Given the world we live in, and the technology that allows us to do many things, it’s expected that TV shows and movies will use CGI and various VFX tricks to get around doing “real things” that the plot requires. A great example is explosions that aren’t easy to control, muzzle flashes, and, of course, monsters that don’t exist in our world. They can also use CGI to create things that would be “harder to acquire” in the real world for one reason or another. So when The Last Of Us was getting close to the season finale and the legendary giraffe scene, fans were expecting a CGI giraffe.
But that’s the twist. It wasn’t a fake giraffe. It was a real one. The scenery around it was fake. As noted by Yahoo Entertainment, among others, the giraffe they brought was real. They had to work hard to ensure that the giraffe would cooperate with actors Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsay during the scene. So a team that worked with the giraffe tried to get it acclimated to everything that was going on. Then, they put blue screens around it for the filming so that the “interactions” could be real, and everything else was CGI. If you don’t believe us, here are pics from the set:
So as you can see, it was a real giraffe. There may have been points in the shots where it looked CGI, but that likely was because of the compositing that needed to be done to help make the scene “complete.”
The team noted that using the giraffe on that stage was one of the hardest things they had ever done. They had to work with the giraffe, ensure it didn’t mess with the stage, and still get the shots needed for the episode. Thankfully, it all worked out, and the scene turned out great.
The giraffe scene is considered one of the most important scenes in The Last of Us. It comes after a crisis involving Ellie defending herself in a rather brutal fashion, and she’s not “all there” for a time, and Joel does his best to help her. But nothing works. Then, when she sees the giraffes, an animal she had never seen before due to the post-apocalyptic world, she gets some of the awe and wonder back that a child should have.
It was a touching and uplifting moment in the game and the show. So we should be grateful they went full-tilt and got the real giraffe.
