My name is Daniil – I am the director and producer of a fan film recreating the climactic scene from The Last of Us: Part II.
The idea for this project appeared spontaneously. All those involved in this adventure are young filmmakers from Moscow who graduated from and went through various film schools. As befits the young and ambitious, we wanted to create something that would help us somehow differentiate ourselves, to have a project behind us that we could all be proud of and that would be our calling card.
After weeks of thinking, we came up with a simple idea: re-shoot the climactic scene from The Last of Us: Part 2. We chose it for many reasons: it doesn’t have many angles (it’s easy to film), it’s very interesting from the point of view of directing, and the actors not only have something to play, there’s literally just a crazy level of subtext.
The team came together faster than ever. We placed a couple of advertisements and quickly found like-minded people who were willing to work for free for the sake of a portfolio and experience. Fans of the original game actually asked to join the project, which we were incredibly happy about. So we quickly assembled the main core: actors, camera crew, artists, sound people – it all seemed to fall out of heaven.
And even though we literally had no budget at all (only 50,000 eternally wooden rubles), we had difficulty finding the location, there wasn’t enough money for transfers, yet filming took place in mid-August. It was hard, especially considering the weather, which suddenly deteriorated. Literally a minute before the engine started raining, and we hastily began to dismantle the entire lighting stage, hide the camera under the roof and the actors, whose faces had already been made up, under umbrellas. It was a disaster..
But we didn’t despair, we waited out the rain and after 2 hours of waiting we finally started filming. People who have experience working on set understand perfectly well what delays and overtime mean on set. We ended up filming only at 6 am, miraculously. Everything was aggravated by the fact that the facility where we filmed the scene is under guard. The security guard, as you might guess, had to be treated to a bottle of whiskey so that he would not swear at the young filmmakers too much.
The scene is incredibly difficult. Long and dreary rehearsals made their presence felt: the actors coped with their tasks. The scene was filmed, only post-production remained.
And although the scene lasts only 5 minutes, it spent 3 months in editing. It was a nightmare! Due to limited funds and the fact that everyone involved in the project makes a living from completely different things, the process of working on the same sound took a looooong time.
Since I, as the director, https://grosvenorscasino.uk/ wanted to work on this scene as if we were doing a full-fledged adaptation, I abandoned the idea of using sounds and music directly from the game. Therefore, every sound, every note – it was all recorded from scratch specifically for this scene. I think there is no point in explaining why this was a bad idea… It was at this stage that the work sometimes simply froze for weeks..
However, in the end, it seems to me, we were all able to survive to the maximum of the limitations and opportunities that we had. Yes, a lot of things could have been done better, but the understanding of this came to us all with experience. We are no longer the same people as when we started working on this project, which means, it seems to me, we have achieved our goal.
link to the movie.
Thank you for your attention!
The Last of Us: Part II
Best comments
THIS. JUST. AWESOME!
HBO WHAT’S UP WITH YOUR FACE?! XD
Types from the outback castes were chosen better than in Hollywood! Ha ha ha!
But seriously, it’s cool, cool, I saw it on VK, it turned out very cool)
50k rubles?))) budget)
It’s hard to disagree. Unfortunately, this is not the first time.
But it’s interesting to see the end result.
It’s more interesting to read about small budgets, because I can get 50k, but 300 million dollars is unlikely.
The author mentions that there was not enough money even to transfer the team, and judging by the description, at least 5-7 people took part in the trip. It turns out that everyone traveled with their own money, and 50 thousand rubles went exclusively for food and household needs. For such tasks this is not a serious amount. If no one did the work for free, the total budget would be at least half a million.
I don’t pretend to be the truth, just an analysis of the information that the author gave in the text and everyday logic)
Can you tell me more about what the budget was spent on?.
Although I can’t stand the game, the scene itself was shot even better than the entire 1st season of the series, which was disgusting. Here, even with the cast of actors, there are no problems and everyone resembles the characters who were there in the game.
You guys did a really great job!. In the future, you should try to make a feature film based on some of them, if you want. It seems to me that your results may well be no worse than Hollywood films, and even better. And it’s true, you have something to be proud of. Thanks for the movie. It was nice to remember again the first part, and not the sequel.
I can give you an idea myself. It would be interesting to see how the conversation between Ellie and Joel from the ending of part 1 would be re-shot in the manner of this scene. Even though Ellie will be younger there in age, it would also be interesting to see the result. It would be cool.
I give it a 10 from myself. Why? It’s simple. The short film does not try for any action, stunts and other variety. It would seem like a conversation between two simple people who are trying to improve relations with each other. At the same time, it is clear from the acting of the actors that they really convey the characters. It’s a fact. Check out the same actors from the series and compare here. Yes, there is Hollywood after all, but then the question is. The worse it is here in comparison? Nothing. On the contrary, it’s better here.
Thanks to the author for the article. It was interesting to read.