The first time specialist Amy Johnston worked with Naughty Dog, made a motion capture for Nadine Ross in Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. His task, portraying a mercenary who could kick Nathan Drake’s butt, was suitable for his skill set. The daughter of a world kickboxing champion and a third-degree black belt martial artist in her own right, Johnston is an expert in telling a violent, nonverbal story with her body. It made sense for Naughty Dog to put her back in the fold, this time to do crucial work in The last of us part 2.
Johnston has a history of performing stunts for big budget projects. In the movie, she did stunt work for. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (as Black Widow), iron Man 3and Suicide Squad. In video games, she performed stunts like Lara Croft in. Shadow of the Tomb Raider and The Black Cat on PS4 Spiderman DLC also made moves like Spider-Man in the main game, because the animators wanted some additional and flexible actions in Spidey’s repertoire.
Spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2 follow.
On his first day working at The last of us part 2—An association that lasted approximately eight months— Naughty Dog described the combat, the characters and the world of The last of us part 2 Johnston was shown what had already been shot; Various motion capture actors had already been working on the game for some time.
Johnston did most of his motion capture work as Abby, though he also performed moves and stunts for Ellie, Dina, Yara, Lev, and many NPCs, including some of the male characters like the Massive seraphite who attacks Abby in the burning village, and the massive puffer which attacks Ellie and Joel during the second flashback.
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For cinematic scenes that required action, Johnston alternated with the dramatic actor on set. But when the actors were not there, which was most of the time, she performed the movement and actions while listening to the actors’ recorded lines over a loudspeaker.
Johnston worked more closely with the animators of the game. There were “days of combat,” where he had to perform a variety of martial arts movements, usually in coordination with another specialist actor. It is here that Johnston was freest to improvise.
“That’s what they brought me for,” Johnston said. Kotaku. “For most of the work with knives and kicks, they let me do what I wanted. Most of the time, they told me they needed an attack from point A to point B, followed by a 1-2 attack. And then they allowed me to do what made sense [to me]. “
“There were a couple of days that all I did was throw, because Ellie was throwing molotovs and bricks,” Johnston said. “I probably shot 800 times that day, just with my right hand. From ‘stoop’ to ‘jump forward’ and ‘go backwards’, all from different angles. ”
Whole days focused on Johnston ‘dying’ in multiple positions: prone, supine, pointing and not pointing, at every possible permutation. There were days when it fell, over and over, after it intentionally jumped off and missed a ledge, or crashed into it. Johnston also had “days of movement,” where the actress performed walking cycles for many characters, for hours on end.
“It is very important that the characters have a certain feeling when you press the control forward,” Johnston said. “You want them to feel human, neither too fast nor too slow. First, we work to do that well. “
After Johnston and the animators agreed on a walk cycle, she acted multiple times with different transitions, so that a character could detect it regardless of her current speed. Johnston then created sprints and jogs, which the animators fired from all angles so he could connect to any other angle, at any speed. She walked at a 45-degree angle with her chest forward. Then she would walk at a right angle. Then she would make a 180 degree turn.
Johnston listed multiple complicated factors that he needed to be constantly aware of. Some characters were left-handed, for example; others were right-handed. Some had long legs or strong upper bodies, making them more or less adept in different settings. A character could have had a twisted neck, which prevented them from turning in a particular way. All of these movements, the walks, plus other mundane acts of crawling, climbing, and bending down for cover, varied in correspondence with the events of the game.
“The walking cycle is different from Seattle Day 1 to Seattle Day 3,” Johnston said. “This is the first game I’ve worked on that was so specific with emotion and injury. When Abby had an injury, we had a new walking cycle, and the same with Ellie. So throughout the different scenes, we followed up to make sure we were at the right time at the right time, so we didn’t break the dive. ”
Naughty Dog gave Johnston biographical information about the characters to make the introductions more sophisticated. Take Lev, for example: Johnston’s main goal was to make him look light, almost ninja-like in his move, and fearless in traversing great heights. But during some of its more narrative scenes, some additional subtlety was required.
“I was informed that Lev was trans, and I learned his backstory so I could understand the character,” Johnston said. “There were scenes where there was dialogue, maybe Lev was talking in the elevator with Abby, and in those moments, it was very important for me to try to understand what Lev was going through in order to get excited. Did you have a high chest or dropped shoulders? Was I afraid or afraid? Was he trying to inspire Abby or lift her up? All of those things were very important to understanding the characters’ intentions, especially if the character had no dialogue at the time. “
The character Johnston knew best was Abby.
“The first character I worked on was Abby,” said Johnston. “Naughty Dog showed me her photo and her appearance. They told me that Abby was around 5’7; the animators were comparing Abby with Ellie, and they wanted to make sure that the movements when they interacted were appropriate. They gave me some background on Abby, like what she was afraid of and what she liked. Basically they messed up my game [laughs]. But that’s important, because then I can really understand the character and give a deeper performance. “
When I asked Johnston if Naughty Dog gave her any biographical information that didn’t come into the game, she said no. Naughty Dog also didn’t disclose how Abby got so muscular, though Johnston had her own reasoning as to why: that her revenge led her to be physically capable of what she wanted to accomplish. Abby’s musculature is the reason why she constantly turns her left shoulder; The upper part of her body tightens when she moves and jumps. For Johnston, this little act helps humanize the character.
“We constantly talk about his fear of heights, because it’s a nice contrast [to her physicality]”Johnston said.” She is very strong; her body was created after a crossfit body. She is a fighter, and she fights differently than Ellie. Ellie is a little bit more fighter and aggressive. And because Ellie She’s not that powerful, she needs to be smarter with her movements and be more stealthy. “
This is exemplified in the final fight between Abby and Ellie. Ellie had a severe torso injury, and Abby had lost weight and most of her muscle mass due to her imprisonment by the Rattlers. Both characters were exhausted.
Johnston made moves for Abby and Ellie in this sequence, and of everything she did for the game, this is the job she’s most proud of. She reflected the characters’ hatred for each other through the way they fought.
“It is going to be more rudimentary,” Johnston said. “Ellie will go for the eyeballs. She is going to fight dirty. When you seek revenge, you really are not thinking with your mind, especially if you are hungry and have nothing left in life. You are doing everything possible to get what you need. Ellie’s punches will not be as powerful, and her attacks will not be as accurate. And even more with Abby.
“We filmed that final fight so many times,” Johnston said. “I was working with another stunt specialist[[[[Thekla Hutyrova mainly, and others]and the first time we did it, it was a little full of energy. We received comments from the animators and [director] Neil [Druckmann] that we had to rethink a little bit. It had to make sense that Abby was winning here, and Ellie was winning there. They needed to be more tired and injured. So we went back and forth to get that balance. Because normally, one would think that Abby would simply defeat Ellie very quickly, if she wasn’t so skinny and weak. “
Johnston will appear in several high-profile games coming out this year, including Marvel avengers, for which he made motion captures and stunts for female characters. Some of that work has already appeared in previews and pregameplay. But her eight months in. The last of us part 2 it’s the biggest job he’s ever done on a single video game title. She cites Naughty Dog as one of her favorite clients, due to her precision.
“They are very specific with most of the things they do,” Johnston said. “Many times, I play [developers] They will not know what they want. But Naughty Dog knows exactly what they want and how they want their characters to be represented. They are always giving me a backstory, which allows me to understand these characters so that I can interpret them better ”.
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