MISERY With a Smile!

Trevor Hogg wanders the Wasteland in search of the secrets behind Prime Video series Fallout

- Trevor Hogg

Given that the global video games G market generated an estimated $184 billion in revenue in 2023 and the global box office $33.9 billion, we won't be seeing cinematic adaptations going away any time soon. There have been recent breakthroughs on the small screen in particular, with The Last of Us on HBO and Fallout on Prime Video. Both deal with post-apocalyptic stories that explore the best and worst of human nature, albeit with extremely different tones.

The Last of Us is a straight survival drama, while Fallout is a darkly satirical mishmash of three genres: 1950s B-movie sci-fi, spaghetti Westerns and futuristic war. "The Fallout games are that blend of genres too," says Geneva RobertsonDworet, the Prime Video series' creator, executive producer and co-showrunner. "Our prayer is that we can pull it off the way that the games did."

The visual consistency was established from the beginning. "A big part of that is that Jonah [executive producer and director Jonathan Nolan] did the first three episodes and so did Stuart Dryburgh [cinematographer], so we'd set an aesthetic by the time of reaching Episode 104. Also, we were incredibly blessed to have our production designer Howard Cummings throughout the whole season, so a lot of the aesthetic of the show is due to his genius and that's consistent throughout."

Countering the surrealistic imagery is a grounded approach towards the camera style. "A lot of that is Jonah's philosophy of making it practical whenever you can, because it's a bizarre cuckoo world," explains Graham Wagner, Fallout's creator, executive producer, and co-showrunner. "You've already brought up a lot of your suspension of disbelief, so let's bolt it down where we can. One of the reasons not to make everything CG is that fans will have already seen the CG version in the video games. Having stuff brought to life feels exciting on a fundamental level."