 Kim Manners, a director of nearly 30 years, passed away from lung cancer on January 25, 2009, just 12 days after his 58th birthday. In those 30 years, he directed television productions for Charlie's Angels, Star Trek The Next Generation, 21 Jump Street, X-Files, and of course, Supernatural. After having directed 52 episodes for the X-Files, at the time, the highlight of his career, Manners almost considered retiring entirely. Until he decided to come back for three different productions, two episodes of Empire, one of Over There, and Supernatural, which would become his sole show until his death. In that time, Manners would direct several of the best episodes of the entire show's legacy. Scarecrow, Devil's Trap, In My Time of Dying, All Hell Breaks Loose Part 2, Mystery Spot, Lazarus Rising, and more. Manners' attention to detail, continual drive to ensnare the audience in the storytelling. In combination with his experience on X-Files, made him the most acclaimed director to ever work on the show, aside from David Nutter, who directed the pilot and the Wendigo episode. Nutter was in fact the one who contacted Manners about coming on board to work on Supernatural. Manners didn't think he would have much connection with the show after directing only one episode being Dead in the Water. After that episode, he thought all of a sudden done, and began heading back to his home in Missouri. He then got a call from Warner Brothers, which would eventually become the CW, asking him to be co-eventually executive producer, as well as reoccurring director of the show. He would fit in with Eric Kripke and Bob Singer's line of thinking, and became a creative core of the show. Despite having only set foot in the writer's room in Los Angeles once, he was able to convey the hard-hitting narrative that was necessary to the show's core foundation. Manners liked to keep the camera dynamic. His style always kept people engaged, working with the shadows, as well as keeping an interactive element to how the camera conveyed the characters' interactions. His history of the X-Files definitely contributed to the horror slash thriller element of the show, which was all but nonexistent by the end of the show's time. He was willing to go the extra mile, even if it was for the episodes that weren't even worth the effort, like bugs. But not only with how he told each story, but how he got along with the actors. Well, I think that Jared and I just, we just responded well to him. I mean, he directed in a fashion that we really liked, and it was kind of a set where guys could be guys, and he wasn't someone who directed behind a screen with a telephone somewhere in LA. It was like doing over and over, and then a close-up and a close-up, and let's get out of here and move on to the next set. He was in there, and a story about another episode that he directed, Bugs. This was a scene where we had to get in to a room with, Sorry. Yeah, no, I mean, it's, you know, we get in this tiny little room with 65,000 bees, and the whole camera crew and the sound crew and everybody's got full bee outfits on, and then they're like, all right, Jared Jensen, hop on in. And don't swat them because it makes them angry. Yeah, and I'll give it to Kim. He said, you know what, if you guys don't have bee suits on, I'm not either. And he went in there with the shorts and a t-shirt and a monitor, and sat down on a box and directed us from inside the room with bees crawling all over our faces. It's just, it's that kind of relationship with Kim. Along the way, we always focused on the story elements and became so invested with them that they would translate far better than expected for television drama at the time. In the case of Shadow, one of Manor's favorite episodes, he described the reunion of the brothers with their father as one of his favorite moments to film in the show. Shadow was, I'm incredibly proud of, because there were four great scenes. The scene where the boys were arming up and Dean blows at Sam and says, why do you think I, I got you out of Stanford in the first place? Why do you think I came to get you? Because I want us to be family again. And I'll tell you, Jensen had a tough time with that, and we kind of arm wrestled over it. And to get him there, you know, because Dean is, you know, he's got his walls up and to break down that wall for just a minute to look into Dean's heart was magical for me. And then when they met dad in the apartment and in the alley, it was just, we worked very hard. The boys, their game of tennis improves 2000% when they work with Jeffrey Dean or somebody like Nicky. Eight bucks. You know, we find the nuances and it, and acting, it becomes the crap that it is and it becomes real life and the words become their own and the emotions become their own and that's special for me. Something that I always found myself complaining about with Supernatural in the latter seasons was the lack of a kinetic camera. For the most part, if not every conversation was shot on a static setup. Very little variation other than basic over-the-shoulder blocking. Take this scene with the brothers seeing their father in the 300th episode. The camera never moves in, nor does it vary. It's very static and while it may just be a conversation, take a look at how Kim shot the brothers meeting their father in shadow. The brothers and John move around the room just as the camera does. There are multiple angles varying from wide to close, capturing the intensity of the reunion of their emotions of their burdens. In terms of comparison, it's fairly similar, but it's that variety that adds to the scene that makes this conversation stand out for more than just what it was. It was this attention to detail and the level of effort that made Mystery Spot the classic it is today. I honestly believe that the only director in the rotation of Supernatural that could have pulled this off was Manners. Even back in the day when Robert Singer actually cared about his job, his directing effort couldn't match that of Manners. A great comparison is All Hell Breaks Loose Part 1 and Part 2. The first was directed by Singer while the latter was directed by Manners. On paper, of course Part 2 is going to stand out more as it has more hard-hitting moments, but everything from the line delivery to how dynamic the camera is to just how creative the storytelling is shows off just what Manners could really do. For Part 1, the best moment and shot of the entire episode is the camera rising as Dean holds Sam's body with a cut back to Dean's face. However, in Part 2, you have multiple moments, Dean kicking the table and cutting to him in the car. The bullet hitting yellow eyes, the conversation with a crossroads demon. But while Manners was a dedicated director to the job, he didn't lose sight of reality. There are some directors who are always serious, no fun and games sort of deal, whereas Manners would regularly prank the boys, even dunking several buckets of water on them while filming a scene in no exit. Even well after his death, his talent and efforts were still being praised and sorely missed on the set. The tree used in the series finale, where the brothers are discussing the missing children, is the Kim Manners Memorial Tree. It is the spot where Manners went to one of the last tech surveys he ever did for Season 4 before he passed. Throughout the first three seasons, you can easily tell when it's him directing an episode. The level of effort both from the camera department and the actors just goes to a whole other level. While the show definitely finished Season 4 and 5 on a strong note, the latter seasons and the show's entire lineage would falter without Manners' direction. Episodes would become complacent and no longer feature unique camera angles. The dialogue between the brothers would become stiff and highly repetitive. I'm not saying that if Manners were alive today, that the show wouldn't have had its issues as it went on for another 10 seasons after its initial proposed ending. But I can guarantee you that we would have had more episodes that we would remember for something other than fourth wall breaking moments are incredible obvious retcons. In the end, Manners was a fantastic director and a great storyteller. Supernatural and the television industry in general will always feel the loss of one of its best.