"Fallout" has a massive, sprawling world packed with unique characters. The visual effects team
put a lot of love into bringing that vision to the screen — and without CGI, it can be kind of goofy.
"Fallout" filled out its supporting cast with a number of welcome and
instantly recognizable faces. And when it came time to cast Overseer Benjamin,
the plucky leader of Vault 4, actor and comedian Chris Parnell was the perfect choice.
"These people, am I right? Mmm I grabbed a moldy one."
He was so good and became so central, in fact,
that the VFX team began to worry that his acting work would be entirely erased after
they put CGI all over his face. As visual effects supervisor Jay Worth told VFX Voice:
"We didn’t want to create the traditional Cyclops
that we had seen before. It needed to feel more real and organic."
In the end, Swedish VFX house Important Looking Pirates made his eye much smaller
and also gave him two eyebrows, which apparently made the effect look more credible. Worth said:
"It sounds like a subtle thing,
but that for me makes it feel like it's a real person with a real single eye."
Chris Parnell wasn't the only performer who had their work filtered through VFX. Walton Goggins
was transformed into "The Ghoul," a memorable character with full facial disfigurement.
While the base layer of his striking look is accomplished through creature makeup,
there was simply no practical way to achieve the nose. Or, rather, lack of a nose. Indian
VFX studio FutureWorks had to step in to remove Goggins' nose in at least 500 shots.
The many hours put into removing Goggins' nose by the VFX artists at FutureWorks is admirable,
but so is the work of special effects makeup artist Jake Garber, who spent
hours getting the actor into his Ghoul getup every day. Goggins said in an Instagram post.
"He's one of the best FX makeup artists in the world and a long
time friend. When we started this process it took 5 hours. Jake got
it down to 1:45-2:15 depending on what movie we were watching."
The pair apparently watched Western films together
as Goggins sat in the makeup chair, which helped put the actor at ease.
"Looks like chaos…but there's always somebody behind the wheel."
When the Ghoul finds himself suddenly in need of medicine, he resorts to selling
a captive Lucy to organ traffickers operating out of an abandoned Super Duper Mart. Inside,
Lucy is taken care of by a congenial robot that has been affectionately named "Snip
Snip" because it's now used for harvesting organs, hilariously voiced by Matt Berry.
"Hold still now. This won't hurt a bit."
The creators of the show decided to build a skeleton for Snip Snip,
which consisted of only the round body and center eye to give the human actors an eyeline. Later,
during post-production, Important Looking Pirates added two more eyes, three dangling arms,
and other details that gave Snip Snip a more life-like feel. They also removed the dolly that
the skeleton was mounted on to create the illusion that Snip Snip was hovering above the ground.
The "Fallout" universe has no shortage of terrible creatures to terrorize its inhabitants with. The
Wasteland's wildlife is a large part of what makes this world both gross and engrossing.
Season 1 saw many characters come to blows with a Gulper, a deadly aquatic creature that
briefly swallows the series' MacGuffin. VFX house Framestore was responsible for creating
a CGI model of the monster, which is seen in the majority of the Gulper's shots. For
certain sequences, however, there was an actual functioning Gulper puppet on set.
Quantum Creation FX made a Gulper puppet that had the
ability to swallow and regurgitate actors. Jay Worth told VFX Voice:
"We had this real object for our actors to interact with, for water to interact with,
and it was even rigged so someone could get swallowed. [...] Whenever
it's interacting with somebody, it's really interacting with them."
*Guy shouting, water vomit*
In addition to enhancing the performance environment for the actors on set,
having the puppet also allowed the camera to capture accurate light
and shadow movement for the otherworldly-looking monster.
"What is this place?"
"You're in the best place in the world."
Of all the faithful recreations made by Amazon's "Fallout," none are quite
as immersive as the Vaults. These high-tech fallout shelters have been a staple of the
franchise since the very first game, designed by the nefarious megacorp Vault-Tec to protect
the privileged survivors of nuclear war. The TV series spends a large amount of time in Vault 33,
the home-Vault of protagonist Lucy MacLean. Tons of physical Vault environments were created,
but they're not exactly how they appear on screen.
The challenge was not physically recreating an environment from the game, but communicating
the key aspect that unifies all Vaults — their enormous size. To accomplish this,
the VFX team used green screens on the physical sets behind open doorways and portals or where
hallways were meant to be. This created the illusion that actors were standing in a seemingly
endless underground bunker even when filming on sets not much larger than a studio apartment.
The Vaults aren't the only iconic locale that needed to be recreated for the
"Fallout" series. Once players make it out of the Vaults, they are thrust into the Wasteland,
the chaotic ruins of the United States. While vast desert areas might seem like
easy places for location scouts to find, they're often impractical to film in,
especially for productions as technically complex as "Fallout." So how did they do it? "Fallout"
used something called an LED volume with realistic environments rendered in real time by Epic Games'
Unreal Engine. These environments could then move and react in order to mimic camera movement.
It may sound a bit complicated, but practices such as pre-visualization,
which has been used by CGI-heavy projects since before the volume method was adopted,
mean precise shots can be choreographed well ahead of time. This also gave the
team more information with which to schedule shoots and block scenes, increasing production
efficiency during principle photography. Of course, not every part of the Wasteland was
created digitally — some scenes were shot in the Namib Desert in Africa.
They also filmed in and around an abandoned mining town. Producer Jonathan Nolan said:
"I've never shot somewhere so remote, where literally the only things there
are hyenas." It's an incredibly beautiful and strange place."
A key component of the "Fallout" mythos is the influence of the Atomic Age. This is largely
why most of the tech seen in "Fallout" video games and in the Amazon series has
a retro-futuristic look to it, with the vibe of the 1950s somehow bleeding deep into the 2070s.
One example of this tech can be seen in Vault 33. The centerpiece of the Vault is a large patch of
corn, synthetically extended with the help of an advanced film projector. Just a few decades ago,
this effect likely would have been accomplished with a green or blue screen,
but with the same LED volume used to create the Wasteland,
this idyllic landscape could be created and displayed in real time, providing more
realistic lighting and a more immersive environment for the actors to perform in.
That also gave the VFX team the opportunity to play the bright,
billowing blaze of burning celluloid that takes over when the projector
catches fire during the fight against the Raiders in Episode 1. It's one of
the most striking visuals in the episode, and it was able to be created right there on set.
With such an impressive blend of VFX techniques converging to bring the Vaults to life,
it's almost more exciting to see what technical feats were accomplished practically. One such feat
comes at the end of the first episode, when Lucy takes her first step out into the Wasteland. The
Vaults of the "Fallout" world can only be opened by a large, complicated unlocking mechanism which
sees a massive gear slowly roll out of the way to reveal the outside world. Getting this shot right
was crucial, as it's how "Fallout" players start their own journeys in games like "Fallout 4."
As Lucy stands in front of the Vault 33 door, that's a real gear rolling to the side — at least,
something shaped like a real gear. It's much more plain than the one seen in the show,
made from a bland material that likely weighs significantly less than a real metal gear.
While this surely heightened the moment for Ella Purnell as a performer, the use
of a practical "gear" probably had more to do with getting the lighting right. After all,
recreating the shadows of a giant moving gear is likely more of a headache than just making
one and casting real shadows. Once the scene was shot, VFX artists came in and
added the iconic Vault-Tec designs, as well as finer details to make the gear look metal.
Though most of the many unfortunate souls thrust into the Wasteland are either stranded in one
desolate locale or forced to trudge around on foot, there are still some more sophisticated
modes of transportation available to certain lucky individuals. Most common among them are
Vertibirds, a class of pre-war aircraft that are somewhat similar to helicopters.
Even though Vertibirds are some of the more realistic things seen in the "Fallout" world,
the series' VFX team often had to create them from scratch using computer generated
graphics. For example, when Aspirant Maximus watches with awe as Vertibirds
land at the compound for the first time in the series, the actors are actually
staring up at a blank sky. In at least one sequence, a real helicopter on set
was replaced by a CGI Vertibird — likely to capture the realistic dust from the rotors.
*Chopper taking off*
The CG shots for the Vertibirds were handled by the German special effects company RISE FX,
who also worked on the acclaimed HBO adaptation of "The Last of Us." For
shots in which characters were inside the craft, Production
Designer Howard Cummings saw to the construction of a Vertibird interior.
"I'm bored and I want to shoot something."
Scenes on this practical set would then be filmed in front of a huge LED volume wall to
create the illusion that the actors were actually flying in the craft.
Power Armor has been a mainstay of the "Fallout" universe ever since its inception,
with one model or another being featured on the box art for almost every game in the
franchise. In the TV series, Maximus steals a suit of T-60 power armor,
the latest model developed by West Tek before the fall of civilization.
Producers wanted a real, wearable suit, so they went to a practical effects studio responsible
for some of the most iconic practical props of the last decade: Legacy Effects.
Legacy built the full-size, wearable version of the armor not for actor Aaron Moten,
but for stunt performer Adam Shippey. While Moten might have been disappointed
that he didn't get to don such an iconic costume, a stunt person was required to
perform the wire work that allowed cameras to capture the power armor's movements for
real. Several different suits were made for Shippey, each weighing over 150 lbs.
"I've seen these in old engineering manuals, but never in real life."
According to Rolling Stone, Shippey soon got used to the suits and he was
so at ease in them by the end that "he claims he could actually break dance."
The Pip-Boy is one of those video game items that fans desperately wish existed in real-life. The
"Fallout" TV series brought these wearable computers one step closer to reality by
featuring semi-functional Pip-Boys. Though the screen is seemingly animated in post-production
for more unique moments, the Pip-Boys seen on the show are capable of running standard
"Fallout" animations and were captured doing so for certain scenes. For example,
the recognizable vitals screen is generated by the real device, while the tracking interface
Lucy uses was likely specially animated during the post-production process.
Designs based on the show's prop Pip-Boys are actually being produced for sale by Bethesda,
so you can always check out this particular element of the show on
your own if you want — though it'll cost you, 'cause they aren't cheap.