okay, my nuns went like this, but yeah, I get it.

Berly 38:33

So you had to have had more than eight days for all of this, though, right? For the bunker, yeah.

Jerry Wanek 38:37

No, that because that was at the beginning of the season, and they gave me we had about a month, you know, and that was working Saturdays, and you know, because that was a big that was a big deal. And it took a long time to land on, you know, what that was gonna be. And finally, um, what matched up was the um Freemasons and the WPA movement. And during the WPA movement, the government had the the workforce build these iconic libraries and power plants, and most of them, or a lot of them, just because of the era they were in, were Art Deco. So they they were, you know, and they're still many of them are still around. Some of the Carnegie Museums and any what have you. But you know, I put like Art Deco and Gothic sort of in the same um category where you got to use it sparingly. Like I never, I didn't use Art Deco once in mena, you know, in Supernatural until the Men of Letters, when all of a sudden the errors, everything lined up, and then I just we just went for it. You know, I mean, that beautiful window behind your head, LA, you know, that's pure, you know, deco and you know, everything. There's there's so many elements that are are are derived from that. You know, main focus was to get something that we could shoot in for uh, you know, many episodes and give the boys a home. You know, when you're talking about just changing some set dressing around, and this is probably where people get this notion, we did that in the mental letters just for like, because we purposely made this as a favored nation's dormitory style. So no matter what dignitary, what you know, superhero or whoever stopped in there, you you're in a dorm room, right? And all the dorm rooms were like in a college or anywhere else, they're they were identical. So even though Sam's room was across the hall from Dean's, we used a doorway that we would open and then we'd jump back into Dean's room, and then I would just dress it as Sam's room, right? So that's because that nothing changed in it, you know, except for the furniture. It was a very busy show.

Berly 40:53

I mean, we we did a lot and we had a big crew, and it was like people were tired, and but yeah, you know, it wasn't like a sitcom like Will and Grace, where they're in Will's apartment half of the episodes, you know, like it blows my mind what you you and your team were able to accomplish.

Jerry Wanek 41:10

Yeah. Well, I mean, even paging through this book today got me tired, you know, because I'm going, how did we do that? How do we do that? You know, I mean, there was an episode that we really pushed it. It was called the Benders, the Cannibal Family was back, you know. I mean, the texture and the amount of aging and the amount of stuff we did in there, and then the blood and the sickle and the oh, you know, all that stuff. And I'm going, wow, I remember that. And uh, you know, and Eric loved it. So that's how far, you know, we got to take it. Oh, going back to the motels, the first motel I did season one was because I love these screens, and uh, you know, you're asking about the screens. And they do enough, they do a couple of different things. One thing they provide a little cover for people coming in, because you know, outside that door, you don't want to build the outside world because you're you're on a stage. So that'll help shield the door, like when you're shooting within the room. You know, if you want the door open a little bit or have somebody else come in. But mostly it's to reveal the room because you always want a nice graphic foreground element. So they were 90% of the time they were right by the front door. So when you want to establish the motel rooms, like a lot of times Sam and Dean would already be sitting on the beds talking, and you take your camera and you just panned through this screen, you got this graphic, and then you you come in and you push in and find the boys. When we did, I'm from Wisconsin, we did the the pack them in, which was about the Green Bay Packers. So we had a cheese screen with holes in it that you could see through, you know, but but everything else in there was you know green and gold and and uh you know appropriate. And uh there again, you know, you it just it has to make sense. But without the screens and without the motels, because some so often, like those murals that we did in the western when we're in Montana, like you know, you're there, the one that we did for Route 66 was well, you know, just had so much texture and it was like in blues, because we're talking about New Orleans and blues, and and uh um those those were all a lot of fun.

Berly 43:17

We we got a chuckle out of the one that was in Richardson, Texas, because LA and I are both in the Dallas Metroplex area. So there you go. Richardson's very close to us, and that that motel room, there was so much Texan, like the longhorns are in there, and there was armadillos on the table. Oh yeah, yeah.

Jerry Wanek 43:37

Yeah, that that's fun to be.

Berly 43:39

I have another surprise question for you because I just remembered uh a design choice that stumped both LA and I. And it was actually in the I don't know if you direct more episodes. So far, we've only seen one episode that you directed, the Slice Girls. The gentleman. You do three. Okay, so we have two more from you coming. So in the slice girls, the gentleman. At the beginning, who gets slaughtered, he had a bunch of art with just feet. Was that your decision, Jerry?

Jerry Wanek 44:07

Yeah, because yeah, because it's kind of foreshadowing it again.

Berly 44:11

You did set design and directed that episode?

Jerry Wanek 44:14

Well, I, you know, if I just did. You know, I mean, uh my art director did the production design. Oh, okay. You know, and it's a way to like it give everybody a chance to move up a little bit. And that's why I became a producer in the last 11 episodes, was because then my art directors that were under me got production designer credit, which they deserved. That's and so then they can get another show, right? Because you can't be a production designer unless, you know, it's all that catch 22 crap.

Berly 44:45

Yeah.

Jerry Wanek 44:45

But anyhow, no, I I uh yeah, no, I picked up. But I because I you know I can't help myself, you know, I'm a control freak. But uh, you know, John Marciner did a great job with that. But I mean, that was like, oh, and the script was even bloodier. I mean, that was bloody.

Berly 45:00

It was a gory episode. That opener was Oh, I know. We like were like, this is one of those things that if it was in a an old movie, it would have been in black and white because it was so gory.

Jerry Wanek 45:12

Well, even though when I when I, you know, had it go to just like some black and white photos to like montage, you know, that because it was it would have been impossible to do because it was like way too much gore and stuff. But uh um yeah, that's that was uh yeah. That was a that was uh interesting because I just realized why you did feet.

Berly 45:36

It's because they cut off his feet.

Jerry Wanek 45:38

Yeah, yeah. So they but the um, you know, my first episode directing, and I'm reading it and I'm going, okay, I have uh all this blood, I've got a baby being born, I've got Jensen doing a love scene, and you know, so I got like everything, all I need is a dog now to make it more difficult because those things are all like very intimidating. But you don't have time to, you know, like I mean, you know, you can show up on the first day and you got 200 people asking you, what do you want? And where are you going and where's the camera? You know, so you just it's survival, you know, and uh it's by the seat of your pants. But um, you know, Jensen was, you know, and Jericho were both very, you know, cool about it. And you know, we we we had some fun, uh, even though I was like not sleeping, and you know, but uh uh but you know that that there was a very cool car we had, you know. It's um first Jensen drove it and then Dean uh Jared drove it later. But it was a an old it's called the Batwing Rubiera, and I forgot what year it would be. Um might be it's 70s era uh Buick Riviera, but it's though they only made a very few of them. And it was uh it was a Friday night, and we're doing um a lot of when you do step on on the blue screen or on stage, you know, you basically you're shooting in the car and you're getting, you know, the boys talking and all the we have this great rig that makes you feel like you're on the road. Uh but then you, you know, you still have to show the car going down the road and maybe something over the driver POV. So I had this car brought in from like Vancouver Island, you know, because I really wanted this specific car. So Jared, and this is a Friday night, and now it's like after midnight. And you know, Fridays can be a little loose, you know. People are they're anticipating the weekend. But Jared's driving the Riviera, and Brad Creaser's in the backseat with a handheld camera. And Jared goes, What if I and it was a lead car so that nobody, you know, like there was a uh one of our security guys who was driving ahead of us or stunt guys, so that you know, no cars could get in our way or whatever. And we were on the streets at work, nobody was on anyhow. But Jared goes, I'm gonna ram him. I mean, he was serious, it was like he would get like within an inch of the bumper. And anyway, Jared, Jared was like full of mischief, especially on Friday nights. So that's why he didn't drive a lot, you know. They don't didn't drive a lot.

Berly 48:23

Okay, that answers one of the questions from one of our Patreon people who was asking if Jensen and Jared's heights uh provided any challenges for your building sets. But no, that's why he didn't drive.

Jerry Wanek 48:36

Yeah, you know, that was kind of like after the my episode was kind of like, uh, you know, I probably won't let you know, you know. So that was that was that.

Berly 48:48

All right. Um, the other Patreon question that I do want to get through before we let you go. Um which room or feature in the Men of Letters bunker was the most fun to create?

Jerry Wanek 49:01

Well, I mean, between the library and the adjoining, you know, uh war room, those, those that, you know, the the the two you're in.

Berly 49:08

The two we're in, yeah.

Jerry Wanek 49:09

Yeah. I mean, because but there's so many things that go into that. Like every bookshelf is on wheels, so you can just pop those out, and all the columns are just they're made out of styrofoam and they just move really easily and quickly. So, like, because directors get very bored unless they can do stuff and move the camera, right? So if you have to have everything movable and create fun stuff for them to look through and light through, and you know, so that you know, right up until the end, you know, it was always like we were always doing something to make their experience a little better, you know. And uh one director even shot over the telescope.

Berly 49:53

You know, we moved out the back wall and I just turned around like I was gonna I just turned around like I was gonna be able to see the telescope. I feel like an idiot.

Jerry Wanek 50:02

And you know what? It looked believable. We're looking at it.

Berly 50:06

Oh my!

Jerry Wanek 50:07

Yeah, that's right there. That's so funny. But um, yeah, so those those, you know, uh those we we spent the most time in there, you know, as far as like uh and thought and but you know, we always it's always nice to have different levels because like Ellie, when I'm looking at you, you know, that balcony and and that whole and and everything has detail, like the design of the handrail versus the windows versus you know, all the the tile patterns, and you know, it's all it's all thought about, you know, it's not none, none of it's random, you know. Um, and you know, there's a lot of details that you don't see like in the freeze around the men of letters. Uh there's sigils embedded, you know, in that freeze. There's like hidden things. And then in front of every bookcase, there's another sigil that is uh pressed into the floor that's made out of metal that, you know, so it's because the whole men of letters is supposed to be warded.

Berly 51:12

Right.

Jerry Wanek 51:12

So we have all these little you know, symbols and stuff everywhere that when you walk the men of letters, you can see it. But if you're not, you know, on TV, no one's going, oh look, there's a sigil on the floor, you know. Or but there's we again, knowing that we were gonna spend some time in there, we we certainly, you know.

Berly 51:32

Okay, before I let you go though, Jerry, we want to hear more about this book. Like, can people buy the book?

Jerry Wanek 51:39

Absolutely. It's um, I mean, your world that you're in, I can't tell you how many people when I go to a convention, all these people line up, and I'll I'll I don't charge for autographs, but they have these books, and these books are heavy. I mean, this is a picture, yeah. I mean, this is a coffee table book that weighs, you know, 20 pounds. I mean, you know, but they lug them for wherever they're coming from, wherever in the country, and then they collect autographs inside the you know, the book. Um, so but it Insight Editions, who does the Star Wars books, they do everybody's books. They're out of San Francisco. I put the whole book together, you know, I did it for the love of it and to give everybody a keepsake, but I didn't take any money for it, and I also didn't get a piece of it. So even though I published it and I, you know, put it together and I get credit for it, you know, I don't get a nickel, you know, for it, but which is okay. Because how that started was oh, there's you know, here's so I used to make little hardcover books just for the art department, and then I'd let them let the crew, if they wanted them, they could, you know, uh they could buy my cost. So, and I always asked Warner Brother, I said, you know, the fans would probably really like these. So there's little books that were made for every every season. And they kept on saying, no, we don't want to deal with that. Okay. So now we're going to the final episode, you know, and I'm building this really cool house of blues set where Kansas is actually going to fly up to Vancouver and we're going to have the real band play for the season for the ep, you know, the show finale. And then within this great concert, all of a sudden, as we get closer and kind of look through the crowd, we see everybody that died on the show, you know, because now they're in heaven, or maybe not, but you know, so it was a chance to bring back everybody and have this great reunion and da-da-da-da. And then COVID hit. So, I mean, I had the the set more than halfway built, and it was, you know, talking to the band what their needs were. But anyhow, um, so I said, okay, we can't have a rap party. We can't, you know, Kansas ain't coming. Um, I said, let's do a book because we have enough hoodies, jackets, and hats, you know, just like they're just they're disposable. And uh so Jim Michaels said, okay, we'll mock something up and then I'll send it down to Warner Brothers. So I did a mock-up. I did like eight pages and uh showed it to Jim. Jim sent it down to Lisa Lewis, and she ran it by the Powers to Be. And because we had, you know, literally $50,000 or so from what we saved on not having the rap party and and other things, they said, okay, we can put that money toward the book. And that's how it happened. But it wasn't easy. And then um, but I'm I'm so happy with it. You know, I mean, and I'm not because I did it, it's just that it it it it is like every page is like, wow, you know, I remember that in that episode. And and you know, and it's it doesn't show uh us building it. It's not really about the crew, it's really about a snapshot of a lot of the actors that were there and a lot of the sets, and it's just a really fun, you know, stroll through memory lane. And for for fans, I mean, they dig it. I mean, they they just dig it, you know. But if you just even if you just googled uh supernatural book, supernatural, I think it's listed as supernatural crew crew book or something like that. Because it was originally just for the crew, and I said, once it was done, I'm gonna like there's so much interest. Because again, they were holding back just uh, we're just gonna do enough of the crew, and then they realized that they can make money on it, right? That's the magic, and yeah, and it's in it's it's uh in its third printing, it it's sold out two runs already, and I don't know what they're on now. I mean, because they won't tell me the numbers because they uh because uh you know, if I did any math, I don't know if I got 10 cents for each, yeah. Who cares? So um, anyhow, the the book I was talking about, this is not the cover that you get, but I mean you can see the size of this thing, yeah. You know, I don't I didn't mark any pages, but well, there's just one, you know, spread, you know, but every page, I mean, it's nothing but images, and you know, like uh for fans.

Berly 56:39

That's Hammer of the Gods Hotel. Yeah, I love that episode.

Jerry Wanek 56:44

Well, it was a good story behind that because that was during the Olympics. And the one thing we said is whatever you do, don't put it in a hotel or motel, you know, uh, because we can't access any of them because you know the the the whole city is shut down. So of course they wrote the whole episode in them in a motel, which we got to build anyhow, which we did, you know, most of the time.

Berly 57:10

What did you think about that conversation, LA?

LA 57:13

Uh loved it. I feel like I say this every time when we have like these guys on or these people on. It's like I could listen and talk to them for hours, like about and like have so many questions. And it's like, you know, we set up our questions, but then it's like when he's talking, you can like shoot off like so many other questions that you're like, tell me more.

Berly 57:34

He had so many stories and his art on the wall.

LA 57:37

Oh my gosh, so lifted. Like, I want to go to his house and look at all of it.

Berly 57:42

And whenever he stood up and went and showed us the rest of it up there, I was like, damn.

LA 57:47

It's everywhere too.

Berly 57:48

Like so good too. Yeah. I would I want to see where he started because he said like he got to be pretty good. So I'm guessing he was hanging up the stuff that he really liked. But it's like, I want to see that first one. I want to see how far he came.

LA 58:01

Right. Yeah.

Berly 58:02

So pretty. I hope he does like sells prints or does another coffee table book.

LA 58:08

I mean, first of all, how nice would it be to like be able to be that talented and then be able to have it on display in your house everywhere? It looked so good. And yeah, just the framing, the placement of it all of them, like I loved it. In fact, when he's talking, half the time I was like, I was just checking the framings behind him. I mean, I was listening, obviously, but at the same time, I was like, damn, those are good.

Berly 58:31

He was literally set up in his own personal gallery. It was so fun. It was so fun. And he's just a total sweetheart. I really enjoyed talking to them. We we had to chop it down, guys. Like that conversation was oh, we could have kept going. Yeah, and we could have kept going for sure. Yeah. Yeah. It was great. Well, to close it out, we're going to shout out our Bobby Patreon members. We really appreciate you guys for supporting the podcast and contributing to covering our expenses so that we aren't paying so much out of pocket. So thank you very much to Natalie M, Puppy Mom06, Michelle Lynn, Yellow Fever Scream, Kara Styler, Jordan, Kat, Alicia Wooten, Shannon Salden, Emily Williams, Basket of Daisies, Ellen McCarthy, Theresa Hampton, and James Defrange. Thank you guys so much. We'll be back with the second half of season nine in no time. Cheers. Cheers. Thank you for listening to Denim Wrapped Nightmares.

LA 59:46

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