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Following a captivating season two of “The Last of Us”, the DNEG VFX team is heading to SIGGRAPH 2025 in Vancouver to share a behind-the-scenes look at visual effects work that brought this episodic masterpiece to life. Before SIGGRAPH 2025 kicks off in just a few short weeks, we connected with VFX Supervisor Stephen James and DFX Supervisor Melaina Mace for a sneak peek ahead of their session “Through the Storm: The VFX of ‘The Last of Us’ From Season One to Season Two”.
SIGGRAPH: “The Last of Us” captivated the world with stunning visuals and heart-wrenching storylines. Now that season two has aired, how does it feel to take a step back and admire your hard work over the first two seasons?
Stephen James (SJ): Ideas that once seemed impossible are now on the screen thanks to an incredible team. I’m excited to apply all we’ve learned to future projects — pushing boundaries, finding elegant solutions, and helping bring ambitious ideas to life.
Melaina Mace (MM): It has been an incredible journey and an amazing project to be a part of. We’ve worked with some phenomenal talent on both seasons, and I’m really proud of the work our team has accomplished.
Your SIGGRAPH 2025 Production Session “Through the Storm: The VFX of ‘The Last of Us’ From Season One to Season Two” is set to take the SIGGRAPH audience on a journey through your team’s work over two seasons of “The Last of Us”. What are you most looking forward to sharing with the audience? What should attendees look forward to the most during your session?
SJ: I hope attendees see just how much care and detail our team of artists put into the world. Attendees can expect to see our methodology of how we built the world, from capturing practical locations to building a full CG apocalyptic city. Hopefully, they will find something that they can apply to their own work.
MM: The session will focus on a lot of the environment work that went into building Seattle, as well as the incredible FX work in the season finale — I’m looking forward to sharing that with everyone.
SIGGRAPH: Knowing “The Last of Us” is based on a very successful video game, does having those prior visuals from the game help you and your team set out to develop and capture the beautiful visuals we see in the show?
SJ: It can certainly help … but the games do set an incredibly high bar! Most of all, I take inspiration from just how layered their storytelling is.
MM: Having a clear visual style for this show has been invaluable. “The Last of Us” games are stunning and incredibly cinematic. Having that as our blueprint and being able to expand on it for the show has been challenging and exciting.
SIGGRAPH: Your session will show the audience how the visuals from the show evolved over two seasons. Was this a natural evolution in the look and feel, or was this something that you knew needed to happen as the show headed to the post-apocalyptic city of Seattle in season two?
SJ: Hopefully, it feels like a natural evolution of what we saw in season one. We didn’t plan to intentionally change the world, but rather just look at how nature may adapt or impact each area.
MM: We knew going into the design of Seattle that it needed to have a different look to the work we had done on Boston and Kansas City in season one, but also live in the same world and feel like a natural transition. The climate and ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest played a key role in the design of the city and vegetation.
SIGGRAPH: Working on “The Last of Us” in the capacity you did is certainly a large undertaking. As you look back on your work, what would you say are some of your favorite memories?
SJ: My favorite memories involve scouting Boston and Seattle for reference gathering. We had the opportunity to view each city from a lot of areas that wouldn’t normally be accessible. It’s always a fun challenge to find the right locations and balance against time, light, and weather. No matter how much we plan ahead, the location will always surprise and inspire you.
MM: Being able to go on set for both seasons has been amazing — there have been some incredible production designs for season two in particular, and it was exciting to see those up close. And getting access to a number of the real locations in Seattle, in particular the Space Needle, was a highlight.
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to be a key player in co-creating the future of computer graphics and interactive techniques. Register for SIGGRAPH 2025 today to secure your seat and begin the countdown to this can’t-miss event!
Stephen James is an Academy Award® winning VFX Supervisor at DNEG Vancouver. Having previously worked as DFX Supervisor on Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune: Part One’, Stephen continued his work with the esteemed director in 2024 as VFX Supervisor on the critically acclaimed sequel, ‘Dune: Part Two’. He was awarded the 2025 BAFTA for ‘Special Visual Effects’ and the 2025 ‘Visual Effects’ Academy Award® for his work on the movie.
Before this, Stephen supervised VFX work on ‘The Last of Us – Season 1’ for which he received a VES Award for ‘Outstanding Visual Effects In a Photoreal Episode’ and an Emmy Award for ‘Outstanding Special Visual Effects In a Season or a Movie’. He returned as VFX Supervisor for ‘The Last of Us – Season 2’, continuing his collaboration on the acclaimed series. Prior to this, Stephen contributed to the supervision of DNEG’s work on George Miller’s ‘Furiosa’, and worked as a VFX Supervisor on David Leitch’s action film ‘Bullet Train’ and as on-set and DFX Supervisor for ‘Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw’.
Stephen comes from Vancouver, Canada and started his career at DNEG London in 2005. Throughout his career, he has focused on advancing the art of compositing, including his work as Compositing Supervisor on the Academy Award® winning ‘Blade Runner 2049’.
Melaina Mace is a DFX Supervisor at DNEG with over 15 years of experience in feature film and television VFX. With a background in digital matte painting and CG environments, Melaina is passionate about creating new worlds and enjoys the technical and creative process involved in visual storytelling. She has contributed to more than 40 projects, from feature film blockbusters such as ‘Wonder Woman’, ‘Deadpool 2’, and ‘The Matrix Resurrections’, to award-winning films and television series including ‘Dune: Part One’, ‘Blade Runner 2049’, ‘Game of Thrones’, and ‘The Last of Us’. As a CG Supervisor on Season 1 of HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’, Melaina received a VES Award for ‘Outstanding Created Environment in an Episode, Commercial, Game Cinematic or Real-Time Project’. Most recently, she served as DFX Supervisor on Season 2 of ‘The Last of Us’.
