Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1500164
T H E L A S T O F U S | P E R S P E C T I V E 1 2 5 The last episode has several standout sets that encapsulate the way the team approached the show from a design point of view. Ellie's birth scene takes place in an interior set where one feels every single crooked nail and broken floorboard. Again, taking some inspiration from bleak American culture, the starkness of Andrew Wyeth paintings informs the almost all-white scarred interior. With a subtle nod in remaining mottled wallpaper, a tree. The scene where Ellie and Joel encounter the giraffe employs a series of skillful transitions from a dilapidated location to a stairwell set, then onto a balcony in an actual zoo enclosure with a real giraffe. The crew fitted out the enclosure with blue screen panels, slowly installed over a period of time to acclimate the giraffes to their presence in order to facilitate VFX painting out the walls and adding a vista. We made sure to work in plants the giraffes ate into our set wall opening in order to attract them. The open-air abandoned field hospital was an extensive dress of a parking lot and the surrounding buildings. Even though the production had worked out where the actors would walk and land during the scene, we dressed a much larger area around them for camera POVs and to ensure we were not relying on set extensions. One of the last things to be shot was the opening scene of the show, a 1970s talk show set based on a Dick Cavett-style show. This was one of the few reprieves from the desiccated interiors that we had been creating for the past year! It was set up in one of the three stages we occupied in Calgary. The show's sense of gravitas, dread, atmosphere and attention to detail is the result of the work of hundreds of skilled and dedicated artisans. Coordinating all this fell upon two Supervising Art Directors—Nico Lepage started us off and Don Macaulay did the bulk of the episodes. I am indebted to them both. ADG John Paino, Production Designer Don Macaulay, Supervising Art Director Nico Lepage, Callum Webster, Stevo Bedford, Andrew Moreau, Andrew Li, Tristan Tondino, Joseane Brunelle, Art Directors Hitoshi Okamoto, Matt Vest, Nathan Blackie, Oshy Parasol, Assistant Art Directors Austin Wang, Kyle White, Peter Stratford, Melanie Viger, Michael Erickson, Hailey Darling, Set Designers Craig Sellars, Sunil Pant, Milena Zdravkovic, Warren Flanagan, Pouya Moayedi, Illustrators Morgan McConnell, Melissa Neumiller, Patrick Zahorodniuk, Loree Cameron, Graphic Designers Paul Healy, Set Decorator E F