Case study · Rooster Teeth · Haunter, Season 2

Kennedy Mines.

A mine-shaft set for one episode of Haunter — Rooster Teeth’s part-comedy, part-reality ghost-hunting show. A section of timbered shaft, built to be walked into and shot from the inside. I headed the twelve-person art department: we drew it, then built, shot, and struck the physical set inside thirteen days that summer.

Sheet no. A-204 Case study — Kennedy Mines

ProductionHaunter — Season 2

ProducerRooster Teeth

StageSpiderwood Studios, near Austin

FabricationRT shop — Austin Studios

RoleStephen Fay — production designer

Department12 heads — art, carpentry, sculpt, paint, dressing, props

ScaleNTS

StatusShot Aug 2019 · aired Feb 2020

Behind the scenes on the soundstage: a blue-lit carved-rock wall with a film crew and camera at its foot on the left, and on the right a raised platform holding a warm-lit, timber-framed mine-tunnel mouth, lit practicals hanging from its beams. — Kennedy Mines · Haunter, S2 Warm-lit shaft, cold blue stage — the set and the crew shooting it Rooster Teeth · Spiderwood Studios · shot Aug 2019 Fig. 0 — as shot

Revisions — model to strike, in thirteen days

Mark	Issue	Description
	Brief	A section of timbered mine shaft for the episode’s reenactment — built to be worked inside and shot from within.
	Design · 3 weeks out	A working model runs the concept past the director, DP and gaffer — and briefs the shop. Dimensioned drawings issued.
	Build · 8 days	Eighteen foam blocks carved and painted to read as rock, off-site in the RT shop.
	Assemble · 2 days	Set stood up on the Spiderwood stage, alongside two companion sets for the same shoot.
	Shoot · 2 days	Antique headlamps wired to dim; two tons of crushed basalt down for the floor.
	Strike · aired	Struck in a day. The episode aired February 2020 — the footage and these stills are what’s left.

Brief

A-204 · 1.0

Every episode of Haunter sent a gang of comedians to riff on a real haunted place, then go ghost-hunting at it. This one drew on the real Kennedy Mine in Jackson, California, and the stories that cling to it — and my department built the reenactment set: a section of timbered mine shaft the actors could work inside.

I was the production designer, running a twelve-person department — an art director, three carpenters, two sculptors, a scenic painter, three set dressers and a prop master. I drew the set and I ran the crew that built it, off the same drawings. This sheet follows it in that order: drawn, then built, then dressed.

Build to strike — 13 days

Build, off-site8 days
Assemble on stage2 days
Shoot2 days
Strike1 day

The set, drawn

A-204 · 2.0

Design ran about three weeks ahead of the shoot. The centerpiece was a 3D model of the set. I ran the concept through it with the director, cinematographer and gaffer, framing the shots we’d actually light, and the same renders went to the carpenters and sculptors so the shop was building to the views the camera would see. My dimensioned drawings went out from there.

Nothing level

None of the tunnel is straight, flat or square. The framing fans and leans on purpose — the shaft has to feel like it could give way.

Untextured clay render of the set model seen from above: a long serpentine run of sculpted rock wall sweeping in from the left, and at right a timber-framed structure of stacked rails and posts sitting on a raised platform deck. — 2.0 · The model, in clay One model, four systems — stripped to form, the way the shop read it Design model · 2019 Fig. 2-A

Keynotes — 2.0

Four systems in one model

2.1The rock. Sculpted walls in a long serpentine run that reads as the mine cut.

2.2The timber. The bents, caps and rails the shaft is framed from.

2.3The deck. The raised platform the tunnel sits on, its front edge faced in rock.

2.4The flats. What the carved foam mounts to. Foam on flats, so the set builds off-site and stands up on the stage.

Built from these four — see section 3.0.

Plan view of the set model: the timber tunnel runs between two lengths of rock wall on the green deck; in plan the shaft is wider at one end and tightens along its length. — 2.0 · Plan In plan the shaft fans — wide at the mouth, tightening as it runs Fig. 2-B · design model

Hidden-line drawing looking down the tunnel axis: the timber framing and the carved-rock surfaces are shown together in a single view, construction and finished skin at once. — 2.0 · Both sides of the wall One view holds the frame and the rock skin — drawn as it’s built and as it’s seen Fig. 2-C · design model

2.5 · Construction drawings Issued to the shop floor; not surviving. The model on this sheet is the design record that remains.

General notes

Fixed conditions

These notes govern section 3.0.

N1 · CameraThe camera works inside the shaft, close to the walls. Every surface has to hold up at that distance.

N2 · BudgetThe sculpting-and-painting budget ran thin for a set this size — so the department head worked the rasp and the sprayer too.

N3 · ModularCarved foam on flats, built off-site to stand up on the stage. The whole set has to come apart.

The set, built

A-204 · 3.0

Eighteen blocks of foam.

On camera, the rock has to survive up close. We carved the walls from eighteen blocks of styrofoam — four by four by eight feet each — and painted them to read as wet, fissured stone. The sculpting-and-painting budget was thin for a set this size, so I stopped being only the designer. I worked the detailing pass alongside the sculptors, then over a single weekend laid the sealant, the primer, the base coat and the rough contrast shading myself — so the scenic painter could put every hour into the fine work that sells it.

The same hands that drew the shaft carved it.

Built to come apart

Nothing was built in place. Eighteen carved blocks went onto flats in the RT shop over eight days, then trucked in — the whole set had to break down, travel, and stand back up on the Spiderwood stage in two, alongside two companion sets for the same shoot.

Untextured clay render at camera height inside the tunnel model: timber bents and caps receding down the shaft, fissured rock walls closing in on both sides, board cribbing along the lower walls and a rubbled floor running out to the rock face at the end. — 3.0 · Drawn The shaft in the model, down its axis Fig. 3-A · design model

Inside the built tunnel, mid-take: a costumed miner in a hat carries two metal ore buckets down the shaft, a second miner with a lit helmet lamp and a shovel behind him, a barrel and crate to the left, caged practical lamps on the timber, rubble underfoot. — 3.0 · Built The same axis, lit and dressed, mid-take Fig. 3-B · as shot

Detail D1 — model to camera

The model views weren’t illustrations; they were composed to the setups we planned to light. Fig. 3-A is the drawing of Fig. 3-B — same shaft, same axis, three weeks apart. Drawing the shot and building the shot were the same job here.

Cross-reference: section 2.0 — the same model, read system by system.

Behind the scenes on set: a section of the timber-framed tunnel with raked, off-square beams and burlap over the top, a costumed miner inside carrying buckets, with the soundstage ceiling grid, a ladder and stage walls deliberately visible around the set. — 3.0 · On the stage The timbering raked off-square — and the soundstage left honestly in frame Practical lamps · burlap · sculpted rock Fig. 3-C · as shot

Dressing

A-204 · 4.0

A set reads as real in its clutter. The floor is two tons of crushed basalt — actual rock, not scatter. The barrels and crates I’d bought for another show and had the crew re-age for this one. The picks and shovels came from a prop house, the set’s one outside supplier. And the headlamps are genuine antiques I tracked down — which turned into the one piece of real engineering in the dressing.

Dimmable by design

We wired the antique lamps so they could ride up and down. Some shots needed them bright, to punch through the atmospheric fog; others needed them low, so the light wouldn’t wash out the actors’ faces. One prop, tuned per setup.

Tight three-shot of costumed miners against the carved rock wall, antique headlamps mounted on all three hard hats; the centre miner's lamp is lit. — 4.0 · Practicals Three lamps, three miners — and the one in the middle actually lights Antique headlamps, wired to dim Fig. 4-A · as shot

Keynotes — 4.0

Dressing & practicals

4.1Headlamps. Genuine antiques, sourced and then wired to dim — bright for the fog, low for the faces.

4.2Barrels + crates. Bought for another show, re-aged by the crew for this one.

4.3Picks + shovels. Rented from a prop house — the set’s only outside supplier.

4.4Basalt. Two tons of crushed rock, laid as the shaft floor.

Real materials, because the camera gets close.

Deeper in the built tunnel: a miner with a lit headlamp and shovel at centre and two more behind in blue haze, surrounded by a rich dressing layer — barrel, crate, a ceramic jug on a rail, burlap netting between the roof timbers, and a rubble floor. — 4.0 · In situ The dressing layer deep in the shaft — barrel, crate, jug, rubble Fig. 4-B · as shot

Two costumed miners side by side: the left in a metal hard hat with a lit lamp, the right in a soft canvas cap with a different carbide-style reflector lamp, showing the variety of period lamps across characters. — 4.0 · Lamp variety Different lamps for different miners — metal helmet, canvas cap, carbide reflector Fig. 4-C · as shot

Credits

A-204 · 5.0

The set was struck in a day. What it was — a mine shaft you’d believe for the length of a scene — lives now in two days of footage and a handful of frames. It was my department’s top to bottom: I drew it and ran the crew, and eleven people made it real.

The record

Neither the dimensioned drawings nor the set survive. The design model and the shoot stills are what’s left — and this sheet is built from both.

Stephen FayProduction designerSet design and dimensioned drawings; ran the department. The detailing pass and the weekend sealant-to-shading paint.
Art departmentRooster TeethArt director, three carpenters, two sculptors, a scenic painter, three set dressers, a prop master — the eleven who built, painted, dressed and struck it.
Prop houseRentalPeriod picks and shovels. The set’s one outside supplier.
ProductionHaunter · S2A Rooster Teeth show. Aired February 2020 on their platform and other WarnerMedia platforms.

A single production still of a soft-cap miner retouched into a period photograph: sepia tone, a plate-style vignette fade and film grain turn the shot into an in-world 1800s miner's portrait. — 5.0 · Coda One frame, retouched into an 1800s plate Fig. 5-A

A set is temporary. Built right, the picture of it isn’t — retouch a single frame and the fake reads as a portrait from a mine that never existed.