Throughout its weekly run on HBO, we have seen some behind-the-scenes of The Last of Us adaption. Some details have been shown about the practical suit of the Bloater that combined with CGI to make it come to life. In an interview with Collider, VFX supervisor Simon Jung and animation supervisor Dennis Yoo gave insight as to how the team brought the Bloater to life, which meant looking toward The Last of Us game to nail it.
The fifth episode brought the carnage in its tense climax that was filled with human and infected threats. The flip from human-on-human violence to infected coming in to slaughter the Kansas City survivors saw a horde of infected rip and tear through human flesh. The Last of Us VFX team put in plenty of work to create the scene with practical elements, including the Bloater. While having Adam Basil, a 6’6 stuntman, in an 80-pound suit, Yoo said that co-showrunner Craig Mazin was not pleased with how Basil walked in the bulky suit. The special effects added made him look “less human” and more like what players had experienced in the 2013 game.
How the game was utilized was pulling footage. By having that reference, longtime fans got to see the creature come to life in live-action, while newcomers got to see the terrifying evolution of the infection take hold with the tanky monster.
“We eventually ended up grabbing a lot of game footage because, obviously, that is the Bloater,” Yoo said. They would “piece all that together” with what they had in the show to form the hulking fungi creature. Between that process of Mazin’s notes, they were able to end up with the result that was what we saw in the first season of the HBO series.
The Last of Us VFX team used game footage to create the Bloater
Like the video game, the series became a massive hit. It quickly broke records, then broke its own records at a rate that is rare for TV as views tend to drop off in the middle episodes. The Naughty Dog games have sold over 37 million copies worldwide, which includes both games, the remaster of the first game and its remake.
The Last of Us VFX team had outdone themselves in creating the post-apocalyptic world. Environments were created to add plant life that had taken over cities across America, animals, and add to the numbers of the hordes of actors playing the infected.
On July 18, you will have the Blu-ray and DVD for the first season will be available. With bonus features, you will be able to see more of how the show was made.