“The
game
is
the
vision,”
production
designer
John
Paino
told
E!
News,
referring
to
the
2013
PlayStation
title
that HBO’s The
Last
of
Us is
adapted
from. “The
concept
art
for
the
game
always
looked
cinematic. It
had
a
sense
of
place
and
lighting
and
realism
to
it.”
But,
as
movie-like
as
it
looked,
it
was
still
a
game. The
job
of
Paino,
set
decorator
Paul
Healy
and hundreds
of
other
craftspeople was
to
build
tangible
versions
of
the
game’s
dueling
worlds:
The
not-so-distant-but-subtly-retro
2003,
and
the
frozen-in-time
version
of
that
same
year,
two
decades
after
life
as
people
knew
it
imploded.
“The biggest
challenge
was
just
working
in
a
real-life
situation,”
Paino
explained. “We’re
doing
a
period
piece
on
top
of
a
desiccated
apocalyptic
piece,
that
is
also
a
drama
about
the
people.
So
there
were
these
multi-layers.”
Production
kicked
off
in
Calgary
in
July
2021,
and
the
Canadian
city “worked
for
certain
things,”
he
said,
but “I
don’t
think
there
was
ever
a
location
that
didn’t
get
some
love
from
the
art
department
or
rebuilding.
Also,
everything
has
been
neglected
for
20
years,”
so
even
if
an
area had
the
right
look
for
filming,
they’d
have
to
change
anything
too
recognizably
modern,
such
as
computerized
parking
meters.
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