With its adaptation of the ‘Left Behind’ DLC of the original game, the seventh episode of HBO’s “The Last of Us” was set primarily inside an abandoned shopping mall complete with working video game arcade, lighting system and more.
It’s the setting for a key emotional night for Ellie (Bella Ramsey) as she and her friend Riley (Storm Reid) have fun and go wild in the mall, having a rare moment of young joy and even romance before the darkness of reality sets in.
The big reveal of the mall powering up has been a key one in the show’s marketing to date, but it turns out much of it is computer generated. Speaking on the companion podcast, co-creator Craig Mazin says they were granted access to a single-storey mall in Calgary that was due to be demolished.
As a result they had free reign of the place and were able to decorate it however they saw fit without any fear of damaging it. The downside? It was fairly small and thus involved a lot of set extensions including a whole second storey created in CG.
He confirms that the money shot of the whole episode was almost entirely CG, and expensive at that – being one of the most expensive shots of the whole series. Mazin confirms: “The shot where we’re behind Ellie and we see that mall coming on, that wasn’t at the mall, that was on a soundstage,”
At the real mall, the crew built a railing and a blue stripe to indicate where the first floor ended. Visual effects supervisor Alex Wang was then tasked with “building out and set-extending with visual effects.” RVX, Track VFX, Outlanders VFX, Crafty Apes, Digital Domain, and Wētā FX all ended up contributing to the episode.
Meanwhile production designer John Paino tells Variety they built between 20-25 storefronts on location including remnants of real-life stores like Foot Locker, Victoria’s Secret and Panda Express but all covered in signature “Last of Us” dirt and vines.
All the games in the arcade set actually worked, but had to be built with LED screens rather than CRT screens so the images were clear on camera. They rented a merry-go-round which was brought in from another location.
“The Last of Us” episode 7 is now available to stream on HBO Max.
