For
production
designer
Howard
Cummings,
Fallout
wasn’t
just
the
name
of
his
most
recent
project
—
it
also
became
a
verb.
As
he
was
working
on
Amazon’s
live-action
adaptation
of
the
game
series,
Cummings
and
his
team
used
the
word
Fallout
as
a
shorthand
to
describe
the
particular
retrofuturistic,
post-apocalyptic
style
the
franchise
is
known
for.
“Everything
had
to
be
Fallout-ed,”
he
tells
The
Verge.
“For
locations,
I’d
say:
‘How
do
I
Fallout
this
grocery
store?’”
Initially,
though,
that
wasn’t
the
plan.
Going
into
the
project,
Cummings
—
who
previously
worked
on
shows
like
Westworld
and
Lovecraft
Country
—
didn’t
know
all
that
much
about
the
games
and
thought
he
might
have
to
update
the
visual
style
to
make
it
“slicker.”
That
changed
once
he
did
some
research.
After
watching
YouTube
videos
of
fans
building
their
own
vaults
and
Pip-Boys
and
scouring
wikis
for
every
detail
he
could
find,
Cummings
says
he
became
enchanted
by
the
franchise’s
mix
of
playful
and
dark.
“The
script
was
actually
so
well-written
to
the
game
that
we
decided
that
we
should
absolutely
do
it
like
the
game,”
he
explains.
“Nobody
ever
told
me
to
do
that,
which
was
kind
of
great.
I
did
it
because
I
really
liked
it.”
Cummings
says
that
he
got
“into
a
groove
after
a
while,
with
what
makes
something
Fallout.”
And
that
meant
being
really
focused
on
the
details.
The
underground
vaults,
for
example,
had
completely
unique
features
like
triangular
bolts
and
lots
of
metal
arches,
all
of
which
had
to
be
custom-made
for
the
show.
“We
had
our
own
factory
for
computer
cuts
and
Vacuform,”
Cummings
says.
“I
had
a
row
of
3D
printers
in
my
office
for
all
of
the
small
parts.”
When
it
came
to
the
settlement
of
Filly,
“Fallout-ing”
meant
crafting
a
small
town
mostly
out
of
metal,
with
structures
that
could
be
60
feet
tall
in
some
places
(not
including
the
airplane
fuselage
resting
on
top).
Cummings
says
that
it
required
more
than
30
welders
working
on
set
each
day
to
put
it
together.
One
element
of
Fallout
lore
that
Cummings
particularly
loved
was
the
Red
Rocket
truck
stops,
with
their
distinctive
sloping
roofs
and
giant
red
rockets.
But
initially,
there
wasn’t
one
in
the
script.
“I
begged
Graham
[Wagner]
and
Geneva
[Robertson-Dworet],
the
showrunners,
to
let
me
do
a
Red
Rocket,”
Cummings
says.
Eventually,
they
found
a
functioning
1950s
gas
station
in
Nyack,
New
York,
that
had
the
right
look,
and
the
owner
gave
the
team
five
days
to
use
the
space.
That
meant
three
days
to
prep,
one
day
of
shooting,
and
then
one
day
to
“return
it
back
to
a
functioning
gas
station.”
Not
everything
got
the
Fallout
treatment,
however.
In
the
games,
shots
of
the
pre-war
world
usually
consist
of
a
series
of
perfectly
pleasant
suburban
homes
ripped
out
of
a
1950s
sitcom.
But
for
a
scene
early
on
in
the
Amazon
show
featuring
a
children’s
birthday
party
at
a
rich
executive’s
home,
the
vibe
needed
to
be
different.
Instead
of
“Fallout-ing”
a
location,
Cummings
and
the
design
team
instead
crafted
a
sleek,
mostly
glass
house
inspired
by
the
futurist
Googie
architectural
movement.
It
was
a
different
look
that
still
fit
within
Fallout’s
time
period
and
aesthetic
—
and
also
made
one
of
the
more
tragic
parts
of
the
show
even
more
dramatic.
“If
you’re
going
to
have
an
atomic
bomb
go
off,”
says
Cummings,
“you
do
not
want
to
live
in
a
glass
house.”
Original author: Andrew Webster
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