Amazon Prime 'Fallout' Panel 2 Master Craft Conversation | Variety FYC Streaming Room
Hear from the department heads of Prime Video's Emmy-nominated hit series, "Fallout." The Emmy-nominated artisans break down their process from building The Ghoul's post-apocalyptic world to creating the perfect costumes. Discover the music cue that defines Lucy and learn about the collaborations that helped bring this show to the screen.
Hear from the department heads of Prime Video's Emmy-nominated hit series, "Fallout." The Emmy-nominated artisans break down their process from building The Ghoul's post-apocalyptic world to creating the perfect costumes. Discover the music cue that defines Lucy and learn about the collaborations that helped bring this show to the screen.
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00:00Hi, I'm Jazz Tanke, Senior Artisans Editor at Variety.
00:09Please join me in welcoming the Emmy-nominated artisans behind Prime Video's Fallout.
00:14With us, we have production designer Howard Cummings, editor Yoni Reese, makeup artist
00:20Michael Harvey, sound editor Sue Cahill, and sound mixer Steve Bucino.
00:26Hello, welcome, and congratulations to you all.
00:31Thanks.
00:32I am so, so, so excited to talk all things Fallout.
00:36I think my first question that I really want to know from all of you is,
00:39were any of you gamers before coming into the world of Fallout?
00:43Howard, I'm going to start with you.
00:46No, I really am not good at it.
00:49I actually gave the game to my son, who I played with, and he said,
00:55you really suck.
00:56But he loved the game so much that he became a huge gamer when he was young.
01:01I gave him Fallout 4, and he went nuts.
01:04And so his whole life changed after that, for better or worse, because of Fallout.
01:12Sue, what about you?
01:13Were you a gamer?
01:14No, I was not a gamer.
01:15So this was exciting for me.
01:18Michael?
01:19A huge gamer.
01:20I've been playing Fallout for almost 20 years.
01:24To this day, I still play it every day, every day.
01:27I never knew that.
01:29Really?
01:29You didn't know that, Howard?
01:30Okay.
01:31Why didn't you help me more?
01:35Howard, you didn't need any help.
01:39Maybe I didn't screw up so bad.
01:40You didn't need any help, honestly.
01:43I walked through those sets, and it was walking to the game.
01:47It really was.
01:49It was just so awe-inspiring to see all of that come to life.
01:52You and your team did amazing.
01:53Well, that's good.
01:56Yoni, what about you?
01:56Were you a gamer coming into Fallout?
01:59No, not a big gamer.
02:00I didn't play Fallout beforehand.
02:02But when I got the gig, my teenage nephews were beside themselves that I hadn't played it.
02:07So they gave me a little crash course.
02:09They brought me in for a few hours.
02:10I hung out with them and gave me the whole deal.
02:13And what about you, Steve?
02:15No, I wasn't.
02:16But I did take the opportunity to write off an Xbox prior to starting the show.
02:22I did buy an Xbox, and I did play a few hours of it in the beginning.
02:26But I was not familiar with it prior to starting.
02:31Love it.
02:33Well, as I said, you've done such an incredible job in building the world of Fallout.
02:38Talk a little bit about working in creating that balance between honoring the video game,
02:45this incredible fandom that it has, versus creative liberty and working with the showrunners
02:51to make sure you're honoring that world.
02:56Those conversations that you had before the world building even begins.
03:03Yeah, so exactly.
03:04We wanted to stay true to the game.
03:06So we actually watched tons of videos of gameplay.
03:11I didn't play it myself, but I watched lots of videos of it.
03:14And we got a sense of the sound, of the world of Fallout.
03:18So that was really helpful.
03:19And then we were also able to get some sound effects from the game company, Bethesda.
03:26So we were able to incorporate actual sounds from the game into the show.
03:32So I think you can recognize those.
03:35And then that just served as giving us an ability to have a palette of sounds to build upon,
03:44based on those little clips that we got from Bethesda.
03:47Yeah, one of the things that I mentioned to people when I'm asked about the sound of Fallout
03:53is that Sue and her team were super organized,
03:57and they were able to color code specific sounds that are from the game.
04:03So anytime we have an event like a vault door opening, or a monster, or a weapon or something,
04:09if there was a reference for that from the game that Bethesda handed over,
04:14I could see exactly which sound was from the game.
04:17And then I could see all the other sounds that the editorial team built around that.
04:22So the DNA of the game is in everything,
04:25but obviously we had to elaborate and make it much more detailed and expansive.
04:30So fans of the game get really excited when I tell them that,
04:34because they know that there's that level of authenticity.
04:38Yeah, and I've gotten that feedback from a lot of people.
04:40They're like, oh, I totally hear the world of Fallout that we know.
04:45Yeah, fans didn't have to kind of relearn the sounds of the world.
04:51It was in there, and it was recognizable.
04:55Well, to that, you mentioned the sound of the vault.
04:58And as soon as I heard that, I was like, this is kind of amazing.
05:04Like, how do you create the sound of a vault opening for the series?
05:12Yeah, so our sound designer, Daniel Coleman, was fantastic.
05:17And yeah, based on, again, having elements from the game
05:21and just expanding upon that and building it,
05:25he did an amazing job.
05:26And then Steve took it from there to make it fit in the scene.
05:30Yeah, Daniel was with us, as was Sue.
05:33Of course, Daniel was with us every step of the way on the mix stage,
05:37often sitting right next to me.
05:38And as the VFX came in, he was updating the sound effects.
05:44And we knew that working with Jonah and the rest of the Kilter team,
05:51we needed to be able to dive in and have control over every aspect of the sound.
05:58So every single particle of dust, every metal scrape,
06:03every wheel grinding, all of the servos and hydraulics,
06:08all of those things were built of many, many different sounds
06:12so that we can go in and highlight or tweak
06:16or feature one sound at any particular moment
06:20or just a frequency of a sound as well.
06:23So it was extremely granular and detailed for every event throughout the show.
06:30And of course, Jonah, you're putting that all together.
06:33You're bringing in the incredible score by Ramin.
06:36And then the sound, like, talk about building up.
06:41Yeah.
06:41Well, for me, the sound design is always a fun process
06:45because as an editor, you get in there very granular.
06:48Every little detail, we put a lot of temp stuff in.
06:51And then I sort of have a chance to wrap
06:53and I go away from the episode for three or four months.
06:56And I come back and I get to see it on the next stage
06:58and usually some visual effects have been put in.
07:00But mostly it sounds so much better.
07:03Like, for instance, we put the sounds for Snip Snipper in.
07:06In the edit, they were somewhat bare bones.
07:08Mostly it was just to not get in the way of the dialogue.
07:10And then to hear Sue and Steve's work, to hear every little, like, clink in the stack.
07:14And he has that little, his engine or his rocket ship
07:18that he sort of pushes forward.
07:19All of a sudden, it gives everything life.
07:22And it's so fun to sort of obsess over something.
07:25Then let someone else deal with it and come back and be like,
07:27oh yeah, that's it.
07:28That's exactly what I put the ideas in.
07:31Sue and Steve were able to, you know, and their whole team
07:34were able to hammer in and bring to life
07:36and make everything just so much more fun
07:38and make that world much more tangible and feel much more real.
07:42Well, as a huge testament to making the world feel real is Howard's work.
07:47And of course, Michael, you know, the makeup that you did.
07:49Howard, you did such an incredible job in building, you know,
07:52this post-apocalyptic world.
07:54I mean, where does that begin for you as far as...
08:00Well, similar, I started with watching playthroughs of the game
08:04and going on YouTube and learning from the fans
08:08who would do endless little, you know, histories.
08:13So I could really learn about the game that way
08:15and what the things they gravitated toward.
08:18And then I just have to say, because I don't get to talk to
08:22the other side of the post-production side extensively,
08:25except for visual effects.
08:28But when I actually got to see the show
08:31and the sound and the layering of sound,
08:34and of course, which all reinforced everything
08:38that I was trying to do visually to make these,
08:43to make those giant doors feel real.
08:47And I was thrilled because I was going,
08:49oh man, and I saw it right away
08:52because I'd watched so many of these things.
08:54Oh, they picked up that, they used that sound
08:57and then took it to another level.
08:59And then of course, what I also loved
09:04was the fact that the score made it,
09:08was part of turning it into a film.
09:11So, you know, as much as we all reference the game,
09:14we're still working with Jonathan Nolan
09:17and Graham and Geneva, the showrunners,
09:20to make it as filmic as possible,
09:24yet honoring the game, but making it a film.
09:27And I feel like, you know,
09:30the writing was so close to the spirit of the game.
09:36That's one of the reasons I think for me,
09:39I just gravitated toward trying to do the game
09:42as closely as I could because it came from the writing
09:45and their use of, you know,
09:47and even though they wrote a completely different story
09:50that wasn't in any of the actual Fallout series,
09:53it was dead on, right?
09:56The humor, the violence, the goofiness,
10:01all that was in there.
10:02So that was really great to work with.
10:05And then of course, Jonah and his ever insistence
10:09to make something, you know,
10:11as epic filmically as possible,
10:13to make it a giant Western,
10:15to shoot everything, you know,
10:17anamorphically, to use film, all that stuff.
10:21And we're all culture graduates.
10:26And so this is part of the process.
10:28And, you know, it's the same with, you know,
10:32we trying to make things real,
10:35like the suit, like behind the suit
10:37to make it actually a real thing.
10:40That's her, that's Lucy standing next to the suit in Africa.
10:44And so people, I put it up on my wall
10:47because people go, oh, that's real.
10:49And I go, it was very real.
10:52And so along with also everything Michael did,
10:55all that, you know, all that, you know,
10:58all that had to be real for it.
11:00And it really helps the actors and everything just immensely.
11:04But I was really impressed by just the quality of the sound
11:09and the fact that it connected me to the game.
11:12So thank you guys for that.
11:14Well, yeah, I think Howard makes a good point.
11:18There was nothing about this that was approached
11:22as a TV show, is really approached as a film
11:25and a theatrical experience.
11:27Just the way that we, the creativity that went into it
11:30and the scope of it, we, every day we came to work
11:35and we wanted to make this feel
11:36like a real cinematic experience.
11:38And thank you to Howard and Michael
11:41because all of that work that you guys put in on set
11:44made it that much more inspiring for the post teams
11:47because we could see, you know, right from the get-go
11:50what we were working with
11:52and what we could start imagining
11:53what these things should sound like
11:54because it was already so close in production.
11:58And Howard's sets informed my editing in a way
12:01that production design doesn't normally.
12:03On my episode, I did episode four, The Ghouls
12:05and really about like 30% of it is these characters
12:09walking through Howard's amazing sets,
12:12figuring out what's going on.
12:13The pace of the episode is fairly slow.
12:15There's not that much dialogue.
12:17And it really, it's Lucy walking through Super Duper Mart
12:20or Norman Shet walking through the vault.
12:22So much of the episode features
12:24Howard and his team's great production design
12:26as really a character.
12:27And that's sort of part of the fun of the episode
12:29is just being with these characters
12:31as they sort of slowly make their way
12:33through these amazing spaces.
12:35I love that.
12:36Michael, what about your process for the makeup of it all?
12:39Because again, that is such, to Yoni's point,
12:41it is such a big part of the show.
12:47Well, early on, we were told to use the game
12:50and the characters in the game as reference.
12:53Never to actually mimic or completely copy
12:57somebody out of the game and put them on screen.
13:00So there was a lot of room to play,
13:03but there was always that, you know, just be careful.
13:05Don't go too far with this or don't go too far with that.
13:08And, but also Jonah really liked to keep things real.
13:12Meaning if somebody was really out in the sun for too long
13:16or irradiated or tired or hungry or dehydrated,
13:20he wanted it to look real,
13:21but still lean into the game in such a way that,
13:25same thing, you want to lock in the preexisting fans
13:29with the existence of what they already know.
13:31So there's already kind of a tall order.
13:33You don't want to fall short with the fans,
13:35but you want to keep it in that real world
13:37that Jonah was creating.
13:39And it was a challenge in some aspects.
13:42I mean, we did several makeup tests
13:44to kind of land in a specific realm,
13:47especially for Lucy's character and Aaron's character.
13:51You know, Lucy had to go through this journey
13:54and this transition from this, you know,
13:57pure innocent vault dweller going out into this world
14:01and exiting Super Duper Mart,
14:04like completely transformed into this kind of,
14:08I'm gonna call it badass.
14:09I mean, Jonah was very specific on making sure
14:12we didn't lose Lucy's innocence,
14:16but, you know, then this, say,
14:17travel into the world of she's having to,
14:20you know, fend for herself and survive
14:22and be more weary of her surroundings.
14:25And, you know, all of the people that she met along the way
14:28all were challenged.
14:29There was nothing like this has ever been attempted
14:34at this scope.
14:34It was television in such a way that,
14:37yeah, it was a movie.
14:38Every episode was shot like a movie.
14:41And then, and Jonah, he edits in his head in real time
14:44and you can see where he's trying to go.
14:47And it's like a chess match.
14:48We had to keep ahead of him like two or three steps
14:51just to make sure we could execute what he wanted.
14:54And there's no time.
14:56You had no time to wait around
14:57because either the sun was going down
14:59or running out of daylight
15:01or we're running out of a location.
15:03And there was days we had 200 plus extras on set
15:08and every one of them had to be touched.
15:10It's not everybody had dirt or grime or sunburn
15:13or radiation or small little appliances
15:16or scars or tattoos.
15:17They all had to reapply every day in certain aspects.
15:20And we had to come up with a way, myself and my team,
15:23come up with a way that the dirt and the blood
15:26and the grime would stay all day
15:28because there was no time to retouch 200 people.
15:31And Howard would know in building in that Philly set
15:35in between those containers, it was hot.
15:38100 plus degrees on some days.
15:40It was 104.
15:42Yeah.
15:44And it was 100.
15:45It was so hot that I actually, at one point,
15:51I realized that nobody,
15:53all that we had done a huge mounds of garbage and stuff,
15:56well, not clean garbage,
15:58but it all had to be wired onto these giant high things.
16:01And all that had been done.
16:03And everybody's running around and I'm going,
16:05wait a minute, there's supposed to be a ton of garbage
16:07on the ground too.
16:08And everybody's kind of looked at me and I said,
16:10oh, I guess I'll do that.
16:12And so, but everybody was so tired and so hot.
16:17It was like, and so I just got in there
16:19and then they gave me like a group,
16:21a little group of people and we just ran around and did it.
16:24But, but we all had to, and then, you know,
16:27then, and then I had delivered the set
16:29and everybody walks on and it's like, you know,
16:32easy bake oven.
16:33And it were like, it felt so bad, but, you know,
16:38I don't know how that all stayed on.
16:40It's, I mean, it's a hundred plus degrees
16:43with all those actors and everything that had to go on
16:45in that silly town and everybody, you know, my team,
16:49we had 20 plus, 25 plus makeup people running around,
16:52just chasing sweat, making sure the dirt was right,
16:56making sure appliance fell off to reapply it.
16:59I mean, it was, it took an army.
17:01I mean, I think every department, including Howard's,
17:04took an army of people to accomplish
17:06what Jonah set out to do.
17:08And I, you know, towards the end of all this,
17:10I mean, everybody is just beaten down.
17:12We're all tired.
17:13And it's like, what are we doing?
17:14One day we're doing this.
17:15Next day we're doing that.
17:16And then tomorrow everybody's going
17:18in three different directions.
17:20And Jonah put together like a little,
17:22little tiny sizzle reel.
17:23And we all went to, I guess this little,
17:26it was a fairly decent size like venue.
17:28And just to kind of blow off some steam,
17:30he invited everybody over and he showed us this clip
17:34of all of the work that we've done.
17:37And at the end of it, you could hear a pin drop.
17:39Everybody was astounded at what,
17:43all that work was put together.
17:44And this is what it looks like from the sets
17:47to the music, to the sound, to the hair, the makeup,
17:50everything all culminated together.
17:53And it was perfection.
17:56And for me, I'm looking at it going, this is the game.
18:00I'm watching the game in real life.
18:02And I'm walking around in the game in real life.
18:04And that's, it was a monumental task for everybody.
18:08And obviously here we are, it paid off.
18:11I mean, isn't that the sign of like a real leader,
18:15somebody that is going to ask a lot of you
18:18and it's going to be hard work,
18:20but he knows when to give like that bit of inspiration back
18:25or that bit of creative feedback and say,
18:29this is a great job.
18:30I love what we're doing.
18:31We got to go further.
18:32But giving you like that little sizzle reel,
18:35I'm sure that just like filled your tank right back up.
18:37You know?
18:38It did.
18:38I borrowed it because I had to show my office,
18:41which, you know, we're sort of the day crew
18:43and didn't get, you know, they weren't the shooting crew.
18:45And I saw it and I went like, because it saved me
18:48because they were so tired and they were just all so tired.
18:51And they just all like, just look at the shock
18:54on their face, like, oh my God,
18:55they had no idea how big it was.
18:57Cause it's big.
18:58It's like, it's big and it's ambitious.
19:01It was very ambitious.
19:03I kind of knew that from the beginning.
19:05In fact, I kind of panicked.
19:06And at the very beginning, I kind of,
19:08I printed up a bunch of the game references
19:10and stuck them in the conference room
19:12in the very beginning.
19:13And I go, hey, this is what the show is going to look like.
19:16And they all, oh, fantastic.
19:17And I go, no, you don't know.
19:18How do we do this?
19:19It's crazy.
19:20How do we do all that stuff?
19:22But we, you know, fortunately a great group of people
19:26and a good leader, like you said,
19:28and, you know, Jonah and then Grandpa Geneva.
19:32Like we're in shock.
19:34And they were like, they really came to
19:36and just always supporting us with the writing
19:39and writing to what they were seeing.
19:41It was awesome.
19:42No, I've never worked for Jonah before.
19:44And I heard he was a force to be reckoned with.
19:47And I grew up in film before cell phones
19:50and before iPads and everything.
19:52And he had a strict policy on setting up cell phones.
19:54And it wasn't for accidentally taking pictures
19:58or whatever it is.
19:58It was for safety.
20:00It's because too many people were on their phones
20:02and not paying attention.
20:04And to see him work and everybody around him jump in,
20:08like you said, having a good leader
20:10and having that general put out those orders
20:13and everybody just would move to get the thing done
20:15because they knew at the end, it was going to be hard work.
20:18But the product, what he envisioned
20:21and what Bethesda put out as far as the idea
20:24and then Jonah to bring it to life
20:27and Graham and Geneva to write these stories.
20:30Like Howard was saying,
20:31what they were writing belongs in the game.
20:33I mean, it was so well done, so well crafted.
20:36And Jonah just hit it out of the park every day
20:39with everything he did.
20:40Sometimes we didn't know what is he doing?
20:43It doesn't matter.
20:44We just did it.
20:46Trust it.
20:46Trust the press.
20:47Trust it.
20:47Exactly.
20:49Perfect.
20:50Perfect words.
20:50So you're all going to be back for the next installment
20:54of Fallout.
20:55If that happens, we're manifesting
20:57because we want more from you.
21:00But I do want to say a huge congratulations
21:04to you on everything Fallout
21:06and the artistry that you've created for this series
21:09because it really is a work of art.
21:12And thank you to you all for sharing insight
21:16into your process and how you do your respective crafts
21:22and working together.
21:23That's the most important thing.
21:25So thank you for asking us.
21:26Thank you so much for joining us today.
21:29Really appreciate it.