Behind the Scenes of Longmire Season 5

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Longmire is an American crime drama television series based on the Walt Longmire Mystery novels written by best-selling author Craig Johnson. The show centers on Walt Longmire, a Wyoming county sheriff who returns to work after his wife’s death. Assisted by his friends and his daughter, Longmire investigates major crimes within his jurisdiction.

In 2014, A&E announced it would not renew the series and Warner Horizon Television shopped it to other networks, with a huge uproar from the fans of the show (grateful hat tip to Miss Vicky and the Longmire Posse and the incredible social media Stampedes!). On November 19, 2014, Netflix picked up the show. The new season premieres this Friday, September 23, 2016.

My kids and I had the chance to visit the set this summer.

What’s it like to visit a set?

Hidden behind a film school in Santa Fe, Garson studios were harder to find than we expected and not the glamorous photos we often see of Hollywood.  Are you surprised we’re talking about Santa Fe, New Mexico?  Instead of filming in it’s home state, the show is filmed in a state that offers film companies all sorts of incentives that make it very appealing to shoot there. The actual town square depicted in Longmire is Las Vegas, New Mexico. Eagle Nest and Red River are also filming locations.

As the cast and crew rolled in after a day of filming on location, the kids and I got the opportunity to meet Katee Sackhoff. She had just finished filming a scene in a river and the cast talked about the logistics of being freezing cold and wet and having to change clothes multiple times.

When Katee left to escape the incoming rain, Daniela Moore, costume supervisor for the show, who happened to attend the same university in Missouri, Cottey longmire3College, as I did, continues to tell us about how the mother of a young girl going through cancer treatments sent Katee a letter about how she had created strong female character costumes for her daughter, and that one of her daughter’s favorite costumes was Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica. So, Katee and the costume department worked together to create a miniature Vic Moretti costume to send back to them.

We then got a comprehensive tour of the studios and costume department. As a result we really got an insight into costuming and what it entails in a show like this.longmire5

Can you imagine the quantity of police uniforms? I know I was amazed at the number of outfits they have to create, even for just walk-on parts.

Most of the clothing is stored in a mobile home near the studio, but they also have a fabulous portable trailer that is transported to filming locations. A lot of you will recognize Walt’s jacket here – there are several of them (some even with damage from different scenes!).

The trailer is compact and has all the amenities necessary to fix, clean, and alter any of the characters’ many possible outfits, as well as notebooks of pictures and details of each character and their costumes.

We got a tour of the sets and it was really fun to feel like we were part of the show (my son even got thrown in jail!)

The Sheriff’s office; if you look out the windows you’ll see that what we see out the windows are actually photos of the town square of Las Vegas NM – it’s not shot on site.

The Red Pony:

Henry’s place above the bar:

Walt’s place:

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We also got to see the filming of a scene from season 5; unfortunately, it wasn’t appropriate to take photographs during the action, but it was exciting and fun to see the actors and directors interact. We will say that we got to see the filming of the last scene in the last episode. No spoilers.

Enjoy the show!

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