Creating a Retrofuturistic Dystopia for Fallout

Fallout’s distinctive look was built on the venerable 2x anamorphic format, Kodak film emulsion and the very best in squeeze optics – Hawk class‑X Anamorphic lenses.

“I love the class‑X and the way they look,” says director of photography Stuart Dryburgh, ASC, NZCS. “It’s not empirical. It’s much more subjective. It’s just the way I feel about the image when I’m working with them and I see the results. On Fallout, they rendered our world beautifully.”

The eight-episode Amazon Prime drama series is based on the hugely popular role-playing video game franchise. The story imagines an alternate history in which survivors of an apocalyptic nuclear attack take refuge in underground bunkers, where artificial environments are secretly used to perform experiments on them. One brave refugee, Lucy, escapes the vault world to search for her father in the wasteland that is Earth’s surface.

The proceedings blend action, comedy, Sci-fi and Western elements. Fallout’s design aesthetic, overseen by production designer Howard Cummings, has been described as retrofuturistic, incorporating the idea that technology development, especially electronic, was snuffed out by the nuke attack. In one ironic example, although we are ostensibly 200 years in the future, a large film projector throws vast images on the bunker walls.

Dryburgh shot half of the first season and shared cinematography duties with Teodoro Maniaci, Alejandro Martinez, AMC, and Dan Stoloff. Shooting locales includes the Utah salt flats and abandoned diamond mines in the Namibian coastal desert, but the majority of the shoot was mounted on stages in Brooklyn and the New York area.

The first three episodes were directed by exec producer Jonathan Nolan, who shares his brother Christopher’s passionate insistence on film emulsion.

“He’s got no fight from me on that,” says Dryburgh with a laugh. “It did come with some challenges, but the 500T stock looks great pushed a little. The decision to shoot anamorphic also came from Jonathan, who wanted the show to have a sweeping, widescreen look. If you’ve seen Westworld, you know that he’s pretty straight down the line and not into tricky photographic looks. We considered 3‑perf with a 1.3x squeeze, but the tests made the Hawk class‑X the obvious choice. None of these decisions was difficult, but in the end they all proved to be very good choices.”

Dryburgh is a fan of Hawk glass, having worked extensively with the V‑Lite, V‑Plus, V‑Lite 1.3x and Vantage T1 lines, among others. This was his first outing with the class‑X, the tenth line of cinema lenses from Vantage Film. Based on 25 years of experience in lens design and manufacture, they were designed from scratch using classical front anamorphic designs with no floating elements. They deliver improved definition, close focus and edge distortion while maintaining the organic character and feel that Hawk is known for.

At times, Fallout required a delicate balance between what is real or not within the story. The underground vaults sometimes show vistas that appear to be real, but are then revealed to be manufactured. Extensive visual effects are a key part of most scenarios. Extensive volume work blends with 3D models, and effects elements must also often work with large vistas and aerial plates shot in actual landscapes. Dryburgh’s concerns often included getting sufficient punch out of light sources depicted in projected interior backgrounds and gracefully blending all the various elements regardless of their CG digital or film photography origins.

“Shooting anamorphic film with the class‑X lenses definitely smoothed out the experience,” says Dryburgh. “Just as it does in the real world, it takes the harsh digital edge off of things. Once we figured out the best way to expose film in the volume, for example, the 3D backgrounds and live action foregrounds sat together more comfortably.”

Rectilinearity was helpful. “Those lenses are pretty square,” says Dryburgh. “If you’re on the 28, and there are a lot of horizontal lines in the frame, you can see some curvature. But generally, they’re very good.  One thing I do like about anamorphic lenses in general is that when you’re close and wide on somebody, a 28 or a 35 is still not super wide. You don’t get that distended image that you might have with the spherical equivalent.”

Fallout debuted on April 10, 2024. According to Amazon, the show had 65 million viewers in its first 16 days of availability – making it the second-most-watched title in the history of the streamer. Entertainment Weekly’s reviewer said the tale “exists in a vivid and captivating universe.” Production of Season 2 is scheduled to begin in September 2024.