Author: Timo Vuorensola

It’s Halloween, and time for all things Creepy to come to light, so I decided to sit down and chat with Lea James, the SFX makeup designer who created the Creeper for Jeepers Creepers: Reborn.

When did you first hear that you would be doing the Creeper for Jeepers Creepers: Reborn?

I found out about six months before the production began, that they were looking for a makeup person who would be tasked with recreating a famous monster for a horror film. I was of course interested, and when the script landed in my email account, I realized the film was actually Jeepers Creepers reboot, “Reborn”. I had watched two of the movies before, and I thought they
were a fun horror franchise, however, to be honest, at first, I was a bit wary to jump on board, as I was made aware of the franchise’s negative past history. What convinced me was that I knew the producers were looking for a new director and the script was a completely fresh idea.

How did the design progress begin?

First of all, I knew this was an existing IP and there were some guidelines I needed to follow – I couldn’t take the Creeper too far from the original, but at the same time, the new Creeper needed to reflect the script. I started off by going back to the original films and making-of -documentaries to get my head around how the Creeper was originally created. At the time, we didn’t have a new director involved yet, so I was working together with the producers Jake Seal and Terry Bird, thinking about which direction we wanted to take the Creeper.

After Director Timo Vuorensola joined the crew, the vision of the new Creeper was clarified, and we started to collaborate and sketch out what the monster would eventually be like. We wanted to make the Creeper more sickly and withered version of the creature, one that’s at the end of its life cycle. This was also taken into account when casting the actor to play the monster. Jarreau Benjamin was chosen among thousands of applicants due to his great physical presence and his amazing eyes – very important for the Creeper – he fits the bill perfectly!

Together with the producers and the director, we settled on the look, and after that, we needed to find a special effects studio that could produce the highly complex makeup. I approached one of the best FX studios in UK, KM Effects, who’ve worked on everything from Aquaman to Sandman, Mission Impossible, and many more. The head of the studio, Kristyan Mallett, took the project and we started the process at Watford Studios, at Warner Bros.’ lot.

First, they made a plastic cast of the actor Jarreau Benjamin. Then, the sculptor started meticulously building the features of the Creeper, producing many versions along the way, which was a real collaboration with myself, the director, and the studio until we were happy with the overall look. While we decided to employ Jarreau’s great eyes as part of the creature, we still needed to create the menacing Creeper teeth. For this, we chose to work with Fang FX. They produced many different versions of the teeth, until we found the ones we really loved.

How did you feel when you first saw the new Creeper all put together?

The whole team was very excited. We felt really proud for all the hard work that was put into creating it.

How long did it take to get Creeper ready every day?

It was a time taking making and needed precision and care, taking daily 4-7 hours depending on how many close-ups were expected, and another 3-4 hours to remove. My FX makeup supervisor Steven Harris looked after the application and the finish to perfection.

How was actor Jarreau Benjamin during this?

Jarreau was always absolutely amazing to work with. He kept the morale up and everyone laughing, we all gravitated towards his humour, and he never complained – a real inspiration to us all. Knowing he couldn’t really eat anything after the full makeup was on, he chose to fast the days when he was on screen, being able to only drink with a straw. On the set, we had agreed
a set of signals on how he could communicate with us so that he was constantly safeguarded and looked after.

There was also an easier application – a snap mask, as we called it – which we could put on and take off in just a few minutes whenever the Creeper wasn’t really visible on the camera, or when a stunt double was working through the
more dangerous scenes.

In addition to the main Creeper, there were two other phases, which were very different – could you talk a little about them?

The idea to connect the film with the earlier movies through the “barn” sequence came up later after we had finished the second shooting block and broke off for Christmas vacation. The producers wanted to add scenes where we see how the Creeper came out from the barn, where he was last seen at the end of Jeepers Creepers 2, so together with Steven Harris, we started to create this “Chrysalis” paint we could apply on the original mask, something that would resemble the dried-out corpse that was hanging on the wall of the barn but could be broken without damaging the mask underneath.

The other alternative version of the Creeper was the Slimy Creeper or the “Rebirth” makeup. Here, we wanted to take the Creeper back to almost a fetal state, after it had been killed and eaten by the crows. We wanted it to look like a newborn calf, with translucent, slimy skin – we created this goo – we called it Creeper Juice – and covered Jarreau completely with it. I think working on the “Rebirth” Creeper makeup was the most fun for the whole team – it was a huge job, but we were really excited how it turned out.

What about the Creeper wings? They were an instrumental part of the creature, but were however created digitally, why so?

In the beginning, we were planning to do also the wings manually, but the director really insisted we do the wings digitally, so instead, together we sketched out in detail what we wanted for the wings, and followed closely the process as our VFX supervisor Jason Rayment’s team created the wings. In the end, we were very impressed with how well they sat on the creature, having the right kind of skin texture and great animation.

Who’s your favorite movie creature of all time?

It must be the Frankenstein’s Monster. I’ve always been fascinated by Mary Shelley and how Frankenstein’s story came together. I love creatures that can be scary, but at the same time, have a heart underneath it all.

Who are your favorite SFX artists?

I was very lucky to study SFX with Oscar Winner Neil Corbould. I took away many valuable lessons in movie magic.

Ray Harryhausen has always had a special place, I remember loving watching his stop motion creatures – the Medusa and the skeleton army – as a kid. And I want to of course mention Tom Savini and Rick Baker as well, I must have read all their books and any interviews I could find. Really instrumental in me finding my path in SFX.

Tomorrow’s the premiere of my fourth feature film, Jeepers Creepers: Reborn. It’s also my first fully English-language movie, and first “American” picture, although, truthfully it’s half US and half UK co-production. Nevertheless, it’s a milestone in my career for many reasons.

Jeepers Creepers: Reborn wasn’t an easy one to make. But then again, if there’s one thing I’ve learned as a director is that none of them are. It’s kind of part of the deal: making a movie is hard, hard, lemon hard.

With this in the back of my head, Reborn was a beast of its own, though. Firstly, and this of course was a spin on the whole industry, the Covid-19 pandemic hit the moment we were about to start prepping. It took months to figure out ways to basically re-invent the whole production process in order to be able to shoot the film.

We didn’t do ourselves any favors either by having loads of complicated VFX sequences, emerging filmmaking technologies (virtual sets), and of course, re-creating the Creeper, whose makeup took hours every day. Not only that but also, the setting was to take place during a busy horror film festival, which requires of course loads of extras – and as we remember, one of the main things with the pandemic is to reduce contact between people, avoid large groups and so forth. So, the hand we dealt ourselves was a plentiful one, but circling back to the original point about filmmaking, it always is. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be interesting, challenging and wouldn’t resonate on the screen. To quote David Bowie, on creativity: “If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

But that’s all semantics, in the end, what counts is the film itself. A production goes through multiple stages of rebirth – it’s kind of like shaping a Frankenstein monster: the script gives it a shape, casting and crewing up gives it form, filming brings it to life, edit makes it move and finally, post-production puts all the nuts and bolts together. But you never fully know what kind of a monster you’re creating, not until it’s out there.

I’m very proud of our movie. We had a great crew that quite literally put their lives on the line due to the pandemic to make the film happen, and worked hard, harder than can be required ever – they definitely were no guns-for-hire but gave every drop of their creativity and inspiration on the screen. The cast jumped onboard a production during the hardest possible time in film history to make movies and delivered stellar performances. And our post-production team worked under very tricky conditions and brought us a beautiful cut, great visuals and music and sound.

And of course, our producers, who had been pushing for years to get the film made, and fought through thick and thin to get it out there. Jake Seal, Terry Bird and Jamie Thompson among many other producers worked and believed in the Creeper world and fought to get the best possible crew to realize their dream. I was honored to be invited as a director on Jake’s behalf, and enjoyed working with them through the process.

And now, it’s out of our hands, and up to the audience to watch and enjoy. I would’ve loved to join the premiere in the States, it wasn’t logistically possible for me this time.

So party on, folks, and have a creepy time at the cinemas!

P.S. I’ll write about the design process and the idea behind the new Creeper later on, after people have had a chance to check the new monster on the screen, just not to spoil the fun in advance!

I’ve now been back in Finland for a little over 2 weeks since returning from the last leg of shooting in UK. The latest stretch, which took 1 months of prepping and 8 days of shooting, concluded the shoot for the film I’ve been working on for the last about 1 years, and now remaining is edit, sound, music and, well, release.

Only now, I’ve started to be able to actually gather my thoughts on the last 6 months I’ve been away. The journey begun with me flying to UK for a day of meetings, then off to Dubai. In Dubai, I spent time writing and working on the script, with producer Jake popping over for about a week. Then, it was time to fly to Louisiana, where we started prepping for the first part of the shoot. It took about 1,5 months of slow-cooking preparations in the sweltering heat of Louisiana to get the first three shooting days done, after which it was time to fly to UK.

In UK, we started prepping with a completely new crew to the main stretch of the shoot. Original plan was to shoot everything in one go and get home by Christmas, but this turned out to be impossible as Covid ate two of our shooting days and after that, we had to break for Christmas. I missed my chances to hit home for Christmas thanks to Covid instant lockup all across the world due to new UK strain of the virus, but found a way via France and Amsterdam eventually home for few days, before heading back in early January.

In Louisiana, we stayed at the studio lot where I had my own apartment. In UK during the first stretch of the shoot, we “all” – that means, most of the HODs – stayed at Froyle Park mansion, which suited well for us to enjoy fun times when not shooting. Coming back to UK after Christmas, I first stayed at the local Alton hotel Alton House, but found it being extremely drab, and was later relocated to a much nicer Northbrook, a Froyle-style mansion but with separate cottages that have their own kitchens and washing machine options etc. We stayed there with two folk from our makeup team with, and must say I enjoyed the peace there as well, as it was a bit away from all the noise and fuzz.

Anyway, the film is now in the can! That’s quite amazing. That’s my 5th feature film that’s done and done, and one I’m particularly proud of, not just because it’s something I’ve never done before – not a scifi film – and i’m happy of the outcome. Of course, it still has quite a bit of VFX to be done, which goes without saying, but it’s way less than any of the films I’ve done before, so it relies much more on what we actually shot and how we cut it together. It’s also much more reliant on atmosphere, which needs to be spot on to capture the special nature of the story.

And yeah, I’m excited getting to show the film to you all. So stay tuned!

Post-Brexit travel to UK means a lot more of border checks, small paper slips you have to not to lose, many more police officers staring at you with suspicion and a general atmosphere of “why was this necessary”. Add to that the extremely strict Covid-19 restrictions in UK, this is definitely not a fun fair, coming back to UK after the short Christmas break I managed to have.

And if you thought 2020 was a weird year, 2021 is looking ever weirder. Just recovering from the shock of US government practically showing its’ true face as Trump incited a group of crazy rebels to attack the Capitol and did nothing to stop it. I wonder what’s left of anything by the end of year…

But here I’m back in the UK. We are prepping to get back on to the shoot after the break, figuring out exactly what we still have left to shoot and what’s to come. It’s a big list but also, it’s been good looking at the stuff we already have and get a feeling that it’s coming together very nicely.

Right now, studios are silent and there’s only few people around but already starting today some are starting to flow back. It’s great to get the group together and finish this beast.

Oh, and it’s David Bowie’s birthday! Have a magnificient one, wherever you fly, Starman!