The Last of Us TV show might not feature the iconic spores from the video games, but fans can rest assured that they are still having a significant influence on the adaptation.
In the video game franchise, people who have been infected by Cordyceps can still prove lethal when they’ve died, as spores can be omitted from the continually-growing fungus.
This means that often, characters including the leads Joel and Ellie, played by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in the HBO drama, sometimes wear gas masks to protect themselves from inhalation (although Ellie doesn’t actually need to because she’s immune).
During a recent conversation with Metro.co.uk, cinematographer Eben Bolter, who was the DP on episodes 3, 4 and 5 and also oversaw photography throughout the entire season, opened up about the decision for the spores to be removed from the TV series.
‘There are spores in the game, and we decided not to do spores, mostly because we just didn’t want gas mask acting all the time,’ he said.
However, that doesn’t mean that the thought of spores left his mind when working on the post-apocalyptic world’s aesthetic.
One example of spores inspiring the cinematography was in episode three, when pollen could be seen in the air when Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) were enjoying freshly-grown strawberries at golden hour.
‘Every now and again I was aware of atmosphere and using that. When I think of The Last of Us, I do think of a dusty sunlit window with dust in the air. The spores kind of play into that visually,’ Eben explained.
‘So there’s a few times where I tried to put particles in the air, because for me that is The Last of Us and that was another opportunity.’
Referencing the strawberries scene, he added: ‘I say pollen – pollen is my way of justifying an effect I want. I don’t know what it is… it’s stuff. Stuff off a tree. Let’s call it pollen.’
However, he acknowledged that the dust in the air could even just be ‘skin’… but pollen is of course a less ‘gross’ way of looking at it.
While providing an insight on filming the strawberries scene, Eben outlined how the special effects team created the ‘pollen’ by taking feathers and grounding them up, before shooting them up in the air using Ritter fans.
‘They only had one shot at that. It’d be very easy for it to just look silly and like a clump of feathers that fall to the ground quickly or the wind’s in the wrong direction. But they’re experts at what they do and a lot of what you see there is take one. It just worked really nicely,’ he recollected.
That scene in question could only be filmed in a very tight timeframe so that they could capture the natural light, providing them with a 15-minute window.
‘We had a whole day of shooting, 20 minutes to prepare and 15 minutes to shoot,’ he recalled.
‘So you’re really taking a gamble, particularly in television, even with HBO. You don’t want to be saying, “We didn’t get it, we lost the sun, we need another day.” You don’t want any of those things.’
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The Last of Us is available to watch on Sky and NOW with new episodes released on Mondays.
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