family camera to take pictures whenever possible. He
also discovered the magic of film and television and
realized that there was one element of the process he
always found himself more curious about than any other:
"I wondered how they found all the places they'd shoot
in," Nolan laughs. "Like, I'd be watching E.T., and Elliott
would go from his house to the redwood forest over the
mountain and I'd be like, 'is the forest really behind that
mountain? How did they find that?'"
By his teens, he knew he wanted a career in film so,
at age 19, he decided to give it a shot. Despite having
no connections in the business, he drove to Vancouver
and hit the pavement. Miraculously, he booked a job as a
production assistant not long after his arrival.
One day, a location manager asked if he had a camera.
In that moment, all those years spent developing
his photography skills were about to fuse with his
dream career. He soon found himself out on the road
photographing various potential locations for a project.
"To me, that was crazy," he recalls. "I mean, it never
occurred to me, that that was how you'd find locations
… just by going off on your own with a camera, taking
pictures and talking to people.
He moved his way up in the location department
rapidly and was nearly a decade into his career when
Antosz drew him into helping out on The Last of Us.
Despite his interest, Nolan assumed that helping pull
images was the end of it since Prey and The Last of Us
seemed to overlap.
Photo courtesy of HBO/Liane Hentscher
Photo courtesy of HBO/Liane Hentscher
