Reservation Dogs fictional hometown mirrors the memories of its most important audience: its cast and crew.
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Okern, Oklahoma, is technically fictional.
Every aspect ofReservation Dogs look was crafted with intention, and it showed onscreen.
We want them to feel the spaces are right.
Its about that experience as much as the final product on film.
Little things everywhere, thats how my dad was.
Youre giving people the opportunity to experience life in a different place, he explains.
Tafv Sampson:Everyone in the script is always like, Oh my God, I hate this place.
Youre just sitting forever and people are rude.
But theres a really deep sense of community and sweetness to this set thats very Native specific.
Were able to pay them a location fee and compensate them for our use.
TS:The exterior mural is byYatika Starr Fields.
Hes been in the community a long time, has known Sterlin a long time.
The building loves the mural, and theyre gonna keep it forever.
B T-C:He created a mural satirizing the idea of Western medicine being gifted to Indigenous people.
The perspective is kind of off; theres an eagle and it looks like it has only one eye.
TS:The artwork around the whole building, those are my grandpa Will Sampsons paintings.
He was known for being an actor, but he was also a painter and a rodeo star.
It was season one and we were being real scrappy about everything.
And he was like, Absolutely.
I put my dads blanket on Fixicos lap while hes in his hospital bed.
I was like,This is jam-packed with love here.
We looked at all the real-life examples and made them a hair less subtle.
It was perfect and hilarious and kind of sad.
We also collaborated with Ben Brown, whos another local artist, to create this Spirit Anatomy poster.
Rather than a regular anatomy poster, it reveals the culturally significant objects that make up Spirits life force.
We were honored to haveJohnnie Diaconcome in and create this astonishingly beautiful, subtle piece of original art.
He painted it on a Saturday.
Nobody else was there, it was deserted and quiet.
I came in just to hang out with him.
TS:Hes like the BFG: this big, sweet, comfortable Native man.
B T-C:We wondered, can we shoot in a real trading post?
The closest one was about two hours away, and thats too far.
We found a great location closer to Okmulgee.
It was a gas station on one side and a diner on the other.
I do remember a conversation between myself and Sterlin: How offensive should this be?
Is there a limit?
TS:What are you going to find in the Toontown version of Native American stuff?
The things Native people pick up and say, Are you kidding me?
We had Jinx spray: Lift the hex with this aerosol spray!
Were like,Maybe people are a little more aware now than they were before.
We wanted to have a Native American statue in the front, but it couldnt be a good one.
It had to be one that has, like, a crooked eye.
Is it going to be too strange if its an exact replica of his face?
Will that detract from the joke?
We sourced a machine that was several states away.
TS:It kept talking when it was not supposed to.
This thing is cursed!
Dont look it in the eyes!
We didnt want that for Mabel.
We wanted the house to feel alive.
Everything going into Mabels room had to be special and evoke the proper emotion.
Neosha Pendergrafts mom,Shan Goshorn, was an amazing painter, so we got her paintings.
TJ Redcorn was our PA and we have an original painting by his family member.
We had a traditional Creek love doll from a crew member hanging next to Mabels bed.
Some things were really sacred objects and some were just silly, but they carried a lot of weight.
About ten to 15 people gave us things the number of things in the room was in the 40s.
We all took turns coming into that room and crying.
It was such a strong room energetically.
A major resource was the family photos of people from the community who are in the art department.
I had something like that in my house growing up.
We also did a collage for Elora Danans bedroom wall.
It was an abandoned, dilapidated prison the county was using for storage.
It had been completely shut down.
We ended up painting and we brought in all our own signage, our own vending machines.
We needed to steal them from another part of the jail.
And nobody had the key.
The set-decoration and the art department worked miracles transforming the space.
It was totally worth it for the amazing scenes with Lily and Paulina and Tafv in there.
The photo of Daniel was provided by actor Dalton Cramer.
We had a lot of great family photos from him, and Sterlin chose the one in that episode.
B T-C:We really had to scale up to build the world of Maximus.
The branches touch the ground in front and part slightly to form a natural doorway.
It had this fantastic mythical look to it.
The pillowcase Bear is sleeping on was my great-grandmas pillowcase.
On Maximuss counter, we have boxes of Little Debbie Star Crunch cookies.
We ended up consulting with amazing people like Harvey Pratt, who is a Native forensic artist.
He gave us his prints.
We had a swirling star chart painted on the wall next to where Bear would wake up.
In the greenhouse, we have a medicine-wheel-like symbol with a star chart painted on the wall.
The tunnel has similar symbols in it for Bear to find glimpses of.
We had to source 100 eggplants out of season from an Osage greenhouse.
That same poster is in Maximuss dorm room looking new.
She answered our many questions about plates, spoons, bedding, desks, everything.
Once we had all the research, we found Bacone College.
We talked aboutLuca GuadagninosSuspiriaand a few other films as color-palette references.
It also set this particular episode aside in its own very separate universe.
We started in this giant hall that was being used as a storage room.
It had mounted flatscreen TVs, low-pile carpet, reminders that we were in the year 2023.
The whole thing has a really heavy, emotional weight of this terrible history.
TS:We had a lot of crew members who had relatives at boarding school at that time.
There was a lot of crying.
They ruled it to be an electrical fire.
Because of time and money, we had to keep going.
There was no way we could stop filming.
I was going a mile a minute.
I was like,We all need to take a moment and remember what were doing here.
B T-C:I was there the night of the fire with Tafv.
We saw the construction coordinators tools, the scenic departments paints, the set-decoration departments stuff.
There were some elements that were priceless.
We had rented period desks from a museum.
All of it was destroyed.
But at the same time, weve got to do this thing.
If we dont do it, nobodys gonna do it.
And its got to get done, because this is an important TV show and an important episode.
TS:We all had our smudge kits and were like, Get in line, everyone!
I made sure to smudge all the beds and all the desks afterward because objects carry energy.
Even if these arent things from the actual time, its what were representing, and its powerful stuff.
There was a lot of hurt being brought when we were making this.
Weve got to protect each other.
We used Rogers State University for the classroom, hallway, school exteriors, and dorm rooms.
It also gave us a big parking-lot scene.
We dressed another part of campus for the Cheese post-apocalyptic video-game introin the fishing episode.
So we got the actual bunk beds our parents slept in and tagged them Tim Nan.
The coincidences that happened, the things that fell into our laps I couldnt have dreamt this.
Its all meant to be.
We really wanted aTwo-Lane Blacktopposter, but we couldnt get it at the last minute.
We were like,Lets just make up a book.
Tazbah Chavez, one of our writer-directors and producers, is an amazing poet.
TS:Thats a real Native church an hour from Tulsa.
Wotko Long is everywhere in this show hes playing the security guard, hes singing next to Mabel.
When we went to scout the cemetery, theres a guy on a lawnmower mowing between the graves.
I was like, Is that Wotko?
He tends to the grounds of that church.
In real life, hes so part of the community.
B T-C:We wanted to be respectful of everything and everyone here.
When we were digging the actual grave, the backhoe wasnt totally cutting it.
We had our people actually digging a grave by hand.
I was like No, its not, unfortunately.
Its got to be as deep as the actual grave would be.
This is such an emotional moment.
Were going to have people standing in the grave.
We ended up having to jackhammer through bedrock to get it down to six feet.
TS:We added some curtains to the interior of the church.
We decided on wildflowers, because thats what he is.
Richard Ray Whitman gave us his own blanket, which is really special.
B T-C:We built all 30 benches for that outdoor space.
We left them with the church so they could use them after that.
Everybody hugged and had a nice sort of reminiscence over the past couple of years.
There was not a dry eye.
These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
