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LMGI COMPASS
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Summer 2023
For the sequence, which shot over five or six nights,
the production would require no less than nine separate
locations stitched together to pull off.
From High River, the scene then moves to Fort Macleod
in Southern Alberta where they drive onto main street,
encountering hundreds of people—many of them
infected—as they pour out of movie theaters, bars and
hotels. It's absolute chaos brilliantly organized and
realized by the creative team.
The bright side to the street location was that behind
one of the rows of buildings was a parking lot running
almost the full length of the street, so the crew was able
to base there. They also placed massive lighting cranes
in the lot.
"We basically bought up every square inch of available
space in the town that was on the street or nearby," Jason
says, "including a hockey arena two blocks away where
we were able to set up a secondary base to process
the large number of stunt performers and background
artists."
As with every single location on the show, everything
on camera for the sequence was dressed by the art
department, which often changed out facades completely
so that stunt people could come crashing through
windows and send glass flying.
"It was a lot of work," Jason laughs. "Nearly 150 location
agreements for the main street chunk of the scene alone."
Once the narrative moves into present day, every set
had to be aged to show the ravages of time. Decaying
streets with cracks and water blisters. Crumbling
buildings and infrastructure. Nature reclaiming cities. If
a scene involved a road or highway, they would bring in
cars rather than relying on CG.
"Our greens department had to bring in clumps of
grass and vines to lay in, along with debris and rocks
everywhere we went," says Paino. "And with the cars, it's
not like you just bring them in and drop them there. First,
they have to be circa 2003 or earlier. Then they have to
be aged as if they'd been sitting there for decades and
rusted out. The tires all had to be deflated. It was a big,
big job."
JACKSON
In stark contrast to almost every other location in the
series, in episode six, Joel and Ellie arrive in "Jackson,
Wyoming," to discover a town that is miraculously fully
functioning. A sanctuary.
Inside the 30-foot-tall log wall that has been erected
to protect the survivors inside, life is seemingly normal.
The town includes all the accoutrements of a normal
town pre-fungus, but many are things Ellie has never seen
before. Electricity, for example. There's even a movie
theater and a fully decorated Christmas tree placed in
the town square.
The location was found in Canmore, a town first
incorporated in 1884, located roughly 50 miles west of
The gates of Jackson.
Photo by Jason Nolan/LMGI
