If HBO’s “The Last of Us” wins the Special Visual Effects Emmy, it will be for pulling off the horrifying Kansas City clicker horde and bloater attack toward the end of Episode 5.
That’s where Joel (Pedro Pascal), Ellie (Bella Ramsey), Henry (Lamar Johnson), and Sam (Keivonn Woodard) heroically escape the escalating battle in the cul-de-sac, in which Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), Perry (Jeffrey Price) and her militia are attacked by hundreds of swarming clickers and the bloater: the biggest and baddest of the Cordyceps-infected victims.Wētā FX did the creature work on the CG clickers and bloater (led by animation supervisor Dennis Yoo), in addition to the gunfire, destruction, and explosions, including the fiery sink-hole from which the creatures emerge.
All told, it was close to 400 VFX shots.“We had different stages of infection within that sequence,” Wētā VFX supervisor Simon Jung told IndieWire.
“So there were runners: that…
Read full article