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Leprechaun 6: A Visit to the  Set

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Some of the scenes that I saw being filmed.

The pictures in the following sections are my personal photos. No borrowing please.

Photo by Peter Stone

As a general rule, the main benefit of webmastering is the personal satisfaction that comes from doing the job. But once in a while the rewards take a more visible form, and I had the great good fortune to receive the ultimate prize - an invitation to visit the set of Leprechaun Back 2 tha Hood. My stay there ended up lasting 2½ days, and was an absolutely fascinating look into the real world of the Leprechaun series.

Day 1 - Thursday, October 10, 2002

I made the 500-mile drive from my home to Los Angeles and arrived a little before 4 PM, earlier than I expected. The original plan called for my set visit to begin on Friday, so I made a phone call to get instructions for the next day. That's when the original plan changed for the better!

The change was brought about by the fact that the shooting schedule is variable. They had previously been doing some night shoots and were trying to transition back to day shoots by starting a couple of hours earlier every day. It was expected that by Friday they'd be able to start around 10 AM, but it didn't pan out that way; the work had run later than expected on a couple of days so they couldn't make the earlier start. This was bad luck for the crew but good luck for me - the Thursday work was just starting to get underway. I was welcome to come to the set immediately, and I wasted no time in getting over there.

Filming was taking place at a the Lacy Street Production Center. On the outside, this rambling facility greatly resembles a collection of old factory or warehouse buildings, and I've been told that it was originally a bread factory. The industrial feeling continued on the inside, with bare floors, bare walls, and concrete courtyards. The place is intended for practical use rather than luxury and serves its purpose very well. The studio was previously used for a number of TV series and movies, including portions of Leprechaun in the Hood. Over the course of the visit I saw the hallway where Mack Daddy's bodyguard got his heart blown out, the balcony from the scene where the rappers entertained the neighborhood, and several rooms that appeared in the movie. I even rode on the elevator that the Leprechaun used! And yes, it looks like that same elevator is also used in Lep 6.

There's a maze of rooms inside the studio instead of a typical movie sound stage, and it's very easy to get lost. The movie crew doesn't have to build room sets; they just dress the existing rooms to serve the needs of the film.

I arrived in time to see the second half of the Leprechaun makeup process, and I observed the full procedure twice on subsequent days. It's a fascinating thing to watch. First, Warwick's hair is covered with a skullcap with small holes cut in it for ventilation. Then the ears are glued directly to his skin, followed by the nose/upper lip piece, the forehead and chin pieces, and finally the cheeks. The mottled skin tone is achieved by applying brown, black and red coloring with an airbrush. Then the eyebrows and beard are glued on, followed by the wig. The last step is to dirty up the teeth with a substance resembling brown and black nail polish. The Leprechaun wears a high-collared coat in this movie so no neck makeup was necessary. The whole makeup process takes about two hours and forty minutes, but Warwick and makeup designer Gabe Bartalos always displayed infinite patience with it. They are the only two people to have worked on all six Leprechaun movies, and both are absolutely vital to the success of the series.

If you've ever taken the Universal Studios tour and seen the Jaws shark, you know that some things that look wonderful on screen look incredibly fake in reality. Not so with the Leprechaun makeup; it looks so natural and realistic off-camera that it's easy to forget there's another face behind all this. It wouldn't be difficult to start believing that they hired a nice, friendly, genuine Leprechaun to play a maniac in front of the camera.

Of course, there's more to the Leprechaun than the face makeup - there are also the hands. These are designed like a pair of tight-fitting rubber gloves that reach almost to Warwick's elbows. The application procedure is fairly simple; Warwick puts on a pair of surgical gloves and coats them with lubricant, then Gabe pulls the Leprechaun hands into place.

Unlike the face makeup, the hands can be removed when the Leprechaun isn't needed on-camera. When Warwick isn't wearing the hands, they can usually be found in Gabe's vest pocket with the claws sticking out - a very entertaining sight! The hands take a lot of abuse during filming, and a pair lasts about a week. Those marvelously wicked-looking claws get knocked off fairly often but fortunately it's very easy to glue them back on. And while the claws are great for on-screen mayhem, they don't grip very well and are totally worthless for eating Chex mix behind the scenes.

Once the hands are on, the Leprechaun can put on his coat. In this movie, the Leprechaun wears sort of a Victorian-style crushed-velvet look. It's quite different from his previous outfits and is the best-looking costume yet. But it's apparently a bit too warm, because Warwick frequently took it off between scenes. Those high-heeled shoes weren't too comfortable either and were off his feet more often than they were on.

With the Leprechaun fully dressed, it was time to start filming. The Leprechaun's first scene of the day was a relatively quiet one, where Emily finds a most unwelcome guest in her bed. But the set was bustling with activity; all the Leprechaun movies were filmed at a rapid rate, and I was told that this one had an especially fast pace. But in spite of this the atmosphere on the set was basically pleasant and friendly, and the crew seemed to be enjoying themselves. As the workday progressed I had the pleasure of meeting the director, the producer, several actors, and assorted other crew members.

What happened next set the pattern for all the other scenes I witnessed. As the crew put the finishing touches on the lighting, camera setup, etc., the director and cast discussed the storyboards for the scene and started working out the details of performing it - who will be where, exactly what they will do, and when they will do it. They rehearsed the scene a few times, continuing to refine their plan in the process. The most critical part was figuring out how to get good footage without anyone getting hurt; there's a vast amount of rough physical action in this movie. Stunt doubles are used a lot less often than I expected, and the actors usually don't wear any kind of protective gear. Sometimes padding is spread on the floor, but frequently it isn't and the actors have to take falls onto a hard surface. As the rehearsals went on, the crew kept an eye out for anything that was inappropriately showing up on camera - cables, microphones, reflections of people who aren't in the scene. Continuity issues were considered; were any characters or props in a different position or condition in the scene that comes before this one?

Finally, the real shooting began. As long as they're quiet and don't get in the way, people who aren't involved in the actual filming can watch the action from anywhere they like, and I took full advantage of this to get the closest look I could manage. Sometimes a direct view wasn't possible; some of the scenes were filmed in small rooms and there was no way to see through the forest of crew members. But we could still watch the action by looking at the camera-eye view that was playing on a small video monitor.

When you watch a finished movie, the action usually takes place in small snippets as the camera cuts back and forth from one character to another and from closeups to longer shots. Therefore, I was really surprised at how long each take lasted; there are a lot more camera cuts in the final version. The actors frequently played out the whole scene without interruption, and the performances got stronger with every take. For me, it was much better than watching the finished movie. Without the help of editing and with all the artificial elements in the scene fully exposed, there's nothing to hold the viewer but the integrity of the performance. And the performance was great, especially from the Leprechaun. Yes, I'm highly biased, but Warwick gives that character an intensity and a presence and a realism that is simply amazing to see.

Of course, some parts of the action WERE filmed in small pieces. Some closeups didn't require the full scene to be played out, and some effects had to be filmed separately and inserted later. It was quite interesting to see how the artificial elements were used.

For the scene in Emily's bedroom, they didn't actually bash the Leprechaun with the book. Instead, a crew member stood close by and manipulated the book to simulate a hard hit. Those scissors that the Leprechaun was holding were very real, though, and it made me nervous to watch him walking around on the unsteady surface of a bed with this sharp object in his hand. The fall he takes after the book hit was especially scary since he's still holding the scissors at that point. Warwick warned the bystanders in advance to stay out of the way in case he lost his grip during the high-speed fall and sent the scissors flying.

The next scene to be filmed was rougher - it was time to go hand-to-hand with Lisa and her meat cleaver. This was the first time I really got to see them develop the choreography of a fight. It appeared to be actress Sherrie Jackson's first experience with a fight scene, and Warwick and another person (the stunt coordinator, presumably) taught her some of the tricks of the trade during the rehearsals.

Next they filmed the scene of the Leprechaun breaking into Lisa's bathroom. The first time they tried to shoot it, the panel popped out of the door instead of breaking. The crew scored it with a knife to weaken it and put it back in place, and the door performed properly the next time around.

Next up was the spraycan flamethrower, and stunt doubles were called in for the only time during my stay on the set. Leprechaun stunt double Steve Babiar had never worked with fire before and was excited about doing it, in spite of the fact that he'd already seen the protective hood he had to wear. The hood resembled a ski mask with clear protective plates over the eyes, and had major burn marks on it from previous use. The hood went over his head, then a layer of flame retardant, and finally a Leprechaun stunt mask, which needed some extra slitting in the back before it would fit over the hood. His clothing was dampened with water to make it less flammable. While Steve suited up, Lisa stunt double Gail Monian practiced with the hairspray and lighter and the crew took the glass out of a window for ventilation.

There would be no spectators for this scene. For safety reasons, all nonessential personnel had to move to a position around the corner from the bathroom set. The video monitor was off too - the cable to it was showing up on camera, so it had been disconnected. They announced the safety precautions that were in place for the stunt, including fire extinguishers and wet towels and crew members standing by to use them if necessary. When the call for quiet came the silence that descended was much deeper than usual, as if no one was breathing. As the stunt was filmed, it was very eerie listening to the sound of the flames. When it was all over, the tension broke - the stunt man was a bit woozy from the fumes he'd been forced to breathe but was completely unhurt.

Later, after the stunt doubles were gone, Warwick tried out the Lisa double's wig on top of his own. The new hairstyle gave the Leprechaun a hysterically funny look - he ought to do this on-camera sometime!

Now it was time for the Leprechaun to rise from Lisa's bathtub. The script originally called for the Leprechaun to dunk Lisa during their fight, so the bathtub had been filled with water. But that plan had been changed and since the water was no longer needed they had to empty the tub. The fixtures in the bathroom didn't actually work and the crew had to dip the water out with buckets. They didn't get quite all of it, and as a result the Leprechaun's pants were a little bit damp for the rest of the evening! For some Leprechaun dampness that was actually planned, they lightly sprayed his face and hair with water.

The production schedule called for Lisa's death scene to be filmed next, but they decided to film the discovery of her body first so some of the other actors could go home. The actors playing Emily, Rory and Jamie came in and displayed their horror and grief for the camera. But there wasn't a body there - Lisa was off-camera with the rest of the onlookers. Between takes, the spectators joked that the real reason the characters were so distraught was because the Leprechaun had used the toilet and left without flushing.

With the finding of the body complete, the death scene was up at last. The fake blood that had been spattered on the wall for the last scene was wiped off. The choreography of this fight was planned and put into effect. On the final take, Gabe Bartalos lurked just out of camera range and squirted movie blood all over Lisa. When it was all over, Sherrie Jackson emerged from the bathroom looking gory but smiling broadly. The next morning her voice was gone because of all the screaming she'd done during her prolonged fight with the Leprechaun, and she was still hoarse when night rolled around again.

Filming was over for the day, but the work wasn't finished yet. It was time to remove the Leprechaun makeup, a process that takes about forty minutes. Gabe uses a paintbrush to apply glue releaser around the edges of the prosthetic pieces, pulls them back a little, and repeats the process until the makeup has been completely peeled off. By the time he was finished, it was 3:30 AM.

I went to my hotel and got to bed a little after 4, only to wake up at 7 AM. I simply can't sleep when it's light outside, and this came back to haunt me a couple of days later.

Day 2 - Friday, October 11, 2002

The crew was set to start work at 2 PM, but Warwick's call time was at 3:30 and I arrived at the set in time for that. This time I got to watch the complete makeup process.

Today the Leprechaun would be filming humorous scenes. As the workday progressed, I was more and more overwhelmed at the sheer amount of physical abuse that Warwick was going through to make this movie - these scenes are more strenuous than the fights! But Warwick was always gracious about it, and never hesitated to do anything that would make the performance better.

The first order of business was the scene where the Leprechaun smokes a bong with a stoner in Jamie's room. Warwick is a non-smoker who had never even heard of a bong before, so they found a crew member who admitted to knowing how one works and he explained the way to use it. There was no faking here - the Lep and the stoner were really smoking this thing. They didn't use real weed of course; instead, they were puffing on herbal tobacco. Nobody liked the smell of this stuff, and it was especially nasty for the poor folks who had to smoke it. When the Leprechaun coughs in this scene, it isn't an act!

The script called for the Leprechaun to take a few drags of the smoke and then fall down. And he did it hard; the shaking of the floor could be felt two rooms away. Then he lies on the floor and laughs gleefully. Each time this scene was rehearsed or filmed it was done in one continuous take, with no interruptions in the action. And in spite of all the physical difficulties, Warwick performed the scene with such enthusiasm and skill that the onlookers were still cracking up while watching it for the sixth time.

The scene ends with the Leprechaun impaling the stoner with the bong. They just went through the motions on this; the special effects bong was on hand, but the actual scene of the body was filmed a little later that night by the second unit.

In the next scene the stoned Leprechaun wreaks havoc in Jamie's kitchen, and again the filming was done in one continuous take that lasted from the moment the Leprechaun enters the kitchen to the moment Jamie slams the refrigerator door on his way out. The choreography in this scene is complicated so there were many rehearsals, and the scene was shot numerous times from different angles. The Leprechaun fell down over and over and over again - there were no camera tricks, no padding, and a wooden floor to land on. It was painful to watch; Warwick assured me afterward that he knows how to do it without getting hurt, but what I saw was so convincing that I couldn't quite believe him.

But this might not have been the most difficult part. The portion of the scene where the Leprechaun raids Jamie's refrigerator was largely improvised, and Warwick chose the worst stuff he could find for the Leprechaun to snack on. He chewed on a real hot pepper and squirted real mustard into his mouth over and over again - and none of this footage ended up in the movie! The margarine-eating moment that did make it into the film was unexpectedly disgusting, and this was also was filmed multiple times.

Warwick wasn't the only one to perform heroically in the kitchen scene; there was another nonsmoking actor who fell victim to the dreaded herbal tobacco. Warwick used his own recent experience to show Page Kennedy (Jamie) how to operate the bong. Page took a drag, and after recovering from a prolonged choking fit made a loud announcement to everyone about how unbelievably, horribly BAD this stuff was. In take after take he had to smoke for the camera and never managed to do it without coughing a little.

After the main portion of the scene was complete, the shelves and the back of the refrigerator were removed, and the Leprechaun was filmed falling into the refrigerator. This footage ended up on the cutting room floor.

When the work in the kitchen was done, the first unit moved on to the party scene. The film crew didn't need the Leprechaun for a while, so he went in front of a different kind of camera. Official photographer Peter Stone was ready to shoot still pictures for the movie's poster art, and Warwick spent the next hour standing on a black-draped platform with more black in the background. He posed with and without a cape, with and without jewelry. A member of the crew helped improvise a Leprechaun gang sign for him to throw. It all looked INCREDIBLY good.

When the photo shoot was officially over, the photographer started taking 'friend and family' shots in which anyone who wanted to could have their picture taken with the Leprechaun. Did I get my turn? You bet!! You can see the results at the top of the page.

Then it was back to Jamie's kitchen for some second unit shots showing the Leprechaun smoking inside the refrigerator, which were filmed from the still-open back. They told Warwick he was through at this point, but it wasn't really true. First he got called to do some sound recording, then he got called to the kitchen set again for some back-of-the-fridge filming of the Leprechaun rooting around and eating disgusting things.

Now he really was finished, except for taking off the makeup. By the time it was all over, it was the wee hours of the morning once again. I got back to the hotel by 4:30 hoping that this time I would get more sleep than I did the previous night. And I did, barely - almost to 8:30 AM. This was NOT good.

Day 3 - Saturday, October 12, 2002

Warwick's call time was set for 4 PM, but when I arrived at the studio I learned that it had been pushed back to 5 o'clock. No problem; they were preparing to shoot scene in the beauty parlor where Emily's hairstyling skills are criticized. I entertained myself with watching that until 5, then went to the Lep makeup room.

This time there were a couple of changes in the makeup procedure. Gabe had brought a friend to film the whole process, which gave a new flavor to the atmosphere and kept things fresh and interesting. But by far the most exciting innovation was that tonight the Leprechaun was going to get barefoot for the very first time. We were all very interested to see how this would turn out!

The foot makeup was relatively simple. Gabe had brought along two thin pieces of wrinkled 'skin' - one for the left foot and one for the right. Each one was designed to cover part of the top of Warwick's foot. They were made from a cast of someone else's feet but turned out to be a perfect fit anyway. These were glued into place, and a layer of body makeup was smeared on Warwick's legs. Then Gabe got out his airbrush and applied assorted colors to the legs and feet until a satisfactory Leprechaun look was achieved. Gabe said it would wash right off later on. He had some wicked-looking toenails available that would be glued on at the last moment, and later on he planned to steal some hair from the Leprechaun's wig to add to the Leprechaun's legs.

The script also called for the Leprechaun to lose an eye that night. Gabe had the props on hand for that, including a fake eyeball that had been specially ordered to match Warwick's eye color.

The makeup process was briefly interrupted by a request from the crew for Gabe to glue a fake vertebra onto the end of a flashlight. The request was repeated a little while later when the vertebra was accidentally knocked loose. This prop can be glimpsed in the scene where the Leprechaun fights the two policemen, right after he kills the first cop. That scene wasn't actually on the schedule I had seen for that day, but there may have been a change of plans. I saw one of the actors in costume a little earlier and since there was no mention of cops on the call sheet, I thought he was a real policeman!

By the time the makeup was complete it was past 8 o'clock. The first unit wasn't ready for Warwick, but the second unit wanted him to come outside and do some pickup shots for a scene that had been filmed on a previous day. This was a problem; Warwick couldn't use any kind of footwear without messing up the makeup and it wasn't safe for him to do a lot of running around barefoot. So they had to improvise some transportation. They found a heavy-duty wheeled cart that had last been used for hauling sandbags, piled some couch cushions on it, and created an effective Lepwagon. Outside they spread some pads on the ground for Warwick to stand on while he did the scene. They were only going to film the Leprechaun's upper body, so his shoeless condition didn't matter.

The night held an unexpected surprise for me. Between takes Warwick would stand quietly with bare feet, old-fashioned clothing, and the makeup partly obscured by darkness. I had a strong feeling that the creature I was looking at was not a Leprechaun at all, but a hobbit. The illusion was much more real than those digitally-shrunken actors in The Lord of the Rings. This is what Tolkien really described in his books, and I'm sorry that the LOTR movies don't reflect the vision I saw that night.

The first unit still wasn't ready when the outdoor shoot was through, so we took a lunch break; that's what the mid-workday meal is called no matter what time it occurs. An hour later they still weren't ready, so a small group of us amused ourselves watching dailies - the raw footage from previous days' work. For sheer thrill value, the dailies couldn't match the excitement of watching scenes being shot. But all the footage was of scenes I hadn't personally witnessed, so it was very exciting to get this additional sneak peek at what would be in the movie. Gabe brought in some film clips from Skinned Deep; it's an extraordinarily strange and fascinating movie, and I can't wait until it's released!

As we watched the Lep 6 dailies, it became very apparent that one of the biggest problems in filming this movie isn't the action itself - it's getting the Leprechaun's hat to stay on during the action! Although it fits his head pretty firmly there's no way to really fasten it down, and after two or three hits it was GONE.

By the time they were finally ready to put the Leprechaun in front of the camera again, it was past 11 o'clock. I knew there was some fascinating activity coming up, but sleep deprivation had caught up with me to the point that it was hard to speak coherently. I didn't want to miss anything, but there were three things that I knew for certain: (1) I would wake up early Sunday morning no matter what time I went to bed, (2) I had to drive 500 miles to get home, and (3) I wanted to live to see Monday. So while the others got ready to put the finishing touches on the Leprechaun foot makeup, I reluctantly said goodbye and headed back to the hotel for seven wonderful hours of sleep. So ended my visit to the set.

The end was drawing near for everyone else, too. The cast and crew were working six days a week, and Sunday was a day off for them. Warwick was scheduled to work on Monday and Tuesday, and the rest of the crew for a couple more days beyond that. Then filming would be over and the post-production phase would begin.

I had a glorious time on the set and am deeply grateful that I was permitted to make this visit. A HUGE thank you goes out to the people who made it all possible - you know who you are!