A deeper dive on the HBO present that’s spore than meets the attention.
Welcome to The Queue — your every day distraction of curated video content material sourced from throughout the online. Immediately, we’re watching a video essay that appears at how The Final of Us present did the online game justice.
Forged your thoughts again to — oh, I don’t know — the late Nineties. Everybody and their auntie was clowning on the Mortal Kombat films. 1993’s Tremendous Mario Bros. was merely Too A lot for its viewers (a reclamation effort is underway, don’t fear). Individuals had been genuinely forwarding the thesis that video video games weren’t and by no means can be artwork.
We don’t dwell in a extra enlightened age within the 2020s. However we do know higher. In fact, video video games are artwork. And adapting video video games into cinema and tv isn’t an unattainable feat. It’s simply actually, actually arduous. It requires good folks on the helm who perceive what made the online game nice within the first place. It requires modern excited about the constraints and strengths of movie and tv, and the way they are often bent to seize the spirit of their supply materials.
HBO’s The Final of Us is getting lots of due reward for being one of many uncommon online game variations to knock it out of the park. The sequence takes place in a post-apocalyptic future the place a fungal an infection has decimated a lot of humanity. Survivors try to make a house for themselves on this new, overgrown world — avoiding contaminated and non-infected people alike.
The next video essay focuses on the sequence’ cinematography, and the way its visible decisions used the confines of streaming (the place people will be watching on a projector or on their telephones) to inform a narrative that gelled with the supply materials. It helps, after all, that the unique recreation already had a cinematic really feel to it. No shade supposed, however adapting The Final of Us (with its cut-scenes and naturalistic lighting) is a neater transition than, say, oh I don’t know … LucasArts’ Loom? Both manner: it’s a heroic chapter within the long-term rehabilitation of online game variations. And right here’s a have a look at a part of how they pulled that off:
The next incorporates visible spoilers and has some NSFW content material. Beware!
Watch “The Final of Us Behind the Scenes — Did They Do the Recreation Justice?”
Who made this?
This video essay on how HBO’s The Final of Us approached the cinematography of a online game adaptation was created by StudioBinder. This manufacturing administration software program creator additionally occurs to provide wildly informative video essays. They have a tendency to deal with the mechanics of filmmaking itself, from staging to pitches and directorial methods. You’ll be able to try their YouTube account right here.
Extra movies like this
Right here’s Entertain the Elk with a have a look at what makes the grim prologue of The Final of Us – Season 1 so efficient
And right here’s Like Tales of Outdated with a have a look at why fashionable apocalypse fiction feels totally different nowadays.
For extra of StudioBinder’s work, right here’s their video essay that explores the components that go into an iconic cinematic close-up.
Right here’s extra of StudioBinder’s work: a video essay on how filmmakers gentle scenes with low gentle.
Lastly, right here’s a video essay about how three administrators, Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, and Christopher Nolan, direct interrogation scenes.
Associated Matters: The Final of Us, The Queue
Meg has been writing professionally about all issues film-related since 2016. She is a Senior Contributor at Movie College Rejects in addition to a Curator for One Excellent Shot. She has attended worldwide movie festivals comparable to TIFF, Sizzling Docs, and the Nitrate Image Present as a member of the press. In her day job as an archivist and data supervisor, she repeatedly works with bodily media and is dedicated to making sure ongoing bodily media accessibility within the digital age. Yow will discover extra of Meg’s work at Cinema Scope, Useless Central, and Nonfics. She has additionally appeared on various film-related podcasts, together with All of the President’s Minutes, Zodiac: Chronicle, Cannes I Kick It?, and Junk Filter. Her work has been shared on NPR’s Pop Tradition Completely satisfied Hour, Enterprise Insider, and CherryPicks. Meg has a B.A. from the College of King’s School and a Grasp of Data diploma from the College of Toronto.
