Buddy TV Exclusive Interview: John Shiban, Executive Producer of Supernatural

[Emma]

John Shiban recently granted us at BuddyTV the opportunity to speak with him about Supernatural, the popular sci-fi drama on The CW. Supernatural follows brothers Sam and Dean Winchester as they travel America in their 1967 Chevy Impala, encountering all sorts of Supernatural disturbances and foes along the way. John Shiban started out as a Staff Writer on X-Files and has been in the TV business for almost a decade. He is now a writer and executive producer on Supernatural.

Supernatural airs on Thursdays at 9PM ET/PT.

You landed a job on X-Files early in your career. How did you break into the TV business?

I went to film school at AFI, grad school, and intended to be a feature writer, to be honest. I went through the school writing program and met a bunch of people which is, ultimately, very important. And me and my buddies were all trying to get jobs after school in writing and a couple of years down the road I had written a few spec features that nobody bought, but a friend of mine named Frank Spotnitz got a job as a staff writer on X-Files and met Chris Carter etcetera, and got on there, and recommended that Chris read my stuff. And one day I was working on computers to make a living and writing at night and I got this call from Chris' office saying that he read a script of mine and wanted to meet me. So I drove down and met him, terrified of course, and the next day FOX called and offered me a staff job and I was there for seven years. It was an overnight success that took years.


How long into being a writer on X-Files did you become an executive producer?

The way it goes is you bump to story editor and then I went up to co-producer then producer, that was after my second year I became a producer, and then the last two years of the show I was an executive producer.

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