The brutal shooting schedule of the fifth season meant that the team behind The Office often spent more time on set than at their homes. By that point, they’d been operating out of Chandler Valley Center Studios in the gritty LA neighborhood of Van Nuys for four years. They’d remain there until the last day of shooting. Most TV shows filmed on enormous soundstages on cushy Hollywood film lots, but The Office was created in a radically different place.
Randy Cordray: Chandler Valley studios is in an industrial area that is not glamorous by any means. It’s an area of warehouses and potholed streets.
Aaron Shure: Van Nuys is the Scranton part of LA.
Carey Bennett: It was on a middle-of-nowhere street that you would probably never go down. There was a car repo place across from us and a crematorium we had to drive past every day.
Paul Feig: It wasn’t like you walked out and said, “Hey, we’re in the commissary. Oh, look, there’s movie stars. There’s extras walking around dressed as centurions.” It was like, you walked out of there and saw some sort of machine shop that makes gun parts. It was so remote.
Lisa Hans-Wolf: It was a really shady neighborhood. I mean, I wouldn’t want to park off-campus and walk to my car, you know?
Creed Bratton: It could be dangerous going up that street. You wouldn’t want to walk around there at night, for sure.
Rainn Wilson: There was a junkyard with a junkyard dog right across the street from us.
Jenna Fischer: He got out once. He got loose in the cul-de-sac.
Ken Kwapis: This scrubby area in the San Fernando Valley—which did have a Scranton, Pennsylvania, vibe to it—was probably frequented by people in the porno industry more than anything else. We certainly had the kind of creature comforts that you get working on a show or a film, but it just wasn’t within the kind of entertainment-drenched atmosphere of a studio. I think this was due in part to Greg’s desire to create an atmosphere that felt different than doing a TV show.
The set itself was a near-identical re-creation of the Culver City set from the first season, though there were some minor changes that most viewers wouldn’t notice.
Michael Gallenberg: The entrance and elevators were new, the kitchen was enlarged and the bathrooms added, and if you walked through them you would go to the real bathrooms on the soundstage. Ryan’s closet office was added, the annex was enlarged, and [there was] a fake stairwell that matched the practical stairs by the writers’ offices and an exit from the set by Mindy’s desk. Paul Lieberstein’s office was built out to match Michael Scott’s office on three sides so we could shoot the parking lot out the window. We made our backing from the view across the street from that office so it would match. We redesigned the warehouse to work in the new stage and walled off half of the stage for swing sets, and we added fake steps to match season one.
Jason Kessler: It was strange to come in second season when we moved up to Van Nuys and see that they had completely re-created those offices.
Matt Sohn: We were very excited because we were building the set and we felt we were going to have some ability to have some walls that could move to give us some extra space to film and some ceiling pieces that weren’t there to allow us different styles of lighting. But Greg was very specific that he wanted everything to be just like we were the first season, meaning no walls were wild. They couldn’t be moved. A lot of that stuff is done so you can light it easier, so you can get cameras to places where they couldn’t be, but Greg wanted to make it feel like it was a true environment where if a camera was there, it was jammed into a corner and you could tell from the shot. The one thing that we did manage to talk him into was giving us a little more space in the kitchen area, because the original kitchen area was so tight that we couldn’t do anything in there. I think he allowed us to get another foot or two to widen that area out, but that was pretty much it.
Kate Flannery: It was crazy. It felt like a dream. It felt like it was sort of pushed out some parts a little bit so there was a little more space. But it was so identical to the previous set that it was crazy.
Matt Sohn: Greg liked that we didn’t have executives popping in because we weren’t on a lot. They would have to come a certain distance to find us. We were just on a crappy street down at the end of a cul-de-sac.
Justin Spitzer: A lot of these executives wouldn’t come out even for table reads. It was just a trek. And so it felt a little more like Greg’s fiefdom rather than just another show on the lot.
Brian Wittle: It’s just two really large buildings with a parking lot in the middle of the two of them and in the front of them. If you’re standing on the street staring at them, the building on the left is the main set. When you walk inside, the office set is there. That probably took up about half of that space. Then the other half was where we ate, with tables and chairs set up. The other building was the warehouse set. The writers’ offices and the edit team were there.
Randy Cordray: We used to say, “We use every part of the buffalo here at Chandler Valley studios.” The writers’ parking lot became the parking lot for Dunder Mifflin. The front of the writers’ building became the front of Dunder Mifflin. Greg Daniels’s office was Michael Scott’s office. If we needed an exterior where Michael was looking out the window, we used Greg Daniels’s office. Now, Michael Scott’s real office was onstage. That was a set with a photorealistic backdrop out the window that approximated what you saw if you went in Greg Daniels’s office and looked out the window.
The first person on set most days was caterer Sergio Giacoman.
Sergio Giacoman (Caterer): I’d usually be there at three a.m. to start making breakfast. It was a big cast and my job was to make them whatever they wanted. Steve Carell, for example, wanted a turkey burger on a wheat bun for breakfast every single day. John Krasinski always wanted scrambled egg whites with tomatoes. We called it the Johnny K. Jenna would usually just order a small portion of scrambled eggs. Rainn liked breakfast tacos with eggs and beans. One special that became real popular was called the Rashida after Rashida Jones. That was black beans, egg white scramble, turkey bacon, avocado, and green salsa. Everybody liked that. I’d make it all day.
Randy Cordray: It was a massive show with sixteen series-regular cast members, and that translates into a huge amount of support crew on the show each day. A typical sitcom might have a hair-and-makeup crew of four people. The Office needed a hair-and-makeup crew of eight people, because frequently you had to get all sixteen people ready for the first setup of the morning. So people had to come in at four thirty, five o’clock in the morning.
Richard Gonzales: It took a lot to get all those people through hair and makeup. The girls came in first and then the boys would follow later.
Kelly Cantley: Many of the women would have to come the earliest, because the women would take an hour to an hour and a half, and then you need to get a guy into their chair. Phyllis and I got to be friends, because Phyllis would get ready and come on in and sit at her desk, and so we’d be there all by ourselves on set, and just chat while she was sitting at her desk. Most actors know in their heads that it is a business of hurry up and wait.
Kate Flannery: We had our own parking spaces with our characters’ names and they said Dunder Mifflin. So I was parking in Meredith’s space every day. They were right by the trailers. I don’t even think it was two hundred yards from the gate. I’d be one of the first in hair and makeup each day. I was usually in by five a.m.
Kelly Cantley: We would have a crew call at seven a.m. and we’d get our first shot at about seven thirty.
Kasia Trojak (Second Assistant Director): The first thing that you would see when you would walk onto the stage is this big whiteboard where the PAs would write which scene we’re on, what we’ve completed, and which cast members are in which scene. Then there was an area where we had all these desks for the crew with big monitors to see what’s happening on set because most people weren’t allowed on. There was this corridor that would lead to the set. You could either enter through the kitchen or the hallway right next to where the conference room was.
Kelly Cantley: Within the walls of the office, the only people that were ever there were actors, director, camera operators, boom man, camera assistants, me, and the script supervisor. We would move and hide behind file cabinets, walls, and desks to stay out of the shot.
Kasia Trojak: We’d break at one o’clock for lunch.
Sergio Giacoman: Lunch was served buffet style and there was a salad bar. Steve Carell was often first. He just walked right out the office into the line. Everyone would just eat and talk and sometimes have birthday parties there. It was very cool to see all that.
Briton W. Erwin: The entire crew, post, the writers, the cast, everybody is kinda jammed into this one little area. You’re eating lunch together every day with everybody. The cast is there and you’re sitting with Craig Robinson and Leslie and Kate and the DP, and the editors. You’re all just at banquet tables onstage having lunch together. So it very quickly created a familial atmosphere because so many of the people there had been there pretty much since the beginning.
Halsted Sullivan: Just by having lunch together every day, which does not happen at most shows, you get to know the actors as people. It also became another organic way to find stories. We were doing a Halloween episode once and Creed said to me, “What if I bring back that blood bag I had in an earlier episode?” I was like, “Oh my, that’s great!” And then I added it in.
Jason Kessler: It felt a little bit like we were all away at summer camp. We’re all on the same lots, eating the same catering. Everybody had lunch together. It was a self-contained thing, and I think that gave people a little more pride of ownership in a way.
Steve Burgess (Producer): We didn’t have distractions of other shows going on right next door. It was kind of like being on location, but not being on location.
Creed Bratton: People couldn’t come on the lot, so we got more work done. I think it was a great benefit to that show.
Kim Ferry: I’ve worked at Universal. I’ve worked at Warner Bros. I’ve done this for a long time. And it was actually really nice to just have it be us. No one else was there. We’re on this private lot and only our family and friends would come. I would have my kids come over for lunch back when they were really young. Pretty much every lunch some of the actors would walk over and start picking up my kids or take them to craft service. They were really sweet about it.
Claire Scanlon: I went through some really hard times in my personal life while I was working on The Office and it truly was a home away from home and so enveloping, so warm, so supportive. I got divorced right when I was cutting “Niagara”; my marriage blew up, like, literally when I was cutting the marriage episode. It was shocking and just crazy. Paul [Lieberstein] was like, “You need to go to therapy, go.” Jenna came in and talked to me about her own experiences and about priorities and making sure you have a healthy selfishness. Rainn was like, “This is what it’s like to be a good, caring husband. You have to make work sacrifices to make your personal life work.” I think he had just turned down doing a movie with Jennifer Garner, just to be present with his family. There was nothing wrong with his home life, but he was just like, “I’m gonna be home, I’m gonna be around.”
Kate Flannery: We were cocooned. We were lovingly guarded and cared for in a way that we didn’t even notice completely at the time.
Claire Scanlon: It was such a good group of people in the way that everyone kind of had each other’s back. They were like, “Yes, you’re never going to get through life obstacle-free, and conflicts are gonna happen. Let’s talk about it. Let’s work through it.” There were things that were tricky, like Angela Kinsey got divorced from Warren Lieberstein, who was Paul’s brother and also a writer on the show. It all happened during the course of the show and they handled it so well. That’s representative of how classy people were on that set. That was from the top down. You start with Greg Daniels and Steve Carell, two of the kindest people I know, and good things are gonna flow from that.
Paul Feig: There was such a routine to the day that it sometimes felt like we all worked at Dunder Mifflin.
Oscar Nunez: The leads had their own trailers. The rest of us shared. We had like half a trailer or something, which was fine.
Creed Bratton: Now, of course John, and Jenna, and Steve of course, and Rainn, had their own trailers. They were the stars, but everybody else had three-bangers, they call them. When people like James Spader would come on or Idris Elba or Kathy Bates, they would give them their own trailer. But we were never there that much anyway. It was just a place to go to have breakfast if you didn’t want to eat with everybody else and glance at your script. You’re on the set all day long anyway. If you weren’t, you were glad to just pull in, crawl onto your couch, put your pillow out and blanket, and take a nap. We had some long hours there.
Kate Flannery: I had a triple-banger trailer I shared with Phyllis and Angela.
Creed Bratton: Ed and I would play music in our trailers. I’d go to his trailer. He’d come to my trailer and we would jam in between.
Ed Helms: Typically, we were in each other’s trailers all the time just hanging out and teaching each other songs and making music. It was a really fun way to pass the time and I think we learned a lot from each other.
Shelley Adajian: Creed and Ed Helms would have bluegrass jam sessions out in the parking lot, just sporadically, and we would all gather around to watch. It was just a different vibe than a lot of shows that I’ve worked on.
Richard Gonzales: We basically had a gigantic base camp around the set with about twenty trailers. I was in charge of running everyone to set and making sure they were ready. I never had to worry about Carell. He was always ready. It was the other ones that got a little . . . they’d be on the phone with their agent or manager or whatever trying to get other deals going. In season two everyone was happy to just have a job. By season three, I’d knock on a door and hear, “Okay, well, did Leslie walk [to set]? Did Steve walk?” If you look at the episodes, you don’t have as many people in the background by the third season because they didn’t necessarily want to be in the background of somebody else’s shot. Rainn and Jenna in particular would say, “Well, we’re in an office, right? I’ll be in the bathroom for that scene.” Or they’d say, “My character is in the snack room during this scene.”
Rusty Mahmood: They brought me on because some of the personalities from some of the people . . . I won’t mention any names. . . . But there were certain people that started to get egos. They started demanding things. I’d hear, “I don’t want to come in that early,” or “You have to schedule all my things together.” But there were fifteen of them who wanted that. It was impossible. Someone gets pregnant and that person doesn’t come in before ten o’clock and they have to leave at three o’clock. But they’re in every scene, and we shoot from seven o’clock to seven o’clock. How do we do it? It was a real juggling act for me. This actor has a shoot with Shape magazine and this actor is flying out early to New York and they’re in the same scene together. How are you going to make that work? It was a scheduling and logistical nightmare for me.
Randy Cordray: A call sheet is the daily plan of the shoot. It tells everyone when they have to be there. And there is a pecking order on that call sheet. All the cast members have a negotiated number, like Steve Carell was number one on the call sheet. Rainn Wilson is number two on the call sheet. John Krasinski was number three, and Jenna Fischer was number four, and so on.
Rusty Mahmood: Steve Carell was number one on the call sheet; no one had a problem with it. Steve was the perfect actor to work with. He was professional. He was on time. He was kind. He was fun. He was incredibly talented. And he kept to himself, really. He was friendly with the rest of them, but he was there to do a job. When the other cast started to get to be too big for their britches, as an AD it made my job harder. I just wish the others would’ve looked to Steve’s example a little more. Steve was a consummate professional. By the end, some of the others really got on my nerves. I’d think, “No one knew your name three years ago and now you cannot seem to make it in on time? And the entire crew, about seventy-five of us, we all seem to make it here. And not just on time, but we get here early to have breakfast and prep. We’re ready. We’re on set, ready to rehearse, at seven o’clock. But when you roll in at seven thirty and then you have to go see hair and makeup, you put a cog in the wheel.” That just messes with everything. Then we have to reschedule the day because we can’t start with this actor.
But even though the days were long and scheduling got to be tricky at times, everyone felt at home on the Saticoy Street set and missed it when the show was over.
Creed Bratton: I called Steve Carell on his birthday not long ago and he told me that he’d just gone over to the old set just to see it. They were shooting a different show over there. I told him a few months after the show was over I was heading to the market and all of a sudden I found myself driving toward Woodman to work. I went, “Wait. God, the show’s over.” My body went into autopilot. I guess I just missed being there.