“All we did was remove their noses.”
VFX Supervisor Jay Worth is one artists behind the fully-realized characters and world of Fallout. The acclaimed series, based on the gaming franchise, is a pure tactical post-apocalyptic world. Even the most ridiculous of sights are all too real. In the case of the nose-less ghouls, Worth and one of his favorite VFX companies removed noses off the beautiful practical effects.
It was far from a simple task, especially in the case of one of the show’s leads, Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins), a former movie star-turned-post-apocalyptic-mutant-bounty-hunter. “Oh my goodness, it was so stressful,” Worth told Immersive. “There are so many ways to do it. Honestly, I went to large houses, small houses, different houses. One of my favorite teams in India, FutureWorks, I sent it to them. Granted, they’ve mostly done comp and clean up, and they’re actually really good at snow.”
Worth presented a variety of nose job options to director and producer Jonathan Nolan, without telling him which VFX house did what. “FutureWorks was the one he loved,” Worth added. “They killed it with every possible angle and lighting challenge. We did have a head on a stick, the model of the face with a removed nose, which we used as almost a grand silver ball for lighting references. There was a lot of what we called ‘nose-a-palooza,’ where we had to line up and match, making sure all the sizes, all the color, all the lighting, and depth matched up. It was quite a challenge.”
Since the successful release of the Amazon series, which was created by Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Worth has received well-deserved accolades from fellow VFX artists and supervisors in the industry. “A few people reached out to me,” he concluded, “To say, ‘Oh, I did a nose removal, good job’!”
Fallout is now available to stream on Amazon Prime. Check back soon for our full interview with Jay Worth.
