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- [00:06]
A
Welcome to Pluribus, the official podcast, an intimate insider conversation about the making of the Apple TV series with the cast and creators behind the show. My name is Chris McCaleb. I'm one of the editors of Pluribus and the host of this podcast. And this is our fifth bonus episode. Bonus. Now, these are generally one on one conversations as opposed to the roundtables on the regular podcasts. And they're often cast and crew who aren't able to physically be in Los Angeles for our recording sessions. And our guest today is no stranger to the Vince Gilligan world, having worked on both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. And he has a lot to share about his process of working on those shows and, of course, on Pluribus. So, without further ado, please welcome our property master, Mark Hanson.
- [00:57]
B
Thank you very much, Chris.
- [00:58]
A
Yeah, thanks for being here. Thanks for taking the time. How did you get into props in. In Albuquerque, Right. What's your origin story?
- [01:06]
B
My origin story actually starts back in Chicago, where I was. I studied photography, and I was working in Chicago as a photographer's assistant. And I was just looking around and seeing these guys that were like 15 years older than me. They were commuting, and it was taking them like an hour to drive 15 miles. And I was like, boom, boy. I'm telling you, I don't want to know my future if this is the future. So I picked up and me and my dog just drove across country and we landed in New Mexico, bounced around, but ended up in Albuquerque sight unseen. Sight unseen, didn't know anybody. And it kind of worked out because the photography scene, I was shooting a little bit for, like, Outside magazine here. But I happened into this one small production company that happened to have an office in New York, and they were bringing in, like, Procter and Gamble and other big national commercials. And I walked in and they threw me in the art department. I had long hair, and they're like, yep, oh, yeah, your art department. Go in there. So I literally started doing commercials out here in the 90s, and late 90s is when the commercials started dying off, but the film incentive started here. And so we started getting more films out here in New Mexico. And I just got a call, and someone's like, hey, you've art directed commercials. You could do props on a movie, right? And I said, yeah, of course I could.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And honestly, it just hasn't stopped since. It's just been one show after the next.
- [02:37]
A
Before I worked on Breaking Bad, you were already famous to me from Breaking Bad. Just because you'd See your name, it's like, oh, Mark Hansen.
- [02:45]
B
Okay.
- [02:45]
A
That's.
- [02:46]
B
Yeah.
- [02:47]
A
That's the person who does all the props.
- [02:48]
B
I will have to give all that credit to Vince. He's, you know, he's nothing if not loyal. And, you know, when you sort of get in his good graces, I mean, it's been how many years now, 15, 18 years that I've worked with Vince, and it's great. I appreciate everything he does. And I got lucky.
- [03:06]
A
I think props cover more than a lot of people think. Like, not just something that's in an actor's hand, but, like, if it's a phone you guys are building, what's on the screen or making it interactive. Yeah, License plates. Those are all brought in by props, food, beverages.
- [03:23]
B
Yep. It's a. It's a weird thing. So it's, you know, the loose definition is anything an actor handles or consumes. But you're right, it goes beyond that to, you know, if they're working on a computer, all the graphics that are generated on the computer go through the prop department. So, I mean, I have people separately from my crew that build all the graphics. And, like, in the first episode with the, you know, that chain coming down, that was built by Fred Pepper, who is one of our local great graphics guys. But, yeah, it's. It's food. It's the dog food can label. You know, it's. It's because you have to create the food that the actor can consume. And then Joanna Mays in our art department created the label, and we get them printed and. But there's, you know, a bunch of graphic kind of things are a huge part of props and. Yeah, license plates and. And chairs that the actors sit in. The bane of my existence.
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A
Chairs. Did I hear correctly, too, that you guys hire or at least coordinate with animal trainers?
- [04:26]
B
Yeah, the animal wranglers go through the prop department, but it's pretty. It's pretty loose. It's more Tamara Brock, who does. Did the animals for our show. She needs no help from me. I mean, they're amazing, the animal trainers. But it does sort of flow through the prop department sometimes budgetarily, but usually more like a suggestion. People ask me, like, oh, who should we use? And then once you connect them, you can kind of step away.
- [04:55]
A
And was that the case for episode 105 with the wolves?
- [05:00]
B
Yeah. By that time, I think Tamara was well established with our group. So I'll sit in on the meetings just in case there's something that crosses over where they're feeding the animals. Or they need a leash or a collar or, you know, a dog bowl or something like that. So. Yeah, so the wolves are fully Tamra. And I think, like the scene where the wolves have knocked over the trash and they're eating the trash, you know, it's. We have to make sure that the trash is animal friendly trash, and nothing that, you know, could injure them or if they ate it, it would somehow hurt them. And then she sort of embeds the treats that she trains her animals with within our trash to make them kind of rustle through all that.
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A
Where do you get trash? Like, because she has to be like, you know, safe trash. But it has to look like trash.
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B
Yeah, well, it's. It's all brand new trash. And then it's usually made to look old with either paint or, you know, waxes or anything that's just generally not food items. Sometimes you put food items in there. If, like, that scene where they're going through it was food that we saw previous on the tray. So it had to kind of have a little continuity with that. So.
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A
Right.
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B
We tried to try to match it that way.
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A
Well, and in this episode and in previous episode, a lot. And a lot. And a lot of milk cartons.
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B
Yeah, yeah, we did some milk cartons, that's for sure. That was another one where sort of our baseline is we have a local company that we buy those small school grade, school size, rather milk containers. And then for some of the volume, we can use those, like when they were in the dumpster in the bottom. We can pad the bottom of the dumpster with real milk cartons because you won't see them. The ones that we created go on top and those again, the art department created the design. And then Earl Hayes press out there in L. A who's been around forever and does. You know, they're sort of the standard graphics company in the business. They ended up being our best bet for printing and then actually building the milk cartons for us so that we could just get them ready to go. And then they did a lot of the flat packaging which you kind of see in this episode. Right, the milk cartons. Boy, I'll tell you, that's a labor of love there because of, you know, them putting it together and coordinating and then, you know, just trying to make sure we had enough because it became quantity at a certain point.
- [07:39]
A
Right. Is your team creating, like, the logo for the dairy or is that a combination of. Is that a collaboration with Denise?
- [07:48]
B
It's. It's Denise's department. Yeah. So I think what we do is the processes. Vince or the writers usually come up with some names for the dairy company and then we have to run them through clearance. Then when we get one or two clear, then we decide. And then usually Joanna in the art department, who's our graphic designer, we'll start putting together some designs for people to take a look at, approve change and then decide which flavors, how many flavors. And that was a process, but we started that one actually pretty early because we knew it was common. Jen had warned us that milk cartons were going to be a thing at the beginning of the season. So we got on that pretty quick.
- [08:30]
A
When do you start reading those scripts? I was wondering what were some of the first things that leapt out. Like the nuclear football, I heard was one of the. That was a particular concern.
- [08:41]
B
Yeah, the way that this season started for us, it was right after all the strikes that happened. And I think we actually, for the good luck of this is we started with a bunch of scripts already written. Vince and the writers do a great job with outlines from a prop standpoint that I can look at an outline and I know there's not going to be any surprises when the script comes out. The outline is really chock full of prop information for me. So this one, I think we started, I want to say November, December, in 23 and we had had the first, I want to say four scripts maybe. But we knew about the milk. We. The nuclear football. We built that and we designed it based on the real one and built it. The book covers, we started on that right away because that was a whole vetting process trying to find the right artist to work with us and see who could do it and really stick it out because there are so many changes that a lot of artists would have just. They would have. They would have lost their mind, I think. And Elizabeth, who we ended up using just a sweet lady and just rolled with all the punches and did a great job on that for us.
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A
So did I hear also it was your team that decided that with the Waikaro book series that each book should get longer page count wise.
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B
Who came up with that one? That's a good point because boy, we were sitting in a meeting. It was, I think, I can't remember as an office person or somebody said, you know, the way book series usually go is that they start skinnier and they get fatter. And I. What a great detail. You know, I mean, for. For somebody to. To mention that was great. And I'm sorry, I can't remember. It's now been, you know, a year and a half or better since that conversation. It's.
- [10:31]
A
Yeah, of course it. Well, and I think it speaks to kind of the way that. The sort of the environment that Vince fosters in general, which is just sort of like, best idea, you know, everybody doesn't matter whose idea it is. Like, just give it.
- [10:45]
B
Let's.
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A
Let's all get into it 100%.
- [10:47]
B
Yeah. I've never. Vince has never stopped anyone from throwing out a suggestion from any department. He's great because sometimes it's gold when somebody offers something and it's a really great detail, like the book detail. And sometimes he'll say, oh, that's an interesting idea, which usually means, let's keep going.
- [11:08]
A
Well, and you worked working with him all the way back, like we said with Breaking Bad and on Better Call Saul. How is sourcing props on Pluribus different from Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul? Or is it the same? I mean, what is that like for you and your team?
- [11:23]
B
Well, you know, I'll tell you, I'm on less watch list online from research on Pluribus than I was on Breaking Bad and Better Call. So I'll tell you. I mean, I can't even imagine the watch list I'm on from some of the research, but Pluribus is a little more straightforward as far as that kind of research. What we've done over the years is we've created a really nice process of sort of vetting all the props ahead of time. So when we get to filming, you're not showing up sort of flustered or, you know, expecting changes. It's sort of. Everything's really been thought out ahead of time. It was tricky to get used to that process on Breaking Bad, but once you sort of lean into it, it's. It's great. And I actually do it on all my other shows now, get things approved well ahead of time, so there's no surprises on the day, and no one's scrambling too hard.
- [12:15]
A
Right. Some of the other props, the hero props on this episode, there was that. Well, there's that. You already mentioned that the dog food bag, including the bag that was blank. Like, what was the process of designing that? And that's Denise's dog. Right.
- [12:29]
B
So that's on the. That's. What's his name? Dickens. Yeah. Her dog, Dickens. Which is great because, again, Joanna, our graphics gal, she designed the bag and, you know, went through a bunch of processes. And, you know, to be fair to Dickens, we did use some other dogs as options. So he did win fair and square. That was one of the early things because I knew I'd have to have a bag that the guitar open early in prep. We started working on that process and I, I found what's called a bag seam sealer. And it's basically this handheld sewing machine that you run across and it feeds the folded over piece of paper and the thread over the top of one of those craft bags. So we could pick our color of the paper, the thread, and then we could make our own bags. And that way we could open it and fill it with whatever we wanted to, because otherwise you'd be buying something that existed and it wouldn't work out as well.
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A
And with stuff like that, are you doing like a show and tell with Vince? And is the director of the episode involved in those as well?
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B
Yeah, generally what we do with the. We do early show and tells sort of online. We sort of post pictures or videos pre vising the concepts. And then as we get closer to filming, we've sort of vetted a bunch of those props. So we've narrowed them down a bit. And then I usually have a sort of a big show and tell before every episode with the director and Vince, if he's around, and the producers and anybody else who wants to come, they're kind of a fun little time for people to come and check out the different toys or, you know, options. And depending on what it is, you know, you have to keep them a little focused because they try to jump ahead in the tables that I have laid out. They'll jump ahead to the shiny stuff and want to go there. So I go, let's stay focused. Let's look at all the stuff as we go. So we try to go in script order when we do show and tells.
- [14:27]
A
Yeah, it's like we got herding cats, right? It's like herding cats keep them away from the bright shiny objects.
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B
Yeah, but it's funny because my kid, when he was younger, he's like, you're doing a show and tell. I just did a show and tell at school. I'm like, well, I'm hoping mine are a little different, but kind of similar.
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A
Well, some of the props, I mean, in this episode and the previous episode too, have to be very practical from a story perspective. And two I can think of are Carol's camcorder and then the shortwave radio. Can you talk a little bit about the choosing of either of those and the process that went into, especially with the shortwave radio. I know there was a lot going.
- [15:10]
B
Into it again, we wanted, you know, there's sort of newer technology with the ham shortwave radio and then there's older and we kind of split the difference. And that's something where I show Vince options on what that could actually be. And then once we kind of settled in on a look, I found the president of the local ham radio to go meet with him and kind of really understand what we're up to and how this all works and you know, what the process is so that we're accurate. So we brought him in. He was there on the one of the days we were filming just to make sure, you know, if we had any questions. But it's you sometimes, I'll tell you. I've learned more doing props on this show. Like when would I ever have the. An excuse to go learn about ham radio?
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And you know, it's just like, it's endless. The different groups of people I get to meet doing this job. It's pretty fun.
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A
Yeah, that's a fun like knock on effect of having to do that stuff.
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B
Yeah. And then camcorder. So that one was a little trickier because I think Vince initially wanted some sort of tape cassette. So that takes us to a different time period technology wise. So we found some options. We were struggling with getting them to actually still work and give all the, the elements that they wanted, like the flip out screen with the, you know, so that you could see the two images of Carol. So we ended up landing on one that used a micro SD card. With Vince, he rarely wants something like that's brand new. When it's something like that, he'll always want something that has a little more interest, which is great because that's what I like. I like to be able to get something that's. It just has to have a unique quality, something that people are going to remember whether it's the camcorder or, you know, the radio or you'll see in the future episodes other things that Vince picks. And it's great for me because these aren't off the shelf items. I can't just go buy this at Target or anywhere. So it's fun, a little more fun to do the research and to kind of hunt this stuff down.
- [17:23]
A
I have one more question for you and we'll wrap it up. So I think a lot of aspiring filmmakers listen to this podcast and what do you look for in a director? What director is coming in, whether they're brand new, first time, or just new to the team? What advice do you have for somebody who's Coming in. What are you looking for in a collaborator?
- [17:43]
B
You know, that's a great question. I think there's the directors that you kind of appreciate the most are the ones that have come up in the business and have, like, either worked in different departments, definitely ones that just are handed a director position. They don't know what people do, so they'll. They'll come on set and they'll just start asking for things and they ask the wrong person for a. You know, they'll ask the craft service for a prop or some sort. And then so I would suggest that they just really know everyone's job and what. What the position entails so they know what they're talking about and who to ask the right questions to. Because I've even on a show, I just did, you know, a pretty experienced director, and on the day he's like, hey, I asked for a knife or something and it never got to me. He's like, well, I asked somebody and I'm like, well, you gotta ask the right people. You know, I would say with Vince's world, everybody knows what everybody does. If I get a piece of information that would help costumes, I call them right away and just let them know. So communication is really key, but with a new director, I'd say definitely know what everybody does. Know what all the jobs descriptions are, and that'll. That'll make everyone happier.
- [19:00]
A
All right, what's the Swing Gang?
- [19:03]
B
Swing Gang is set deck. So you have a set decorator and then a lead man, and then his crew is the Swing gang. And I'm not sure where that term.
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A
Came from, but I love those names. I love the jobs where you're like, what? Why is it called that?
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B
Yeah, there's gotta be a book out there with the history of all these different titles. But yeah, the Swing Gang, that's that Deck.
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A
Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing all your process on the show and sharing your time with us. This is awesome.
- [19:35]
B
You bet, you bet.
- [19:36]
A
All right, thanks so much to Mark Hanson for joining us on this bonus episode for 105. And thank you for listening to this bonus episode of Pluribus, the official podcast, an Apple TV podcast produced by Hybridge Productions and Sony Pictures Television. Be sure to follow on Apple Podcasts to get the next episode in your feed and watch Pluribus on Apple TV where available. Our editor and mixer is Nicholas Tsai. Theme music by Dave Porter. Associate producers are Alana Hoffman, Justin Verbeest and Nicholas Tsai. Executive producers are Jen Carroll and me. Your host, Chris McCaleb, follow and listen on Apple podcasts.