“I remember the first three days, everything was perfect,” Nigel King, the writer and director of “Fallout” told me. “Everything we got was so perfect that I had the most fun of my life on set.”
“We hit some production snags on the last day, and in the last 30 minutes of the project,” he continued, “we were in a rush and tried to get the shot with the stimulator and it broke.”
“It fell and shattered into a million pieces in front of me, and, on this project, I’d been trying to make this happen for about three years. So, it was just a few years’ worth of time, attention, and money. And then , when the prop broke, it literally shattered my brain for a split second and I thought I dropped to the ground and my brain went blank for a split second and then Kane (my executive producer) and Eric really pulled me. Get up, throw me in front of the monitor, and say, “Glue it together and roll it up! “. They slapped me out of my funk.”
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Despite this minor setback, the fan short film “Deadweight” that Kim and the rest of the crew were working on – which brings an additional ending scene to Fallout 4’s main story – was released on YouTube in early April, just one week later Around the time before Amazon’s Fallout TV show aired. Still, as King, production designer Naomi Smith, and cinematographer Eric Dickinson told me, getting to this point took a lot of work and planning. Like everything, it started out as just an idea.
“I finished Fallout 4 nine years ago, and I was a little disappointed with the ending,” Kim said. “I didn’t feel like the conversation ended with the spouses, because if the game starts with the family—the family being taken away from the family—I think It would have been a better story to bring the family back, just to give it a little bit of closure in that sense.” When the credits roll on his game, Kim finds out about bringing the sole survivor back to Vault 111, too. This is where it all began, and the thought stuck with him.
“When I finally got into film, I would talk to all my friends about short films and stuff like that, and I would always tell them I had this idea for a Fallout short. Everyone thought it was ridiculous and it sounded like It’s so expensive, why do it? Especially if you can’t make money from it.” Then, about three years ago, King decided it was time to try something with his idea. “I saw an article that said [reported] Amazon is developing a Fallout TV series. I think this is the only meaningful attempt. “
So he began pitching the idea to others in the Atlanta film and television industry, like Smith, who learned about it while eating in a comic convention food court dressed as Ahsoka Tano Play. “I was very interested because we know there are a lot of series right now that have been very successful in transitioning from games to TV shows,” said the production designer, who helped assemble many of the other staff and infrastructure to create the series. Briefly. Smith even managed to find some second-hand walls from another local production that would have otherwise been thrown away but ultimately helped “set the tone and foundation of a room” [the group] Beyond the exterior, the whole thing was photographed [shots]”.
Dickinson, meanwhile, had collaborated with King on another short film prior to “The Incredible Weight,” which she pitched to him at a New Year’s party. “I thought it was crazy, too, but that’s one thing I absolutely loved about it. I loved the crazy idea,” said the cinematographer, who would eventually devote his time to Fallout 3. “I had no idea Nigel and I spent dozens of hours talking about how it would look and how we wanted to achieve it, and even talking about things like what the walls should look like or what lights we should put on the walls . This is really fun.”
As King outlines, while the people he approached liked his idea, the wider context of events affecting their industry also helped create a situation where the short film could be achieved from a practical perspective. “One time since we came back from COVID-19 [Georgia] When filming began again across the state, our workload became very busy. Then, with the SAG-AFTRA strike, everything stopped,” he explains. “I was working on Deadweight before the strike, but I felt like the project really worked because all my friends were free. “
King decided to use his own savings to fund the short film, rather than opting for solutions like crowdfunding – which many other fan films and projects of this nature rely on. “I didn’t want to go through crowdfunding just because I didn’t want anyone to stop me, or I didn’t want anyone to stop me before I started, but I also didn’t want anyone to give me money to tell me how to do this,” he explain. “I knew exactly what I wanted, at least story-wise, and I knew that if all the elements were there, we could make things work.”
Of course, going this route also allowed the team to focus on making shorts full of cool references and Easter eggs for Fallout fans as they’d hoped, but it also came with a big downside, though, as outlined Yes, Kim was ready to accept it. “I spent a lot more out of my own pocket — I didn’t count, I honestly don’t really want to count because I’m kind of scared of the numbers — I must have spent about over $65,000 of my own money on that, and I Knowing I’d never see anything again,” he said, “but what I really wanted to make sure was that every penny was represented on the screen, and I guess I think that short film speaks for itself. Every second of the short film has production value.”
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“We want to make sure fans actually enjoy what’s on screen,” added Smith, who singled out the short’s cryo chamber (which was specially built by the manufacturer) as an example. “What I really want to emphasize is that we have a really good group of talented people in Atlanta, Georgia, who love this idea [and] They invested their time and skills into our passion project,” she said. “We had many, many meetings to discuss all the details and determine where the funding would primarily go. In addition, the crew must be provided with a good diet. I can say that our crews have plenty of water, plenty of food, and I feel like that’s a really important aspect of making sure people feel good when they’re working on a passion project. “
“I think there’s a sense [that] There are a lot of talented people here who grew up on the sets of these big-budget productions and they want to create their own avenues, create their own path to show what creative things they can do and how we can support each other. That’s definitely how I feel when I want to show off Nigel,” Dickinson said. “I want people to see Nigel’s immense talent and creativity, just to make sure we hit the right tone, and a high production Feelings and feelings of value.Because Nigel spent so much money [the production], you couldn’t have gotten this with this budget without the huge amount of effort that everyone put into it. “
Interestingly, King said he sees the current industry climate affecting people in different ways, some of whom are following the path Dickinson outlined. “Everyone’s struggling, and we’re all feeling it,” he said. “So, I feel like I’ve seen a lot of my friends either lose their love for movies or do a 180, like, for their careers. Supercharged to understand where the movie is going. “
Smith outlined that she’s seen work disruptions due to COVID-19, and that many colleagues have led the strike in a positive way, much in the same way as Fallout: Deadweight. “People who are introverts – and a lot of my friends are introverts – they start writing, they start creating their own art. When you’re working a lot, like 14-16+ hours a day, you feel exhausted and you don’t Creative free will to do anything. You just want to sleep, don’t move, don’t breathe until your body heals.”
“But,” she continued, “we had a lot of free time and a lot of our friends, including myself, started writing. I feel like the way creative writing works is like what we learned in high school or college, but we never really Did it for yourself. When you have enough time to do something for yourself, you take a chance and see what you can do, and I’ve seen great success with all of them. [that for] I have friends working in various positions from directors, producers, actors, and even in the set and art departments. Like, everyone has a story to tell, but what story is it? “
After the positive response to Deadweight, the show’s developers dug into and enjoyed Amazon’s Fallout TV show, just like the rest of us. “We’re in an era where video game adaptations are really bad,” King said. “Hopefully The Last of Us and Fallout can become two of the pillars of the era of video game adaptations and show people that if you really want to do this well, you really have to find people who care about it. “
If people want to know what good comes from the kind of passion Kim mentioned, all they have to do is watch Deadweight. With a tight-knit, ambitious team who are willing to do whatever it takes to get the shot they want – even, as they told me, if it means sprinting to get the bottle cap mine to slide in just the right way Frame or use a compressed air tank to simulate the steam flowing out of the cryogenic chamber when it is opened.
“This was the most fun thing I’ve ever experienced in my life and I’m so grateful that everyone came together to help me. It was a great experience. The highs and the lows, I would do it all over again now.”
