SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from Episode 5 of “The Last of Us,” now streaming on HBO Max.
This week’s episode of HBO’s “The Last of Us” unleashes hell — literally.
As the fifth episode barrels toward its epic conclusion, fungus-faced critters known as clickers emerge from a hole in the ground. And then a massive Bloater, a creature from the game “The Last of Us” audience hasn’t yet seen, makes its terrifying grand entrance.
Cinematographer Eben Bolter — who shot Episodes 3, 4 and 5 — knew this setpiece was going to be a big moment, lighting-wise. “It’s hell — it’s like a hive opening up,” he says. “We wanted it to feel like these are angry red ants that have been trapped on the ground, and they’re just desperate to break free.”
During pre-visualization conversations, Bolter knew there would be fire and backlighting in the scene. As to why the clickers were so wet and slimy. “Our rationalizing was that maybe underground is oily and wet, so that’s why you get the shine.” He adds: “The Xenomorph from the ‘Alien’ movies was a reference as to how light would reflect off of something, but also how you can use darkness to see enough that it’s terrifying.”
Bolter made deliberate camera choices when filming the sequence to further create a sense of horror and fear. “The handheld — it was about speed, and being amongst them. And reacting to chaos.”
Bolter explains that because the world he’s capturing was inherently cinematic — the story the United States 20 years into its apocalypse, in which deadly creatures roam the land — his camera style didn’t need to elevate that. His approach was to ground the camera work in a documentary-style reality. “That was going to help suspend disbelief, and make this cinematic world feel like a real world.”
“We have Joel [Pedro Pascal] up in the crow’s nest with the sniper rifle,” Bolter says. “He gives us our wide shots, and it’s very story-oriented, because it gives us an aerial shot, and what he sees from being high up.”
He continues: “Grounding it in reality, the scene feels like ‘Saving Private Ryan.’ You’re on the beach, and you’re not having to do slick crane moves — because that scene doesn’t need it.”
In contrast to the chaotic action, there are intimate moments in the episode that Bolter used to create safe spaces. In the hotel room scene between Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Sam (Keivonn Woodard), Bolter wanted to lean into that intimacy and warmth.
When lighting the scene, he says: “There is no electricity, and I wanted to embrace the idea of a campfire, particularly for the two kids. We couldn’t physically have that, so I went for this nice warm oil lamp sitting between them. It was this single piece of lighting that nicely backlit them, and made it feel intimate. They’re leaning towards each other to justify that light.”
Early in the episode, in keeping with the story-oriented shots, Bolter worked to establish the light early on. “I had to make sure that light existed up in the attic where they were hiding,” he says. “It was the one hanging from the ceiling, and they could conceivably have put it in their bag and taken it with them to their hotel room.” He adds, “It’s just a way of knowing what we want in the future and then figuring out a story reason to be able to justify getting there.”
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