Creating The Last of Us
The curtain, the sheer and the window frame halve the upper section of the BGL window, the hope and hopelessness of TLOU. A giraffe, grazing on pre-cud leaves, brightens the left side of the window. Its discovery by Joel and Ellie was a gentle, unexpected wonder, reminiscent of the prodigious hope between Bill and Frank.
rtain is Tess (Anna Torv) on the right side of the window. Earlier Tess, with a plucky Ellie and a soul-hearted Joel, guardedly had side-stepped a toy giraffe amid the bombed out urban ruins. In the light of their day, the scene was of a city where even the contrasting green leaves seem as dead and decrepit as the lopsided steeled towers. Soon the trio will become a duo in the wretched bleak. With grit, gasoline and grenades Tess stands firm against the living zombie host. The horde advances. A single mushroom man, with slimy tendrils writhing from its mouth, violates a blanched Tess in the explosive, fluorescent start of Joel and Ellie’s escape. The scene of the French-kissed horror is tattooed on the mind's eye.
Surrounded by fungi occluding the purple rain … the teenage cargo (with backpack!) and her smuggler are at center. The smuggler is Joel, sure-handed and rifled. The cargo is Ellie, ardent, nearly ungovernable. Ellie and Joel. They are the protagonists of this chilling, mournful, bittersweet, ultimately uplifting fantasy from Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin. Joel and Ellie define the post-apocalyptic family embarking on the road trip through hell.
Our window honors their streaming journey.
BGL’s The Last of Us glass sheets, uncut.
Assembly.
