The sets of The World After

In this article, I will explain the choice of the sets of The World After and reveal their secrets.

July 2020 and its restrictions

Initially, Guillaume had written the script to be set in a small town. Unfortunately, with the various restrictions on filming in 2020, we quickly changed our minds. We couldn’t have too many people on set and getting permits in a city was simply impossible.

The solution was in Auvergne

Being originally from the Combrailles (a geographical area located in Auvergne, in the center of France), I was able to obtain authorizations in shooting locations all accessible from my family home.

We then had to rework the entire script and drive around to validate everything, which the rainy weather allowed us to do. This is why we took advantage of the slightest ray of sunshine to shoot everything we could. We had 15 days of shooting to direct what we could have done in 8, because of the weather we had to finish one day later!

Editing magic

That’s how a road that starts at the river below the village could be split into five different segments once in the game.

The same goes for the interiors: Vincent’s house, Marc’s garage and Julie’s parents’ garden are actually the same house filmed from three different angles, interspersed with shots of another village to make the player believe he has come a long way. That’s why the attempt to find the game’s settings made by a journalist was unsuccessful: the village in The World After does not exist!

Last but not least

Finally, the most difficult part was the Tannhaüser Gate. We were supposed to shoot this scene in front of an abandoned mine entrance, but the mine had completely disappeared. After several days of fruitless searching, we went farther away to shoot in a place called the Pierres Jaumâtres. The inaccessibility of the place required us to walk in the wild at night, in a place infested with asp vipers. One of them even hid in one of our bags! We managed to shoot the scene, but at the price of a lot of scares (and a new phobia of snakes that I developed on this occasion).

Trigger warning: picture of a snake

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