PRODUCTION. THE LAST OF US
required something different, we would absolutely do something different. There was never a case of looking at game shots on-set and being told to copy it, we just knew the source material so well that we were aware when we were doing the same or similar, and were okay with whichever idea was deemed best. There was no ego at all from anyone, everything was built with a shared love for the source material and a desire to televise the story in the best way possible.” CHOOSING THE KIT If you’re going to adapt a video game for TV with the same look and feel, then choosing the kit that will do justice to the original is a good start. Ksenia Sereda shot the first episode of the series and established this on the Alexa Mini and Cooke S4s. Bolter says he thought it was a smart choice to shoot Super 35 to give the series a grounded, low-fi feel without slipping too far into old-school, while avoiding the ultra- modern look of large format. “For my episodes, I tried to shoot around a T4 to really feel the environment surrounding the characters, and only went wide open when absolutely necessary,” he adds. “I shot three episodes out of the nine but was actually in Canada for the full year, also providing additional photography to other episodes as required. I wasn’t constrained by any rules from episode 1 other than the camera and lenses. We could approach each one almost like a movie, so long as we were faithful to the wider world of The Last of Us , which Craig and Neil helped shepherd.” Talking of vintage, there definitely is a retro feel to the series. Bolter says it has a nineties quality because the world – in the series – comes to an end in 2003. “The technology is frozen in time, so the Earth becomes like a time capsule,” he adds. “The billboards of 2003 will never change again. Nature will slowly reclaim and man’s touch ends.” In order to get that nineties look, Bolter developed ideas with the colourist. “We had a 35mm film-feeling film stock even though we shot digitally,” he says. “We
shot on Cooke S4s. It’s a low key, visible lens and some beautiful films have been shot with them. They don’t have heavy, distracting features and are naturalistic and soft, giving it nineties charm without getting too vintage.” PLANNING A SEQUENCE Bolter explains how he navigated a huge action sequence in episode 5. “It was in outer Kansas and the scene begins with our characters walking and talking through a cul-de-sac at night to avoid being spotted. It required large-scale moonlight suitable for a walk-and-talk that felt naturalistic, not lit, and yet presented the characters and location to a TV audience clearly,” he describes. “I had attempted this before in The Woman in White for the BBC, but this was only the beginning of the sequence. This walk-and-talk would develop into a standoff against a sniper, a dangerous chase away from a speeding truck smashing cars, then eventually an enormous battle scene featuring fire, explosions and hundreds of infected versus our heroes – along with rebels who have been chasing them.” Planning for this sequence couldn’t have been more painstakingly meticulous. The set was built on a 2500x1500ft exterior backlot near the studio in the centre of Calgary city, so Bolter also knew he’d have to work with VFX on a plan for set extension, and develop a strategy for dealing with any inclement weather. “Based on the middle-of-nowhere moonlight feel and the sheer amount of action we had to capture, I planned with our head of VFX, Alex Wang, about doing as much in-camera as possible. Instead of a blue screen circling the set, we used a 40ft black screen and collaborated with the art department to have trees and foliage breaking it up, falling to black beyond,” he recalls. “Another key part of this was working with the locations department to turn off street lights and
MOOD LIGHTING Manipulating episode 3 with candlelight and tungsten gives cinematic justice to the characters
any other polluting light sources within a couple of blocks of our studio.” Bolter decided he needed large-scale, sourceless-feeling moonlight that would work in multiple directions at the same time, based on the plan to shoot four cameras at all times and get as much coverage as possible. He circled the set with 25 cranes, each with two Arri Skypanel S360-Cs, with the most focused 30° honeycomb filters to prevent any cross shadows from multiple sources. “This gave us enough of a beam width that just as one crane’s side light started to fade, the cast would enter the next without cross shadows,” Bolter explains.
“This walk-and-talk would develop into a standoff against a sniper, a dangerous chase away from a speeding truck smashing cars...”
MILLENNIUM MASTERY The world as the characters knew it ended in 2003, meaning many a visual nod to the era
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