Carlos Luna Talks The Vulture Dimension & Teases "Insane" Next Dimension 20 Season

Summary Dimension 20's Carlos Luna, series producer, explains his role of overseeing all aspects of production to maintain consistency.

Luna aims to expand Dimension 20 beyond the table with innovative projects like a romantic comedy-style season.

Luna also teases an Ally Beardsley decision that breaks Brennan Lee Mulligan, with the most improvisational season of Dimension 20 still to come.

Dimension 20 is deep into Fantasy High: Junior Year as the Bad Kids balance the stresses of school, their relationships, and the larger mystery at play. However, just when they seem to have it under control a new threat to their success rears it's head when the new Cleric teacher Bobby Dawn, an avid follower of Sol, fails Kristen Applebees jeopardizing the entire party. Desperate to succeed and figure out what is going on with the Rat Grinders the Bad Kids begin an academic gauntlet known as the Last Stand.

Dimension 20 has grown since the Bad Kids began their adventure in the original Fantasy High season in 2018. That growth has paved the way for new storytellers to help tell exciting stories and create innovative moments to elevate these experiences. Carlos Luna the series producer has worked on Mentopolis, Burrow's End, and Fantasy High: Junior Year. He is a part of every stage of the production including development with Brennan Lee Mulligan as well as pre-production and production with Rick Perry.

Related Brennan Lee Mulligan Reveals Which Dimension 20 Seasons He Wants Animated Exclusive: Brennan Lee Mulligan reveals which two seasons of Dimension 20 he thinks would work especially well in the animation format and why.

Screen Rant interviewed Dimension 20 series producer and co-executive producer Carlos Luna about Fantasy High: Junior Year. He explained what goes into his role as showrunner and how his own experience playing in the dome helps him understand the players better. Luna also hinted at a "ridiculous" season following Junior Year which will be GM'd by Mulligan and teased that the moment Ally Beardsley breaks Mulligan is yet to come.

Carlos Luna Breaks Down What It Entails To Be The Dimension 20 Showrunner

Luna shared insight into what his role as series producer and co-executive producer entails on Dimension 20 including how he is the consistent voice throughout the season.

Carlos Luna: The best way to explain it is just as a showrunner. So, I'm not the creator of the show, Brennan, obviously, is the creator of the show but, from start to finish, from development to pre-production to production to post-production, marketing, all that, I'm leading the way through everything. So I have a hand in everything and just supporting people and supporting the creators and just having that through line and that through line vision of stuff. A lot of these seasons take months and months and months even from start to filming of just development and then you get on set and it's a different crew from when you were developing in the season. And then you shoot it and it's in the can and then you have another team that you need to explain of, "Okay, here's what we were thinking, here's how it actually went down the day of and this is how I think we should move forward." So, I'm leading the charge in all those areas.

This is important in part because of the improvisational nature of the series, which can look very different from the initial vision to the final product after filming the season.

Carlos Luna: Stays consistent that we're able to see the vision straight through. Or, a lot of Dimension 20, because we prep a lot of stuff in advance, and we have a lot of ideas and, just like TTRPGs just in general and improv in general, things change. Things change day of, things that we think were going to be bigger are actually smaller and vice versa so, being able to take all those pieces and be flexible and adapt and really try to, "Okay, here's all the pieces that we have, now that we're in post, what's the best way to show them off?" and is that in line of what we promised them when we launched this project. Sometimes we'll get there, we'll be like, "Okay, guys, here's the plan," and they look at it like, "That wasn't the plan six months ago," and it'd be like, "Yeah, it totally isn't." But everyone's really good and just, yeah, just trying to be that through line for the entire show.

Although improvisation and comedy are at the heart of Dimension 20 a major part of the process is preparation. Obviously, the Game Master will prepare the story, but the art department needs to build the maps, create the minis, and design the animation that is projected on the dome. While they usually build these with intentions knowing that the season will incorporate them into the story there are times that the crew builds something simply hoping it comes into play at some point with the Vulture Dimension in Fantasy High: Junior Year being the perfect example.

Carlos Luna: The GM usually is able to and I think the players themselves, I'll give it to them as well. They know that they're like, "Okay, it feels like this is something," and I think that's just being a good player is following the clues and those clues can be your GM, it doesn't necessarily have to be a plot. We have players that don't necessarily ... They're always following the fun so I think that's probably the best way. So, I believe that it's more than a meta feeling to like, "Ooh, we have to do this because Rick Perry probably made something incredible," I don't think that's even on the radar, I think they're just like, "This feels fun," and they're getting those signals from Aabria, from Brennan at the table. But yeah, there's definitely times when we're like, "Oh crap." The Vulture Dimension was one of them where ... That was one of those that we were just like, "Okay, let's just make it and, if we use it, we use it." We don't do that very often, we're prepared in smaller ways. We are not prepared where we're like, "Oh, we need to get an animator and an illustrator to do these projections, and we also need someone to rig the light so they change at this and then we also need Rick and the team to make a giant vulture thing or whatever," with the understanding that maybe they don't care and maybe it never gets used. But yeah, it was one of the first things that we talked about like, "They're going to do it." It was so funny because it almost happened immediately and he was prepared for it to happen immediately. He was just like, "I'll make it not so easy for them but they can definitely have that appear." Yeah, the vulture was prepared for everything after that. After Thistlespring, the Vulture Dimension was still prepared. If they didn't get it at Thistlespring, it was on all of them moving forward too so it would've been an opportunity for them. When you watch that edit, that is exactly how it went down. He was able to just ... He wasn't even trying, he wasn't trying at all. He was literally giving no clue that it's anything, he was just like, "It's there." And I know people would say that, "Oh, obviously he's going to follow the vulture," but there's so many things that are in these sets that appear in other sets too that are just little things, it's so interesting what they latch onto. Obviously, the vulture thing is a huge thing that they would latch onto, but there's other stuff too. Even in Thistlespring, I was so amazed of the detail that Rick put into things because, in Rick's mind, he's like, "Okay, well, it's an event, it's like a Lollapalooza or whatever, a Lilith Fair type thing," and he's like, "There would be an ATM machine in the back," and it was just there it is in the back of the tree, there's a little tiny ATM machine. I don't know if it's in any scene, but that type of stuff totally delights me about the show.

Luna is no stranger to Dimension 20 fans having been a player in Pirates of Leviathan and Coffin Run. This understanding is a key aspect of his job, especially in understanding how exhausting it can be to improvise these stories for hours upon hours.

Carlos Luna: Yeah, I think a lot of what I do is empathy I have a lot of empathy for a lot of the jobs on set and off set because I've worked them, pretty much all of them in the lighting, in the video, in the post-production. Every step of the way, I love learning about people's workflows and learning about what is the unspoken thing there, what is the thing that I'm doing as a non-professional that is annoying the hell out of you. One of my favorite things to do is to talk to professionals that I don't know how their stuff works, but you think you do. Like hair and makeup where I'm just I'll be sitting there in a chair or something, I'll be like, "How much do those scissors cost?" and they'll be like, "$2,000," and I'm like, "$2,000?" but it makes sense and they explain it. They're like, "Oh, for the amount of hair that I cut or the quantity or stuff like that, if you buy the consumer stuff, obviously, that's going to get dull quicker," it's stuff like that. We apply it to improv too, so we apply it to a player. So, I know what it's like to be sitting there and see, I know what it's like to be sitting there completely open, listening to everything because you got to do something, you got to make something happen, you got to support someone. And yeah, it sounds so bad to say this but it is tiring, it is exhausting. Coffin Run was a blast but, Pirates, I was delusional. We shot for 14 hours or something like that, 13 hours, just on my feet, just improvising with some of the best improvisers and, at the end of the day I was like, "Oh, my God, I'm just ready to pass out." So, it's important that I know the different styles, the different ways people improvise, they like to play the game and find different ways to support them. Sometimes it's not an active thing, sometimes it's just I just need to stay out of someone's way. We just need to make sure people stay out of their way because, Oh, this person likes to put on their headphones and recharge in the parking lot. Let's make sure no one bothers them unless they absolutely have to. It's not an antisocial thing, it's just that's how they recharge. So, just knowing that and knowing the different ways, I like to think I help them. I like to think I can be helpful. Sometimes [the shooting schedules are] definitely harder, some are harder than others. Luckily, we have our own studio space now to record. Before, we were always setting up and breaking down and switching between Game Changer or Dirty Laundry or whatever, we had a shared space. Now the dome is up, it's drilled into the ground, we can shoot whenever we want and everything is still set up for us. So, the dome has become a lot more efficient, and it allows us to take days off. To not force everyone to book three days in a row. We can book every other day if need be, we can book one day, half day. So, that's been really nice.

While Dimension 20 began with Mulligan as the sole Game Master it has grown to include a number of guests stepping into that role including Matthew Mercer. Aabria Iyengar has become a fan favorite recurring guest Game Master and Luna lobbied to rename the seasons without the Intrepid Heroes cast which are currently known as Side Quests. Luna also explained the casting process for the Side Quest seasons.

Carlos Luna: For me, I'm just going to say this, I'm just going to say this. I don't consider them Side Quests, I think we can get rid of that. I think Aabria Iyengar is doing full length seasons. I'm saying a new challenger has arrived on Dimension 20 and, before, it was definitely like, "Welcome our new guest, Aabria Iyengar," and now it's just like, "Aabria, when did you get here?" and she's like, "Oh, I got my own keys." You know what I mean? She's ready to go and vice versa, too. A lot of these seasons, when we look at Mentopolis or something like that, that's a season to me, that is like, "I want to go back to Mentopolis." And I think maybe that's a little bit the selfish reason why I want to change it out of Side Quest. I want that cast back, I want them to do a season two, I want there to be another name for whatever that Mentopolis crew is that's very similar to Intrepid Heroes. Let's call them something else. Booking other seasons, we always try different things and I think a lot of it is just, when we are talking about the pitch of the season or we're talking about the feel and the vibe. A lot of the conversations [are] like, "Okay, this is what's going to happen this season, who do we want to see? Who do we think is going to play that up? Who do we think is going to react well to those types of situations?" and we just go with people that we're excited about. I think a lot of it has to do with the relationship with the GM or how they see you're playing or they might've seen you at an improv show and they think that's the guy I want for this type of season. I think it has more to do with that and less to do about I know every TTRPG game out there, I've played so many hours of that. A lot of the North Star stuff that we do at Dimension 20 is just based on what makes us excited and there is a thing of just like, "Are we excited about that?" and if we start asking ourselves that, we find a way to get excited about it. I think Rick Perry's the king of that where he's just like, "Okay, well, I got two days to put out this thing that's very necessary. How do I like it? How do I get other people to like it too?" And that's why his work and the art department is so meticulous, it's so well thought out, and informs the world and the viewer. Yeah, I think excitement is how we choose it basically.

Squeem Was One Of The Biggest Surprises Of Fantasy High Junior Year For Carlos Luna

Luna is in a unique position at Dimension 20 given his involvement in every step of the process. This means that what may have stood out to him and the other crew members may not have hooked into the audience as quickly. On the flip side, the audience may connect with an element that to the crew and even the cast seemed smaller. Luna shared what has surprised him the most both in how the audience has reacted and how the player reacted at the table.

Carlos Luna: Squeem! Squeem surprised the hell out of all of us. Here's the thing, we love Squeem. Squeem was great. What an awesome bit. It was so funny because, in those meetings, I just remember us being so tired because we were also working on a bunch of other stuff at the same time. I had just started there, we had just wrapped Mentopolis and Drag and they were going into post and we were literally spinning up Burrow's End at the same time right before Brennan was going to get married and be gone for a month on his honeymoon so it was just we were all exhausted. I remember, the Night Yorb working on that and, one of the bits, the Balthazar of it all really tickled Brennan. We thought it was so funny, and it reminded of a little bit of Galaxy Quest and stuff like that. But when we were just like, "Okay, Balthazar, that was hilarious and Squeem is really cute and really funny but, man, people really jumped on Squeem." The thing that really surprised me and I've really thought about this reaction, people had a reaction of just like, "Well, who's Squeem?" and were upset that they didn't know who Squeem was because the improvisers just pretended they knew Squeem and acted like they knew him and people really confused by that, which makes sense, I guess you could be confused, but they do it with a lot of characters. Every single bad guy in the Night Yorb scene, they were just like, "I know, you're bad," and I think we assume that, but I think, as players and people that watch the show, Squeem didn't go through the same paranoia and questioning. The minimum of amount of how do I feel about this character? Or, "Hey, Squeem, tell me something about you so I can make a decision." I think, watching that episode, you see them not know anything about this character. They haven't even said a sentence, all they have said is their name and them reacting like that and giving all these gifts of being the best ever and all that. I started to realize, "Oh, yeah, that is gaslighting." They did not react as expected, they didn't have any type of suspicion about Squeem at all where they were like, "Who is this guy?" He said "Squeem" and they were on board right away. Carlos Luna: I think a lot of those characters, if they liked them, if they wanted them around, they'd be around. I think there's something so fun about honoring the Night Yorb and a lot of improv is today is special, show us today. And The Night Yorb, the beginning of Junior Year, starts off with show us the special day, show us where it all changed. I think a lot of when we look at the Night Yorb has to do with people wanted a continuation of Sophomore Year and I get that. I get you want more. I think every season is approached as a continuation but, at the same time, a brand-new story and the day that story started was the Night Yorb fight. We had stuff prepared if they went through the portal. We had stuff planned if the Night Yorb went through the portal, and they didn't or if they followed it in.

Luna also shared a good deal of behind-the-scenes information on The Rat Grinders.

Carlos Luna: The reaction to the Rat Grinders surprised us. We were so surprised. It was day two or whatever because it was episode three is when they showed up, it was just like, "Hey, how are you feeling, man?" "Feeling good." "Going to do this, going to do that, we got a bunch of stories, start introducing these Rat Grinder things." all that and I remember being like, "I hope they get it. I hope they learn to dislike the Rat Grinders," that was my thing. I was just like, "Obviously, they're going to be too preoccupied with all these other things or whatever happening in their lives, obviously, they're going to be preoccupied with that." No. Instantly, from the jump. I remember seeing him during a bio like, "What was that?" He's like, "They hate her," but I was like, "Okay." There's a lot of pieces that we'll make for the season in terms of story and plot or whatever, but it's so open world sandbox that, any thread, it's Brennan so he'll just make it bigger, make it bigger. Everything basically starts off with the same exact chance. But I think if you were to do a survey of all the people who helped in the development of it, no one would've said, "Oh, from the jump, 100%, they're going to hate all of these people, we're like, "Oh, God." And honestly, we'll never figure that out because he leaned so hard that it's like, "Oh, yeah." Yeah, it's crazy. It's even funny too, because that Rat Grinder sticker that we put on, I was just drawing while I was there. I just drew that, and the art department printed it up and put it out there just as a funny little goof. It became their symbol and we put it on a bunch of their artwork and stuff. But it was that wasn't meant to be that, it had the potential to be that, I think we didn't expect it to happen that quickly at all.

Kristen Applebees "Becomes More Insane" In Junior Year

Ally Bearsdley infamously teased a moment coming in Fantasy High: Junior Year where they make a choice that causes Mulligan to nearly quit. While Beardsley has made some notable choices as Kristen thus fan Luna revealed that the moment hasn't happened yet it will be game-changing.

Carlos Luna: Kristen becomes, and this says a lot, more insane. When I tell you, completely unpredictable, impossible to explain in a conversation, I really want people to do TikToks trying to explain the full length of the arc for the season because it's about to get so weird and I don't like saying, "Oh, the moment that broke Brennan." It's recorded. It's recorded in a way that you're like it's completely undeniable. It was a, Huh, what now? It was like a, "Do I have to get in there? Do I need to call someone? What is happening?" It will not disappoint, I did not even overhype it. I hope that helps, I hope it does.

Carlos Talks About His Dreams Of Expanding Dimension 20's Innovation Beyond The Table

Luna also reflected on how Dimension 20 has continued to push the envelope with their production and storytelling adding animation via projections on the wall along with more intense and detailed maps and minis. While they will continue to innovate Luna shared how he hopes to see that innovation is tied more into the moment with creative decisions that allow the players' choices to be elevated in the same way the Game Master's have been.

Carlos Luna: I think, when I came on, we were definitely like, "Okay, well, we did this thing and then what if we did this thing?" So, every season, we do one thing just to test out and just to add to our toolbox. I don't think anyone has the mindset behind the scenes of we need to up the ante. I don't think anyone's thinking that. I think everyone's thinking, Okay, this is the story that we're working on, how can we elevate it and is there a way to elevate it that we haven't done before or that we've thought of. A lot of these seasons seem back to back to back, obviously, because they're coming out once a week but we have months in between, months in between just thinking about them. I think we've started moving to a place or at least I want us to start moving to a place of, instead of trying to search new ground, like, "Oh, yes, we walked across and now we have this one thing to do or do really well or really big," I want to start doing it in real time. I want us to start, instead of pre-planning this great thing, knowing that we can do it, the projections in the background. So, knowing that we can do projections in the background, is there a world where Ally says, "Well, I want to go check out the steel mill," that's what you want to do on your downtime, and then we take a lunch break and the steel mill is in the background. There is a world where, and I think this is the shift, instead of trying to delight the players, to bring it from them. A lot of what we do is trying to heighten what Brennan makes but, when you look around, we have six other great improvisers at the table, so let's look at what they're creating and let's put some people on it, let's see what we can do. Some of the best moments in D20 are the stuff we made day of or the next day. We look at the Neverafter hat, we look at Jujubee's tree cat. It's stuff that we made on set when we were flexible and adaptive so let's take these projections and let's take some of the set stuff that we make and see if we can do that in real time. It's a big undertaking and I don't know exactly how we're going to do it but I think it's a good North Star to have and it feels right. I think a lot of what we do just has to feel right, yeah.

Fantasy High: Junior Year includes a new opening song "Teenage Rebellion." Dimension 20 shot and released a music video tying the song into the world of Spire with Easter eggs throughout for eagle-eyed fans to spot. Luna explained not only why this was a fun project, but how it is an example of the growth he is excited to see with Dimension 20 outside the expectations of upping the ante via the production value every season.

Carlos Luna: When I think of Dimension 20 growing, I see it growing wide, not tall. So, I see Dimension 20 growing wide, growing in other areas or mediums or things that we haven't done before instead of more Dimension 20, more Dimension 20. It's how can we put Dimension 20 in a music video, how can we put Dimension 20 in cookbook, and not so much even in a way that it's a grab, or it's running to cash in on something. I think this company is pretty much like, "What are we excited about?" They wouldn't do a cookbook unless Brennan got really into cooking, we might do a cookbook. It would have to be something like that. "I made all these recipe, guys, what should we do?" We'd be like, "We should just do a cookbook, I guess." He'd be like, "I guess." Actually, the music video came about [David] Kearns was just like, "I think it'd be cool to do a music video," that's 100% how it came about. He was like, "I think it'd be cool to do a music video. Carlos, do you want to work on this music video with me?" and I was like, "Okay." And it wasn't part of my job or anything, he was just like, "Are you good with time?" and I was like, "Yeah," and then we just did a music video. I was Gorgug in that music video at the end. I should post it online, I have when they're painting my hand and all that type of stuff. Because in my head, and don't quote me on this, I don't know if this is true or not, you'll have to run it by some people. In my head, the bit of Gorgug being the greatest wizard is just so funny to me and I love the idea of, whoever this Sarah Barrios character is in Spire, in Elmville, is working on Gorgug's van for him. Her and her friends are working on the van because they see the bad kids trying to figure out this Night Yorb situation and they're off on little adventures with Balthazar or Duncan or whatever and his van's getting a bunch of tickets. And they're just like, "I have friends, these guys are just friends, maybe I can help them," and they build the ray. I just love the idea of Gorgug going in and being like, "I did build that ray." I love that because no one talks about it. He talks about building and he talks about doing that. I just think that's funny, I don't know if that's canon, so don't quote me on it. If you see the music video, there's a couple things that are in there, obviously the ray gun and the van. The van took us a long time to find, we were all super excited about it. I think it's just a couple frames, you could see Ecaf, you could see the mirror in the front seat as it pans by, it's in the cup holder. That was one of the Easter eggs that we threw in there at the last second.

Carlos Luna Teases An "Insane" Season Of Dimension 20 GM'd By Brennan Lee Mulligan

While Luna wouldn't reveal what the next season is, he did tease that it's "absolutely ridiculous." He also revealed that it is the most improvised of all the seasons and that Mulligan will once again be the Game Master.

Carlos Luna: There's a bunch of insane stuff that we have. The next season, the season after Junior Year came together so quickly and it's absolutely ridiculous. It's probably the most ridiculous comedy packed season we've done which says a lot. Where, a lot of the seasons, what we do in pre-production and development is let's make this because we talk about that. This season was let's just make as much as we can and give it to Brennan and see what he does with it. Like, "Oh, we made this thing. What do you think that is?" and Brennan's like, "I know exactly what that is." And it's like, "Oh, sh-t. Okay, cool." It's very much that, it's the most improvised over the top you've ever seen Dimension 20. That was a great season and that season that'll be announced after Junior Year came together so quickly, and it just killed. I think it's going to be really big.

Luna also remained tight lip when asked which genre he wanted to explore in the future teasing exciting projects. However, he did reveal that he hopes to do a romantic comedy-style season at some point.

Carlos Luna: I'm going to get in trouble because we'll probably end up doing it. I don't want to tell everyone what I want to do. Pretty much any ideas that I'm excited about, they're on the table, they're literally on the table. I'm trying to think what genre. I want a traditional romcom season. I want a traditional meet cute romcom thing, just give it to me. I think that'd be really fun. I think it'd be really funny too. Yeah, I really want to tell you the ones that I'm really excited about, but I can't tell you those right now.

About Dimension 20: Fantasy High Junior Year

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Fantasy High Junior Year continues the adventures of the Aguefort Adventuring Academy Bad Kids. Following their successful defeat of the dragon Kalvaxus and the Nightmare King, they will face something even scarier...their future. The Bad Kids will begin to question their path after high school as they continue to find themselves, go on adventures, and get into trouble.

Check out our other Fantasy High Junior Year interviews:

Dimension 20: Fantasy High Junior Year is available on Dropout now, with new episodes every Wednesday.