The Extras - Documenting Supernatural: An In-depth Discussion of the Making of the Final Season Extras

Episode Date: June 10, 2021

In this podcast, filmmaker Jeff Maynard and Host Tim Millard reveal the drama behind the making of the three final season behind-the-scenes documentaries for Supernatural.  They discuss the impact of the pandemic on their original concepts and their plans for getting on-set footage.  And they detail how at the 11th-hour they were permitted to send a  crew to film the very last day of filming.  They also detail each documentary from the genesis of the concept, to the storytelling style used, to the emotional satisfaction of the finished story.The Sitcom StudyWelcome to the Sitcom Study, where we contemplate the TV shows we grew up with and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. www.otakumedia.tv

Hi, I'm film historian and author John Fricke. I've written books about Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz movie, and you're listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, and animation, and their release on digital, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Millard, your host, and today I have a very special guest with me to discuss Supernatural, which has the record of being the longest-running sci-fi show on American television.

My good friend and collaborator on 11 seasons of behind-the-scenes extras of Supernatural, Jeff Maynard of Amity Pictures. Jeff, welcome to the show. Thank you. Nice to be here. Yeah, it's good to have you. After working so many years on the show and seeing it come to an end, I'm really excited to talk about the extras we created for this last season and the box set. But before we do that, why don't we get a little background on how you got into filmmaking well i've thought about this a lot i would have to say uh you know i was you know like a lot of people i was a big fan

of movies and tv shows as a kid and i was very inquisitive about how they were made and my dad of all people who has nothing to do with the film industry at all but he just knew you know some of the secrets to filmmaking um Um, he would explain some of these things. Like he would explain like, how does Bill Bixby turn into the incredible Hulk so quickly? And, uh, how does wonder woman change her outfit so quickly? These are the questions I had as a kid. And he would explain like, that's the process called editing. And that's, they, they stopped the camera and they changed the person out and they started up again. And, uh, and then when I was probably around eight he started bringing home a video camera from work which at the time was just a black and white security camera

we'd hook that up to the vcr we had to hook up a separate microphone because it didn't have sound and my parents and i would just ham it up in front of that and start goofing around and we'd start did a lot of these like i dream a Jeannie, making people disappear, turning into things. And so that was kind of starting to plant the seeds of what you could do with a camera and a microphone and that sort of thing. Once these documentaries for The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark came out on TV at the time, those really got me interested in film. You know, I tuned into those to see just to see clips from the movies and ended up falling in love with the process of how they make films. And so by, by age nine, I actually specifically remember watching the Raiders of Lost Ark, the documentary, the stunts of Raiders of Lost Ark. And there's a moment, and this is

after watching these a hundred times over probably, but finally one day it clicked. There's a scene where you see Spielberg directing, blocking out the scene and he's doing the whole director thing with his hands up and everything. And I just remember thinking, oh, there's also the moment where you see Spielberg on the, you know, playing with these army men and blocking out, you know, the Cairo scenes and whatever. And I just remember thinking like, I want to do that. Whatever that guy is doing, that's what I want to do. And from that moment on, it's like filmmaking is just what I wanted to do. Well, that's terrific.

Kind of starting with the home movies. I remember doing the super eight as a kid as well with our family, just when we traveled and everything. I'd never really personally got into thinking about doing that. It was just, that's just how we watched our own home movies. But, um, that's interesting. What were some of the actual movie extras if you, or do you recall like, Hey, you know, you watched the movie, then you saw some of the extras that maybe inspired you to get into producing that to actually producing the behind the scenes documentaries, you know, when you were

a little bit older, you know, I never really planned on getting involved with producing, you know, bonus feature documentaries, but I was a fan of bonus feature documentaries. I've always loved watching how they make anything pretty much. I'm a huge fan of just watching people create things, whether it's a cooking show or a home building show, I'll watch Bob Ross. I'll watch anybody make something, you know, but especially filmmaking. I was always fascinated with just any sort of aspect of filmmaking and how that's done. But so I was aware of bonus features. I was a fan of them. So I understood what goes into those and thought this was a great opportunity to start to, to make my own version of these for

some of these shows. So were you more just interested in documentaries in general than behind the scenes documentaries? Some, but not as much. Like I was, I was never one of those people that, you know, had an aversion to documentary. You know, some people used to, you know, say they're, they're dry and boring and probably there was a time they were, they'd become a lot more entertaining, I think over the years, but no, I was never like that. They were, they've become a lot more entertaining, I think, over the years. But no, I was never like that.

But I definitely have found a much bigger appreciation for documentary over the years than I had before. Like now I really see it as an art form. And there's so many ways you can tell a documentary and documentaries can be extremely compelling. They could be like a, they could feel like a narrative film in some respects too. So, right. Well, I think think supernatural was the first show we worked on together when i was at warner brothers i i don't think either one of us realized at the time what a great collaboration we'd have or how long it would last exactly we had no idea

that was season four yeah and yeah who would have guessed that we'd have, you know, until season 15 to work on the show. I think it was early in both of our time doing, I think I was only in my second, first or second year at Warner Brothers. It was one of your early shows that you started working with us on. So when we started working together on it, it was a small show and I don't think anybody saw the potential longevity in the show. I kind of feel lucky, you know, that, that we were able to work on it together. And it just, it just really has turned out to be like in my career, one of the, one of the best collaborations that I've been able to be a part of. Yeah. And the show itself, I was aware of the show. Uh, the girlfriend at the time I had was a huge fan of the show and so i was aware of it

because she liked the show i didn't actually watch the show at the time and so um so yeah i came on board apparently not knowing anything about it didn't know the characters or anything but over time i became a real like an honest to god fan of the show so that just made it a really really fun project to do every year and then you you and I, yeah, our friendship developed, our sensibilities, I think started coming into alignment more with what we both liked and we were both becoming fans of the show. So, uh, yeah, it just started to become a really, uh, great project to look forward to every year, every season. One of the things that I found out later that I think is, is pretty cool, but I didn't know at that time that you had, that you grew up in Kansas.

And so you kind of naturally had a connection to the show. Tell us a bit about that connection. Yeah, that's definitely true. There's something, you don't see a lot of mainstream shows where the characters from Kansas or they sort of specifically sort of point out that they're from Kansas. That was kind of like, that was no secret that they were from Lawrence, Kansas. And so I thought that was really cool. So yeah, I did have a sort of connection. I'm like, oh, cool. I'm from there, you know?

But yeah, I went to college at University of Kansas, which is in Lawrence, Kansas. So I've lived in Lawrence, Kansas for a while. And, you know, I'm definitely familiar with the landscapes of Kansas and cruising down those open roads of Kansas and the types of people. I mean, I'm nowhere near Dean Winchester, but I am when I'm not in L.A., I am very comfortable just, you know, wearing my boots and jeans and cruising around in my car like Dean does and listening to classic rock music. I mean, I used to think it was fun to kind of see how well they matched the look of Kansas. Cause of course it's shot in Vancouver. Usually the dead giveaway is always, as my dad would say, when you can see mountains in the background, you know, they're not in Kansas. And there's a couple of moments like that.

You'd see mountains in the background, but I have to admit there's some times on Supernatural where they, they nailed it perfectly. In fact, I remember there's this one episode, it's one of those, the boys drinking on the side of the road, having a talk scenes and they were in front of the sunflower field and i don't know where they found the sunflower field but uh i'm like that looks exactly like kansas so um they did i have to say they did a really really good job up there of matching the look of kansas now i think you're probably somewhere close in age even to um um, to the characters as

well. And I kind of noticed you dressed a little bit, a little bit that way naturally. So, but was there something just in terms of being from Kansas that when you've, I don't know, maybe gave you a sense of feeling a little bit like you had some knowledge that maybe somebody who hadn't grown up in Kansas could bring to the show? Well, you know, I'm not a hunter. And like I said, I'm not as cool as Dean or anything like that. But I just mean like the emphasis on cars and kind of the all American, you know, Midwestern, which we're going to get into in a little bit, but that you just had an understanding of that kind of sensibility that the show had. Yeah. It really would just be sort of like their Midwestern attitude, their sense of family. I'm not saying that other people don't have a sense of family, but yeah, that kind of homegrown roots of the Winchesters listening to classic rock like Dean does.

The landscapes, the backgrounds, the, you know, the diners and the roadhouses they go to. Now, you know, I grew up in the I grew up. I don't want to say I grew up in the country or anything. I did grow up in the suburbs of Kansas City. Right. But at the time I was growing up, the country was only five minutes away. So I could have my car be cruising in the country where there's nothing in only five minutes. Right.

So I was always very close to that environment. And it was always really fun to go out to that part of Kansas where there is no there aren't any people and just wide open roads and just go cruising you know especially on a sunny day or i i just thought you know i think when i found out a little later i thought oh that's kind of an interesting little connection that that it just was of interest to me but and i think i told you years on that i used to have a chevy impala wasn't uh the same year it, I think, 1970, but that was from my grandfather. That was one of the first cars I ever owned. And it was just to see the Impala in the show, we also kind of gave me a little extra little connection. So that those were just kind of the

little fortuitous things that sometimes happen. Well, let's, let's get into the, the, the talking of the extras. This episode, we're going to's get into the, the, the talking of the extras this episode, we're going to be focusing on the three documentary featurettes we created for season 15 and the box set. But before we dive into each of the documentaries, let's, uh, let's back up a little and talk about the filming of the interviews. I, I know that we always, um, knew that we wanted to wait to capture the interviews until the last one or two episodes since this was the last season. So you flew up to Vancouver, Canada when they started filming episode 19. That was kind of the plan. Take us back to what our thinking was and why we were

looking at episode 19 and then get into a little bit of how that turned out. Yeah. Well, every year we usually would never, you know, we'd always would wait till around March, sometimes as late as April to do our interviews. Number one, we kind of had to wait till the cast and crew knew what the story was going to be. And, you know, we had to wait till their schedule started to wind down a bit. So, you know, going up in March of 2020 was roughly always the plan. But yeah, that trip up to Vancouver was the very first shooting day

of what was going to be all of our docs for season 15. You know, I know you and I talked, being that this was the final season, we wanted to really, really, really make sure we went as big as possible and really put a lot of production value into these pieces not that we don't all the time but like just really really really uh yeah we wanted to go

out with everything we possibly could into it this is it this is the end yeah so we were we were um planning you know for that so for that shoot we we had like a you know big three camera setup it was beautiful setup and we were sort of establishing the look of what our docs are going to be i don't think we even had all of our docs fully decided on yet but um at least for these main interviews we were sort of establishing a look three camera shoot alternate angles we had a straight down the barrel yeah i remember we talked about the look you wanted to put into into um the docs was going to be a little bit different than we had done previously that's why you wanted to put into into um the docs was going to be a little bit different than we had done previously that's why you wanted or had the extra equipment yeah so that so our first round this

vancouver shoot was uh jared jensen misha and alexander calvert so yeah we're up there shooting and you know when i'm doing my interviews i'm i'm always i'm still putting the piece together in my head so i'm editing it as i'm talking i'm starting to i'm paying attention I'm still putting the piece together in my head. So I'm editing it as I'm talking. I'm starting to, I'm paying attention to the look and the lighting. And I just remember doing those interviews, especially the straight down the barrel ones where I'm basically watching it on a monitor. I'm almost like seeing it on TV already. And you know, you got Jensen and Misha looking straight at you. And I just remember thinking like, this is great.

You know, it looks great. They're giving us great sound bites. This is going to be so great. I remember Jensen got called back to set. So we didn't finish his interview. Yeah. Now it looks great. They're giving us great sound bites. This is going to be so great. I remember Jensen got called back to set. So we didn't finish his interview. Right. But the thing is, we were supposed to be back up there just the following week to do more interviews.

We had a lot of shooting days planned for this. And so Jared had decided he'll just wait and do his interview the following week. But now this is the week. So here's here's the crazy thing. So this was the week that COVID was really starting to kick in. This was the week Tom Hanks came out and said he got COVID. Yeah. I mean, it was was March. What was the date? It was March 12th, 2020. Thursday, March 12th, 2020.

There was already rumblings already happening on set. In fact, I think that I remember they had already established a they got rid of craft service at that point. They had already started like covering up, you know, just being more precautious. You know, there's already rumblings of like, oh, there might be a shutdown. What if they close the borders? I remember speaking to Misha because for some reason he was supposed to come back up the following week. And we were discussing like, should we just stay in Vancouver? In fact, I think I called you and asked you, should I just stay up here?

Right. But we all decided like, you know, no, come back. And, you know, no one, none of us had any idea what we were in for. Right. Right. So I flew back the next morning and by the end of that next day, the studio had shut down all production and it was over. Right.

I mean, my recall on that was, I think you and I were, you know, we're, we're talking and my thought was, I'm really glad we're going to get these interviews in case something happens. And then what actually happened was, is we only got one of the two days we were hoping to get because it actually happened right then. And, uh, and I do recall that conversation. You were like, should I just stay? And I, my, my impression was no, because what if you get stuck up there? Right. That's, you know, that's going to be a problem. So, so you came back and, you know, the thought was, well, you know, better to spend the money just to fly you back up than, than to have you stuck up there because that would be horrible.

But we got caught right in it. It really is amazing how literally you were there the day before. And then that next day it was just all starting to shut down. Um, I know that here in, in LA, March 13th, you know, that was like the, I think the last day the kids went to school, my daughter went to school. That was the, that was the day of the calendar where they shut it down and we got caught right in that. So, I mean, the good part I know in looking at the pieces is that you did get some really good interview footage that day, I think with Alexander and part of Jensen's interview, Misha. Yeah. So thankfully we had that really, really high quality, but you know, and we'll

get into this maybe a little later, but then when we ended up doing the interviews later on, we could not match that look. It just it just wasn't possible to do that. So so the the the documentaries to let the fans know there is more of an uneven look in the interviews than we would ever normally have because of that. So but hey, that's part of the story and part of why I think it's interesting to talk about this this year because of how it impacted the show and then also how it impacted us. Yeah. Well, let's dive right into the featurette that is on the season 15 release. It's our last Winchester mythology piece, Midwestern Heroes.

You tell me if I'm wrong, but I think it was kind of a last minute replacement for another featurette that we realized we weren't really going to be able to pull off. I do recall maybe discussing doing a featurette, touching a little bit on some of these themes in previous years. Do you recall what the genesis was for this concept? Yeah, you're right. There were three other docs we were actually going to do. In fact, a lot of those questions I had already asked in Vancouver were for other docs. And so it was basically useless at that point because we're going to do these docs. But thankfully, some of the answers for those docs, they fit into this Midwestern Heroes concept. We were able to use a lot of those answers from those docs in the Midwestern Heroes docs. I mean, honestly, I got to give credit where credit's due. My good friend,

Alex Gray, who's another documentary filmmaker, he'd been pushing me here and there, you know, because he knew I was a big fan of the show and he knew I was from Kansas. And he would often ask me, like, why don't you do a documentary about these boys being from Kansas and you understand that world they're coming from and tell the story of the hero from the Midwest and that sort of thing. And then we happen to have, because I'd been reviewing Eric Kripke's, one of his archival interviews, which we used. And there was an outtake in there where he explained his concept for the show. And he kept specifically saying, I wanted a Midwestern show. I really wanted to highlight that these guys are from the Midwest. These were going to be Midwestern heroes. I believe he even says that word. So that became our title. Right. It all kind of came together and like, you know what? Yeah, let's, we could do this concept and we did need a new concept at that point. And so I pitched that to you and, and, uh, you started to get on board with it and that's

proud kind of stuff got started. I mean, this was all, um, I'm going to say this was probably June-ish, sometime a few months into the pandemic when we realized that there was no light switch and we're just going to be immediately getting back up to set. And we were hoping for the best, but the reality started setting in that, okay, how's this going to work? How are we going to get the footage we need to, to do the concepts that we were hoping to do? And so we just started brainstorming and talking about what could we do? What can we do? How can we, you know, I think a lot of what's just kind of,

we were filling a little bit of time too, because there was nothing we could do other than kind of chit chat and, and, and talk about, well, if this happens or if that happens. So here I was in my home office, you know, when you called me and we started talking and immediately this happens to me, you know, when you and I are talking, something excites me, I immediately start pacing the room. Like I get up, you know, and I start walking around and that's what I did. And I remember, you know, I started throwing out things like Hemingway and the Westerns I grew up reading by Zane Gray, who, I mean, he wrote about the West, but he actually grew up in Ohio, which is the same as Eric Kripke. Movies I love like Legends of the Fall, directed by, you know, Ed Zwick and written by one of my favorite Midwestern authors,

Jim Harrison, A River Runs Through It, directed by Robert Redford. That's based on a story written by Norman MacLean, who spent most of his adult life in Chicago. And these novellas are both about brothers. And they were adapted into movies, both starring Brad Pitt. So even though they're kind of set in Montana, my mom grew up in Montana and my dad was a farm boy from Washington state who went into the army. So I grew up with that kind of strong Midwestern

value set mixed in too, with the, with the sense of adventure and service. So I got excited, you know, just like you did as you were telling me about it. And I think right from the beginning, I was like, yes, I think this has real, real potential, but it just tapped into things that are part of my background. Yeah. And yet when I thought about it, you know, pertinent to the show, like, yeah, we, we should do this. You're right.

We really should do, should do this. Yeah. And, um, at least every time we approach a documentary, we always have to, we may have a great idea, but we always have to also think about, well, how are we going to pull this off? Like, what are we going to show the audience? Because sometimes you'll have an idea. There's a lot of subtext to these shows. And so we all understand always kind of remember, you know, make sure like, okay, do we have a way to, to show this to the audience? Like, how do you show a Midwestern hero?

Okay, sure. We got shots from the show with take place in the Midwest. And I just remember getting excited thinking like, oh, I'm going to go shoot a bunch of, I'm going to go back to Kansas. I'm going to shoot a bunch of my own B roll. Uh, cause I love doing that. And I, uh, you know know the time we went back to kansas to shoot the fans documentary on location was just one of my favorite projects we ever did

so i was really looking forward to going back and doing that so yeah i got and you know my writing partner chris craft he's from mississippi and i know that's the south but he um he's still had a very similar upbringing you know he knows what that's like to kind of be close to the country. Yeah. Kind of thing. So we were all just getting really excited about the potential of what this could be. And of course, I'm always listening to music as I'm working on these. So I'm kind of listening to my Bob Seger and that kind of thing and getting really into the mood of this of this documentary and getting really jazzed about it.

Yeah, It just, I think it was one of those were right from the discussion. It was like, yeah, yeah, that's, that's right on the button. And that's when it becomes really fun too, is when,

yeah, we all start to get in sync with each other and get on the same page and we're riffing, bouncing ideas off of each other. And yeah, that's when it starts to really become a fun process. And going back to what you said about Eric's comment, I think that that's actually the beginning of it, though, because part of the reason why you were going back and listening to his his old interviews is because we were looking for ways to include him into the extras for for the box set. So I think you already had mine, you know, those comments, obviously.

And that helped give you that focus right from the beginning. Cause you knew, okay, you could envision how that was going to go into the edit. Yeah, absolutely. Cause I remember, you know, I vaguely remembered he had mentioned something about this. And then when I went back to the transcripts just to confirm like, well, what exactly did he say when it was so specific about what he said? I'm like, this is perfect. Wow. That's like, I knew for sure. Like, okay, we've got something here. You know, this is going to be the bed. We'll build up.

We'll build on this for sure. You get the creator of the show, basically laying down the theme of the doc. And Eric was always great in those interviews. He just being the creator to just say in one, one soundbite, one sentence, exactly what he wanted, what he was going for. As the last Winchester mythology piece, I think this feature really puts a nice bookend on the concept. What's your take? I think it does make a very good final doc for the mythology series that we did,

especially coming at the end, it gave us a chance to kind of look back and find all of these moments over 15 years that support the idea. I don't think we've really ever done a doc specifically just on Sam and Dean and sort of the core of who they are as these two guys from Kansas and the family values that they had and all these Midwestern values that these boys had. And that's what's interesting too. And when you go back, once you go back to, and you see these interviews with Eric and you realize, oh, that's the whole concept of the show. He built the show on was this idea. So I think it really worked out well to finally do one final doc to cap off the Midwestern mythology series, the Winchester mythology series with, you know, let's look at the core of the show.

What it was built on. It was these two boys from the Midwest. The concept of the show was to keep it very clearly the Midwest. And then, you know, what's interesting too is, you know, sometimes we're not even aware of these things until we dig deep into it ourselves. Like you do forget, yeah, there's Bobby and there's, you know, the roadhouses and all these themes, these Midwestern ideas that you're right. That is the show.

There's a lot of it too. And one thing I thought was fun that the editor did is, you know, we found photos of real people that, you know, real Midwestern people that resembled kind of the characters from the show. If these were real people, here's a real life example of a guy that's just like Bobby, you know, and so on and so forth. But yeah, so I think it made a nice sort of last Winchester mythology piece. think it made a nice sort of last winchester mythology piece i have to say that i didn't think we were going to do a winchester mythology piece this season i just thought okay all of our focus is going to be on other things and we may just not have one but this really i mean it's it's really nice that we were able to get one that was so so good about hitting the actual themes of the show so i think that worked out well. The Winchester Mythology, Midwestern Heroes is on all season 15 formats. The runtime is 20 minutes

and the documentary includes interviews with Eric Kripke, Bob Singer, Andrew Dabb, Eugenie Ross Lemming, Brad Buckner, and cast members, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins, and Alexander Calvert. Now let's get into the two documentaries exclusive to the season 15 DVD and Blu-ray. The End of the Road and Family Don't End With Blood. These are the ultimate record of the story of the final season and the filming of the last two episodes and must-haves for every collector. I think that The End of the road was the most important documentary we produced for Supernatural. It was a no-brainer in the sense that we knew we wanted to capture the emotion

and drama of the final episode, you know, as soon as we found out this was going to be the last season. And it's something I've done across a lot of series finales I've worked on, from Chuck to the Vampire Diaries and the Big Bang Theory. There's just so much emotion

from the cast and crew when you've worked on a show for so long. This concept was always in my original discussions with Casey and marketing. In many ways, the actual production is pretty straightforward. You go on set the last episode or maybe the episode before, and then you capture B-roll of that final episode. And that was our plan originally, which we talked about earlier, but walk us through how that was all upended by the COVID pandemic and the shutdown of production. Yeah. The piece I really wanted to do that I think we discussed, it was kind of like the, basically the idea was going to be a complete start to finish approach. Like I wanted to be there in the writer's room as they were even coming up with the idea for the final episode in the final season. We may have even

mentioned it the summer before, you know, when, before they would have written season 15 of maybe can we get in there and start, you know, get some footage of them coming up with the idea of how they're going to end the series. But yeah, originally I wanted to be there from the very beginning and then capture literally every moment of wrapping up this series. Of course, even without COVID, that wouldn't have been possible. You know, the writers, you know, typically aren't going to want us in there hearing all their ideas and the bad ideas and this and that. But, you know, it was a pipe dream. But still, I actually was going back to my notes and I had a note from you that said lots of B-roll.

So we knew we just wanted to shoot said lots of b-roll so we knew we just wanted to shoot a ton of b-roll we wanted to be on set as much as possible yeah it was just going to be a you know top to bottom look at every aspect of finishing the show but of course most important we were sort of insistent on we had to be there for that final day final shot um the final scene and uh sometimes those aren't necessarily like sometimes the final shot isn't necessarily the final scene just because when they shoot things out of order uh fortunately for this for carry on that episode um the final shot they did was the final scene so it all kind of worked out. The shutdown just really took that whole B-roll focus that we thought, you know, we would hopefully be able to accomplish

and said, no, there may actually be no B-roll. I just want to go back to that summer of 2020. I recall we would touch base, but there just wasn't anything we could do until, till the production started back up. I think we heard maybe the first bit of news in July. And maybe Andrew and Bob mentioned that in the documentary that things started kind of, you know, the discussion started happening for them. Obviously, there were two episodes to go. there were two episodes to go. They made the decision to hold off airing, I think the last five episodes just because they didn't want to have those two be these orphans that were out there. So we didn't know that much. And we do, you know, we did know that there was obviously

the commitment to do those final episodes. Well, anyway, I really like in the documentary, how you start with March, 2019, when the producers first started talking with Jared and Jensen about 15 being the final season. And then Jared Jensen and Misha posted that video on Twitter where they announced it publicly really sets up the timeline for the fans. Talk about the process of crafting this piece with your editor, Damon, and social producer, John Fitzpatrick. Stay with us.

We'll be right back. Hi, this is Tim Millard, host of The Extras Podcast. And I wanted to let you know that we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers Catalog physical media releases. So if that interests you, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes. interest you, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes. I usually edit the first round in a, especially a piece like this and a very chronological order.

Once we've done that and we know the story, then we'll sometimes go back and start to play around with the structure a little bit. It kind of made sense. Let's start at the beginning with an announcement that this would be the final season. so we went back to that twitter video that the boys shot and uh that yeah that became basically the start of the piece what was interesting is that uh that was in march of 2019 and then we had the shutdown in march of 2020 so that actually kind of worked to our advantage to kind of play these two chapters, you know, those two sections of the doc. It starts off March and then we see, well, a year later, look where we're at. But no, I mean, it just, you know, that was our launching point. And thankfully, you know, our interview with Jim Michaels up at

Supernatural, he was really good because he was there for that. You know, in fact, he's the one that shot that video. That's right. And so he had a really good account of how that day went and how they all felt when they all found out the show was going to that was going to be it. Wow. Yeah. And the whole story and why I think this piece is so important and the most important one that we have worked on is because it does tell from that moment the story that, that march, and it just progresses and gives the emotional background. And we hear it from Andrew and Bob. We hear it from the rest of the writing team there. We heard from Jared and Jensen when they found out. And you just can sense that emotion as they recall when it kind of just the reality was hitting. And I think that for the it's possibly the most fascinating part of the, of the finale story as they talk about thinking about how they were going to craft it, you know, how's it going to end and then how they pitched it to Jared Jensen, their response as

well. So that's a, that's a really, really interesting part of this piece going kind of a little bit into the piece itself. I know that I really also responded to the sections where Jared and Jensen talk about their friendship, how they were partners in crime. I mean, obviously, that partnership has been the key to the show's longevity. Yeah, that sequence started off a sequence, if I remember correctly, in the family doc, the family don't end with blood doc that we did the other one that John Fitzpatrick edited. John Fitzpatrick, for those who don't know, is one of the editors on Supernatural. He also directed an episode, but he used to be one of our editors for years and years and years. He was our editor for many of the Supernatural docs over the years. So he and i have been good friends and the show was ending and he had the time finally to help us out again so he started off the editor on the other piece

the family piece turns out he had to go back to the show to do some revisions and we had to let him go or he had to go back to the show but uh so but he had originally edited that piece with the boys it was a really nice piece but we ended up lifting it out of the family piece and putting it into the end of the road piece yeah again that's something he kind of came up with i didn't plan on having a sequence like that but he started putting those moments together and we had the comments to support it and yeah it was a really nice sequence yeah the duck then really also just relates for the fans the mechanics of the return to production and how Supernatural was one of the first Warner Brothers shows to return to production. I think part of that was obviously the need to get those last two episodes done. And part of that was because Jared had, I think, signed up for another show, Walker, based off of the old

Walker Texas Rangers show. So they, they were kind of put in early in the queue for returning to production. So the piece really, I think, you know, Bob especially talks, you know, since he was directing it about the mechanics of the return to production, it does a great job of laying that out for the fans for, you know, for those who maybe heard bits and pieces. You get the whole story here. Brett and Eugenie also talked about how they had to change the series ending due to the pandemic, which I remember you and I discussing because, you know, we knew how the original script ended and the original plan, you know, and without giving that whole story away, just how they had planned to bring back many, many cast members for the finale. And we were like really excited. Cause I remember I was thinking,

oh, great. I want to get all that B roll and maybe some interviews with those cast members that obviously wasn't going to happen. So we were curious to see how that was all going to change. What were your thoughts on that? Yeah, no,

look, I'll admit there's a really depressing period of time in the beginning of the summer when we were just thinking, there's just no way, there's no way we can do this documentary. How are we going to do this? How are we going to do any of our documentaries? You know, it's like this documentary requires we have to be there on set. We can't just build this out of a few interviews we've, we've gotten so far. So, but also is sad for the show. It's like, oh man, we don't get to give them this final major documentary, this great sendoff. So it's just a really depressing time for, for a little while there, not knowing if we were even going to continue. I mean,

we pretty much figured they will finish the show, but we started thinking like, are they going to want to bother with us filming our doc? So they're going to want us on set. So it was a little scary for a while, but yeah, thankfully we were able to move forward and explore, you know, it turned out to basically be a very dramatic part of the doc.

It's like, we're always looking for drama in the, in the story. And the pandemic definitely gave us that drama. Sure did. Yeah. I was looking at my day timer and I, I wrote down August 28th was the first day of filming on the final episode.

I don't think we knew yet if we were going to get permission to have a crew on set. Yeah. It was a thought that we might have to just work with publicity stills, which, you know, we would have done, but that obviously wouldn't have been as powerful. How were you feeling about our chances as they started filming the last episode? Yeah. I was just racking my brain trying to figure out how we just,

how are we going to show this? You know, it was already a little bit of a challenge trying to show the whole discussion of them getting the protocols in place and that sort of thing. We had to B roll that out with stock footage and things we already had. But yeah, I was getting really concerned about it. And just thanks to Warner Brothers and thanks to the show that they did allow us on set for that final day. You know, there were some restrictions. They only would allow three people, three of three of our people on set. So we decided to not send up

a producer. Instead, we swapped out our producer for a second camera person that's right because we definitely did not want to miss anything right so we had two camera people up there and a sound person and basically the directive was you know one camera stays on talent all times and one camera stays on the crew at all times you know obviously focusing on you know bob and certain key crew members on that side. And then the boys on the other side, and thankfully it worked out brilliantly. You know, I was just so thankful that they let us up there on that final day, because that's just such a great moment to finally, to see. Take me back. I think our crew, the day that our crew was actually on set was

September 9th or something like that. It was a Wednesday. Take me back to that day. How are you feeling? Because you weren't, you know, normally you would be there and you weren't able to be there. You had to kind of direct it from a, you know, 1,500 miles away. Well, the crew we hire in Vancouver is top notch. They're the same, you know, group of people we work with all the time. Every time we, every time we go to Vancouver. So they know the drill, they're already, you know, they're familiar with the show too. They've worked on Supernatural for many years. So I can just give them a note, you know, focus on this person. They already know who that person is,

but I was just, you know, all you can do, I'll, I give them a shot list of like, try and get the final slate, try and get Bob yelling cut for the final time. Go for the emotion, you know, if you see anyone hugging, you know, get, you know, just, I, so I laid out some certain things. I just really, really, really try and get these things, keep an eye out for these things. But then, yeah, all you can do is sit back and thankfully, uh, our producer in Vancouver, uh, she would check in throughout the day and text me, ah, it's going great. Oh, we just got this. And so it's like, and I had no doubt they would get some good material, but

yeah, thankfully you get those reports throughout the day that it's going great and everyone's in good spirits. And, and then when you finally see the footage, it's like, wow, this is great stuff. When I saw it, when you, when you let me see it, I was blown away by that B-roll. Just seeing all of the cast and crew on that bridge, the fact that they captured the, that's a rap audio when Bob says it, you know, for the last time. It exceeded my expectations because I just didn't know what we were going to be able to get because we knew they were going to have to be at a distance from the from the crew and everybody. So it was, it was an amazing feeling for me. I'm sure it was for you. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, our crew was following all the, uh, PPE procedures and, and they're masked up and everything. So thankfully, you know, and they were outside, you know, all those final shoots were outside. So, you know, they were able to kind of get in

the mix and, and be in the action themselves. So, which was great, but you know, the show actually kind of had two endings and they discussed that, uh, Jerry Jensen talks about that. You know, they had sort of their last day on set, which they later explained to us that was their sort of their really, really emotional day. And, uh had the final, final day. And in hindsight, you know, it actually kind of worked out better that we didn't get both of those days. Otherwise, I think in editorial, it would have been very stressful figuring out, okay, which moment, which ending do we show, you know? And I think it kind of worked out better. It just worked out great. It's one of those, it's just, it just turned out great. You know,

it's, you can't, you can't plan for plan for it but in hindsight you realize like this really worked out for the best the way we the way it happened the way we got it the footage we got the day they let us come up there and then you know we had no idea that they were gonna you know sort of start to celebrate and take photos and everything at the very end and it's just great it's a great beautiful location that they're on oh Oh yeah. That bridge. You know, it could have, could have easily been some kind of warehouse or something could have been the fun, but just, you know, the road, the way that show was written, it was this beautiful location.

So it just, everything worked out great. That last 10 minutes of the documentary is something you just don't want to miss. If you're a fan of supernatural, the visuals, the story, the emotion on camera really give closure on the show production. I just love this documentary. I choked up numerous times watching it. It's just so emotional. Yeah. My editor and I were both, both, both docs, family and, uh, end of the road. We were, yeah, we were laughing that even after we, we've watched these things hundreds of times as we're working on them. And yeah, there's, there's still emotional gut punches here and there. And I got to say to the, the cast and crew, they were just so, you know,

emotionally raw with their interviews, you know, they really, you know, you can see the pain that they were going through. So yeah, it's a, it's a very heartfelt, I wouldn't say it's sad. It's very bittersweet. It's, you know, it's just, it's a very heartfelt, I wouldn't say it's sad. It's very bittersweet. It's, you know, it's sad when he's, you know, knowing that this, this is the final, it's sad to see them going through it, but at the same time, it's just, it's, it's very, it feels good. You know, it's very feel good kind of piece too. Yeah. We'd be remiss not to mention Holly Allis, the publicist for the show, all credit goes to her and thanks to her for getting our crew on, you know, cleared to be on set that last day.

I mean, it came down to the wire. She was working to make it happen and it did. And boy, the fans will be the beneficiaries of it because that footage that the crew was able to get is just amazing. It just puts a context to what you think and hope about this cast and crew when you hear about how close they are, close-knit they are, and you just see it. You just see that appreciation from the directors

and from the cast to the rest of the crew. And it just comes across just in an amazing way. So the end of the road runtime is 30 minutes and the documentary includes interviews with Bob Singer, Andrew Dabb, Eugenie Ross-Lemming, Brad Buckner, Jim Michaels, and cast members Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins, and Alexander Calvert. The final documentary we're going to discuss is Family Don't End With Blood. with blood. This documentary is really a companion piece to the end of the road and credit goes to Casey Smith in marketing again for making sure they were released together. I think if you watch one, you immediately want to watch the other one. Jeff, do you remember what episode that quote is

actually from the family don't end with blood? Yeah, it's, it's a, it's repeated. It's become like a motif of the show. They repeat it a lot, but it was very, it first was said by Bobby in season three, episode 16, no rest for the wicked. And the line is family don't end with blood boy. He's kind of scolding Dean in that scene. And yeah, who knew it was going to become such a sort of a repeated idea on this, on the series. Originally, we had a different title for this doc. Remember to start off as SPN orphans, right? Families who you choose, which family who is who you choose as another sort of idea of the show. But yeah, we were going with this SPN orphans idea that you

actually pitch. That's right. Yeah. Along the way we kind of, I think we thought that, well, Sam and Dean are orphans, but not necessarily everybody on the show. Yeah. Orphans. So, and then there was that, you know, that great line from Bobby. So I'm like, let's, let's give it that title. Right. Yeah. It's such a theme that has been with the show and with the fans of the show that I think it was the right title for this piece because the piece really wanted to not only talk about the cast and crew as a family, but the fans and just the broader meaning of, you know, the fact that it's not just blood. It is who you choose. And so many

of the fans and the community has just developed out of the love of the show and the themes of the show. We wanted to then put that into a piece for the box set for the final season. Let's talk a little bit about the piece so that fans can get a sense of it. That open montage of photos that you use, and that just really sets the tone for the piece. Can you talk about that a little? Yeah, that was honestly, that was an 11th hour change to the documentary. Again, this was a doc that John Fitzpatrick started to edit before he got called back to the show. So our editor, Damon Klassen, who edited end of the road, took over and did both pieces, which turned out to probably be beneficial because

then, you know, cause we were kind of jumping around back and forth so much. So it was kind of, it kind of worked out to have one editor on both pieces plus those pieces both do they cover a lot some of the same territory at least in terms of the family connection of the show and there's a lot of times where we're thinking like okay should this go which doc should we put this section in you know original opening was more bridge footage all right the last day yeah the final day footage and that was the original opening that John had cut. And that was in there for the longest time. But as time went on, I wasn't real happy with it only because I, you know, I'm like, we just saw this, you know, I feel like we've already seen this footage. And the idea was sort of like, well, this is part two, sort of, this is like the part two

doc, you know, they sort of go back to back, but still didn't feel right. And so what happened was I was, um, I was going through a lot of our footage, a lot of our B-roll footage for these docs, just trying to help out our editor because we had so much to go through. And most of our B-roll for that piece came out of gag reels, all the gag reels over the years is where a lot of our, our footage came from. And I just happened to be, uh, Over the years is where a lot of our footage came from. And I just happened to be scrolling through the footage without the audio on, but listening to this kind of, you know, sad music late at night and realizing like, wow, this is actually very powerful. Seeing these moments from a gag reel, the cast and crew laughing and having a good time with each other, juxtaposed with this sort of sad music. And a lot of that old gag reel footage is from the early seasons when the show was shot on film too. That's right. So it was an aesthetic quality to it. It's got this real kind of home movies from the past. And it's so long ago when it was, I was just really working

well. So I kind of slapped together some of that footage to the, to the opening, but kept the audio of the opening. So you still hear the sound of them, of the cruise chatter from the bridge sequence, but cut to this footage of them having just enjoying being with each other over the years. And it was like, wow, this is actually really cool. So I called the editor and I'm like, replace all the bridge footage with this footage and leave everything else. And that's how that came together. That's amazing. I, fortunately we found a little bit more time in the schedule because this piece was originally scheduled to, I think it might've been our first one to possibly. So that allowed you to really explore and, you know, kind of get into

seeing what else we could accomplish with it. Once we had the end of the road piece a little further along as well. I really enjoyed seeing some of the, the footage from the extras from the season one DVD relates to, you know, there's Eric Kripke and Jared Jensen. Everyone looks so young, of course, but you can just tell from that footage that there was great chemistry,

especially between Jared Jensen, right from the start. Yeah. And what's again, you stumble across these things, you don't plan for them. It's, you know, I've never seen those interviews before. Maybe I saw them once, you know, 15 years ago, but I didn't remember them. So yeah, you've, you go back, you find these old interviews and when you realize like, wow, even back then the answers they were giving in their interviews perfectly fit this documentary. And that was really cool to see that like, wow, even back then the answers they were giving in their interviews perfectly fit

this documentary. And that was really cool to see that like, they really never did lose sight of the, of what the show was and who these boys were. And that family was always going to be very important from day one, you know? So once we found that footage, not only was it fun to see the boys very young, and I found that footage to be, again, kind of sad that, you know, those days are gone. And, you know, it's like looking through old photos, you know, it's like you miss the old days when, you know, we were all younger and whatnot. So I knew for sure, like, we've got to use this somehow. So, yeah, we used a couple of moments from Jared and Jensen and even Eric Kripke on that footage and worked really well. If my memory is correct, it took us a little while and you didn't get that footage till a little later in the editing process because we had to order the tapes.

Yeah, I think it was possible. Was it was it digitized or was it the tapes? I don't. But I mean, I do know that those early season were on tape and that's all vaulted, not in LA. So whatever it was, it took a little while for us to get you that footage. So you did a great job of integrating it in a little later into the process. You talked about the gag reels already. The use of them obviously is poignant, but it also just shows a fair amount of humor, which I think counterbalances the emotion that, that is obviously a part of this piece. I mean, you can just tell that they always kept it fun on set. Oh yeah. Yeah. Those, those gag reels are so funny. So funny. I mean, they still are funny. Yeah. And, uh, and I'd never seen a lot of the early season gag reels, so I'd never seen a lot of the early season footage of anything, you know. So for me, it was really fun to go back and see that for the first time myself. Yeah.

And I'm sure that's going to be a first for some fans as well who came to the show, you know, further on. Exactly. And we thought about that, too. We thought like, you know, because we are recycling gag reel footage, you know. And so there's a moment we kind of started second guessing ourselves and thinking like are the fans gonna like this it's like they've already seen this footage but we started thinking like well actually they probably haven't and if they have it's possibly been 15 years and there's a lot of fans that probably

never have seen this footage and plus you know we're presenting the footage in a completely different way like presented in a gag reel with you know the gag reel upbeat goofy music is one thing seeing it recut and represented in this very emotional story of the family it really does take on a whole new life you know especially that again that juxtaposition of like the the kind of heavy, the sadness that this is all ending cut against these highlights, these great moments they all shared with each other over the years. It turned out to be really, really nice. Yeah. It's amazing.

I've seen all, all of the footage, but it's been so many years and to see it again is just like seeing it, seeing it for the first time. And I know it's going to be the first time for many people. So that, that just worked out so well. You also did a lot of still photos of the crew. And I know some of those came from the gag reel and you did a photo album section, and then you did a slideshow section. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the thinking and the, you know, that went into how you put that together. The doc is made up of a lot of photos personal photos from the cast and the

crew and again thanks to john fitzpatrick who again another serendipity another moment fortuitous moment on this project is that they just the show happened to be having to move out of their offices because the series was ending and so they happened to have a bunch of their archives and boxes brought out of storage. And so we just happened to be able to get access to go back to these old tapes and photos and discs of all the photos they'd submitted to the show and their personal photos and whatnot. So that's where all of that stuff came from. And, uh, you know, we started off just sort of like with a, just to cut the piece together, we start off with a very, just like a normal Ken Burns approach to showing the photos, just digital photos. But yeah, I always had planned on actually physically refilming the photos. I love this

sort of organic, just really shooting it for real. I know we could have had, we could have created some of this look with After Effects or something, but I wanted to just really shoot it for real. So yeah, we, we, once we kind of established our cut and established what we wanted we then went back built a photo album actually printed out these digital photos on photographic paper the photo album had them actually transferred to slide film did a whole slide presentation show presented it that way you know it just gives just another yeah somewhat interesting way to see the photos you know yeah, gives the doc a little bit of a texture and fits with this kind of idea that we're kind of going back through a family. Yeah. That's what I was going to say is it really, you know, kind of goes back to that,

you know, in your own family, you have some stills, do you have some, you know, if you're old enough, you have some family slides and maybe bring it out at a family reunion or something like that. So I, I mean, it's really, it was just so well done. I really loved what you did there. Thank you. There's a section in there, the in memoriam is what I'm calling it. I know it's not actually called that, but, but that's what I kind of call it. And that section is really compelling. I mean, after 15 seasons, you may not think about it, but you know, there's some people who passed on. I'm so glad that we added that in. That also really cements the concept of family on the set, I believe.

And again, that was a, that was a contribution from John Fitzpatrick on his very first edit. He was starting for that doc. He had put, started putting this piece, this little section together where we see, uh, you you know some of the crew that had passed away especially kim manners right you know awesome director kim manners who i was a fan of in college from watching the x-files i was like dialed in on his episodes and i was like this is guy kim manners that's great so i wish i would have met him you know i never had a chance to meet him he passed in during season four so i never had a chance to meet him. He passed in during season four. So I never had a chance to meet him, unfortunately. Yeah. But yeah. So yeah, we,

we started building out that section and yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it's sad. And it's, it does show just how close that crew was. And it's a reminder of how long they've known each other. And there's, we've got some great reactions from Robert Singer and his memories of, of working with Kim manners. So yeah, I know he turned out to be a nice little, little moment.

Yeah. Then we go into the kind of what I'm calling the fan section, the fans as family, adding to the family of the show and the fans have their own kind of, you know, family that they've created with other fans, but there's just a sense of family to the cast members and the way they've made themselves accessible.

And the cast has made it very clear how important the fans are to them. I know we both really enjoyed producing the fan documentary on season 10. So you kind of went back to that piece and you drew from it, didn't you? Yeah, I love adding the fans and these pieces. I love adding the fans and these pieces. And yeah, we've done, we've done two fan docs in the past that were absolute blast. Probably like two of my favorite docs we've ever done. And I've made friends with fans over the years. You know, two of my best friends now are fans of Supernatural and that's how we met, you

know? Yeah. The fans are always great. I wish we could have put more fan material in there, but you know, with COVID it's just difficult. So yeah, we repurposed some of our original footage, but we did get new footage of those fans because it's the emotion is just so raw and unfortunately there's another fan we had to remove because we couldn't get a hold of him to get his release but he had a great reaction oh he's i'm sure he's available for people want to find him online but yeah i just couldn't get him in the piece yeah yeah we found him i was emailing him for like two months i was trying to chase this guy down i'm like this is

warner brothers or it's like don't you want to be in this documentary? It's like, I got to cut you out if you don't get back to me in 24 hours. Unfortunately, we had to let him go, but he was one of our favorites. But yeah, those the fan moments are great. And the show's always had this really strong connection with their fans and vice versa. And they are part of what they call the SBN family. Yeah. So that became, you know, we broke the doc up into three acts. Basically, it was like, OK, we're going to focus on the idea of family amongst the show, the idea of family in this and the context of the story and the characters of the storytelling. And then the idea of family amongst the cast and crew. And then finally, the idea of family that extends out to the fans.

Those are basically the three acts of the doc. Yeah, we couldn't. We had, of course, include the fans. You can't do a Supernatural family piece without including the fans. Right. Well, this is just a great piece. Family Don't End With Blood is exclusive to the season 15 DVD and Blu-ray. Runtime is 23 minutes, and the documentary includes interviews with Bob Singer, Andrew Dabb, Eugenie Ross-Lemming, Brad Buckner, and cast members Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins, Alexander Calvert, Jim Beaver, Samantha Smith, and Mark Shepard.

We haven't really mentioned it yet, but Season 15 DVD and Blu-ray is also the only place you can find the gag reel from Season 15. These are fan favorites, so you definitely don't want to miss this one. Not only is it the last gag reel, but it's also one of the longest at 15 minutes and quite possibly one of the best. Just another reason to own season 15. And a reminder that all season 15 extras are a part of the complete series box set,

DVD, and Blu-ray. I also want to take a minute to thank some of the great team we worked with at Warner Brothers who I haven't had a chance to mention earlier. Dana, Michelle and especially Joelle and Legal. Anyone who has ever created a documentary understands the tangled complexity of legal clearances so thank you to them. And in marketing, Tina who has always been a supporter of our ideas over the years. Casey Smith who was a real collaborator in developing our concepts over the years, and especially these for the last season. She has put together an amazing box set that includes a 68-page book filled with new images, set designs, letters to the fans from Eric Kripke, Bob Singer, and much more. And a shout out to

Rosemary Markson, who is a champion for Supernatural for the life of the series. And just one more time to Holly Ellis, who we could have never gotten this footage and done these pieces for you fans without her assistance every season that we've done this. Jeff, before we go, where can people find out more about you and Amity Pictures? Well, they can go to amitypictures.com and check us out there or on Instagram, just amitypictures on Instagram. Well, it's been great fun revisiting these documentaries with you. We both spent a tremendous amount of hours on these because of our passion for the show. So I know the fans will greatly benefit. So it's been a ton of fun. Yeah. It's been a great time all these years working with you. And I really appreciate all the support you gave us and encouragement you've given

us over the years and the ideas you brought to the table. And it's been a real, it really has been a real collaborative effort and a lot of fun for all these years working on these. Thank you. And to the fans, please look for the box set coming out in May of 2021. The Extras is a production of Otaku Media, producers of podcasts, behind the scenes extras, and media that connects creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals at www.otakumedia.tv or look for the link in the show notes.