The Fallout TV show has finally landed on Prime Video, bringing the hit video game series to life in an original live-action adventure.
The show is totally in line with the franchise's trademark style and tone, taking us to a new corner of post-apocalyptic North America (Los Angeles), revealing what life is like for those survivors eking out life on the planet 219 years after a nuclear apocalypse.
Ahead of the show's release, What To Watch sat down with the Fallout TV show's production designer, Howard Cummings. He spoke to us about his aims to stay true to the franchise, because he was impressed by their commitment to the lore, and "didn't want to betray" its loyal fans.
"I got overwhelmed by the depths of research", Howard said. "As soon as I got into it, I started going, 'this is insanely crazy'. I learned from these YouTube tutorials and the fans; I began to get infected with the love of all the stuff that was in it."
His approach, when it came to designing sets and props, was to try and make things "as if you were in the Vault-Tec factory", precisely because "it was really important to me that people actually felt like they were in the world".
One example of his commitment is the Brotherhood of Steel's Power Armor. "One of my marching orders in the very beginning was we want the suit to be real. And I had never done that, but I had an idea of how hard it was.
"So, I called a bunch of friends who had done things like Iron Man and stuff like that, and they go 'Oh, you'll never be able to do that. I said, 'We're gonna'. We teamed up with a company called Legacy — which did a lot of these kinds of suits. It took 18 weeks just to get the first one but we had several suits that would do different things, but it was always a real suit, we rarely had digital suits."
In our chat, Cummings also spoke about the fact that the team built a lot of sets, including "miles of hallways" to match the inside of the Vaults, and they spent a lot of time trying to get the paint and texture correct, just to make sure it matched up. They also got to take over a working gas station for five days just to turn it into a Red Rocket station for the show. And, of course, they had to build the giant door to Vault 33.
"When Lucy leaves, the vault, that's in a digital stage. The giant door, I said, 'Oh, no that has to be real'. And everybody in the room goes, 'Well that's crazy, because you're building this giant thing in a digital stage'.
"Yeah, but it's gonna make the whole thing look real! And [Fallout TV show creator] Jonathan Nolan said, 'He's right. This is the way we have to do it'. That was a really fun thing to do."
If you're interested in learning even more about the series, Howard Cummings also talked us through some of the real-life places that were used as Fallout locations. Plus, What To Watch also got to chat with the Fallout producers, who revealed how they adapted the franchise's 'vast and crazy world'.
All eight episodes of the Fallout TV show are now streaming on Prime Video. Already watched it? Check out our list of the best Prime Video shows available to watch right now.
