As Prime Video’s Fallout TV series inches closer to its release date, fans of the famous game franchise are excited, yet worried. Excited, for the simple reason that their beloved game would come to life through an eight-episode-long series. At the same time, there is concern about whether the show can do justice to the game.
The series director Jonathan Nolan from the start has been adamant that it will have an ‘original story.’ This is further bothering fans who are wondering what the show would look like without the original story. Fallout series production designer Howard Cummings, in an interview, shared how he prepared for the show and how Bethesda was involved with the show.
Fallout Production designer was a non-gamer
In an interview with The Gamer, Cummings surprisingly revealed that he is not a gamer himself. So, he had little or no idea about the game. This also meant while working on the series, he had to start from scratch and take a plunge into the depths of the game.
He shared that he actually gifted the game to someone for Christmas, “who later said it changed their life.” He admits that after playing a little of Fallout 4 himself, he realized that he “sucked” at it. He was aware that this could affect the fans who have certain expectations from the show. Thus, he says he started researching the series by watching fan-made lore videos on YouTube.
He said,
“I had to learn about Fallout from researching it and the best research was going on YouTube and watching these tutorials that people were making. I used to fall asleep listening to The History of the Brotherhood of Steel […] I was just like, this never ends. There are these people who love the game, who are making their own mods and creating their own versions of stuff that they thought were cool. I felt like I had to honor that. I got attached to them.”
Cummings has earlier worked on a variety of film and television sets, the recent ones being Westworld and Lovecraft Country. He says that as a production designer, he needs to be an expert of the world he was tasked with creating from. In the case of recreating the Fallout set, he had to gain the expertise quickly.
He adds that the pressure was even more since Fallout is a series that already has millions of fans. And all these fans have their own ideas on what the series adaptation should be, and how it should feel like.
How much did Bethesda interfere with the show?
The promotion of the show has been underway for quite some time now. During the promotion, there have been multiple instances where the involvement of individuals from the Fallout developing studio, Bethesda, was evident. Mostly, it was the game’s director Todd Howard.
It was rather surprising to believe when Cummings said that he did not have to get every single item approved by the game developers. He says,
“When I got hired, I said, ‘How much of Bethesda am I answering to?’ Because I’ve done movies, like with NASCAR, and I had to talk to every person in there. […] And I was doing race cars and suits and the whole thing. The level of approval I had to go through was crippling.”
Cummings further adds,
“So I thought, ‘Do I have to do this whole thing again?’ And no. [From] the beginning, it was my choice whether we’re going to take Fallout and make it sleeker, maybe or strip it down. At first, that’s what I thought it was going to end up doing.”
He also revealed that in the early stages, Bethesda representatives did keep a closer eye. However, eventually, they were pleased with what they saw. He says,
“We did a bunch of concepts up and they said, ‘Oh, you’re doing the game’. And I said yes. After that, they honestly let me just do what I wanted. Because I proved to them I understood what the game was.”
He reveals that after a point, Bethesda reduced their involvement in the show, allowing the team the freedom to add newer elements to the show. Cummings says while Bethesda was informed of it, the developer let the production team do their thing.
This creative freedom allowed the show to do things that the game wasn’t able to. Therefore, fans can expect some new elements in the Fallout show that have not been seen in the game before!
