Movies & TVFalloutThe Fallout show’s Wasteland looks so good in part because it’s real: Some of it was shot in the same desert as Mad Max: Fury RoadWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Movies & TVFalloutThe Fallout show’s Wasteland looks so good in part because it’s real: Some of it was shot in the same desert as Mad Max: Fury RoadWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
A photo of Kolmanskop, a ghost town in the Namib Desert in southern Namibia.(Image credit: Henrik Karlsson via Getty Images)
The Vault sets for Amazon’sFallout showwere built in a New York soundstage, but when Lucy steps into the Wasteland, the actors and crew ventured outdoors to shoot some of the scenes on location in a genuine ghost town and coastal desert.
Ironically, the desert in question is nowhere near Southern California. The joke about Hollywood pretending the whole world looks like LA wouldn’t have applied to Fallout, which is actually set in the remains of California, but instead of using the state’s real geography, the production spent multiple days filming in the Namib Desert on the coast of Southern Africa.
Executive producer Jonathan Nolan says that while shooting at “an abandoned diamond refinery right on the coast” of Namibia, he was told that no one else had ever filmed in that particular location. He also mentions hyenas.
“I’ve never shot somewhere so remote, where literally the only things there are hyenas,” Nolan said. “It’s an incredibly beautiful and strange place.”
Lucy actor Ella Purnell recalls taking a five hour helicopter ride to film at an abandoned shipwreck. “I think I will remember that for as long as I live, it was truly one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced,” she said.
The Fallout show might’ve been the first production to shoot at those particular hyena dens, but the ancient Namib Desert has been seen in other big productions. Most notably, Mad Max: Fury Road spent a year shooting its post-apocalyptic car chase in Namibia. The result was stunning, but not without controversy—the Mad Max filmmakerswere accused ofbeing reckless with the desert ecology, something Namibia’s film commission denied.
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A behind-the-scenes photo of Jonathan Nolan and Ella Purnell.(Image credit: Amazon)
Hollywood’s ability to make it look like actors are somewhere they aren’t has become remarkably good, but I wince a little whenever I see photos of Marvel actors posing in front of green screens. It would be hard to shoot on location in Asgard, to be fair, but I might prefer the foam rocks and matte paintings of old Star Trek sets to the incorporeal, Unreal Engine tech demo look.
One of the Fallout show’s best qualities, I think, is that it looks like the Fallout games without looking like a cutscene from the Fallout games. I’m sure I have no idea how much expert compositing and CGI was involved in making it work, but the great locations, sets, and props have to at least be partially responsible for grounding the goofy videogame logic of the Vaults and Wasteland in physical reality—with the exception of a few scenes where I suppose they couldn’t find any giant craters or ruined skyscrapers to film.
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More about movies tvThe Last of Us season 2 trailer is a brief look at a story you should probably just play yourself in AprilFallout season 2 filming delayed due to massive LA firesLatestToday’s Wordle answer for Saturday, January 11See more latest►
More about movies tvThe Last of Us season 2 trailer is a brief look at a story you should probably just play yourself in AprilFallout season 2 filming delayed due to massive LA fires
More about movies tv
The Last of Us season 2 trailer is a brief look at a story you should probably just play yourself in AprilFallout season 2 filming delayed due to massive LA fires
The Last of Us season 2 trailer is a brief look at a story you should probably just play yourself in April
The Last of Us season 2 trailer is a brief look at a story you should probably just play yourself in April
Fallout season 2 filming delayed due to massive LA fires
Fallout season 2 filming delayed due to massive LA fires
LatestToday’s Wordle answer for Saturday, January 11See more latest►
Latest
Today’s Wordle answer for Saturday, January 11
Today’s Wordle answer for Saturday, January 11
Today’s Wordle answer for Saturday, January 11
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