The Fallout show's Wasteland was partially shot in a real ghost town in the same desert where Mad Max: Fury Road was filmed

The Vault sets for Amazon's Fallout show were built in a New York soundstage, but when Lucy steps into the Wasteland, the actors and crew ventured outdoors to shoot on location in a genuine ghost town and coastal desert.

Ironically, the desert in question isn't in Southern California. The joke about Hollywood pretending the whole world looks like LA wouldn't have applied to Fallout, which is actually set in the remains of California. Instead of using the state's real geography, the production spent multiple days filming in the Namib Desert on the coast of Southern Africa.

Specifically, several scenes were shot in and around Kolmanskop, a former diamond mining town that was abandoned in the middle of the last century. One of the locations they used, according to Maximus actor Aaron Moten via a set of production notes provided by Amazon, was «a bombed diamond mine that is now a hyenas' den.» 

Hyenas, apparently, were many. Executive producer Jonathan Nolan says that while shooting at «an abandoned diamond refinery right on the coast» of Namibia, he was told that no one else had ever filmed in that particular location. «I've never shot somewhere so remote, where literally the only things there are hyenas,» he said. «It's an incredibly beautiful and strange place.»

Lucy actor Ella Purnell recalls taking a five hour helicopter ride to film at an abandoned shipwreck. «I think I will remember that for as long as I live, it was truly one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced,» she said.

The Fallout show might've been the first production to shoot at those particular hyena dens, but the ancient Namib desert has been seen in other big productions. Most notably, Mad Max: Fury Road spent a year shooting its post-apocalyptic car chase in Namibia. The result was stunning, but not without controversy—Mad Max was accused of being reckless with the desert ecology, something Namibia's film commission denied.

If you've watched the Fallout show, you'll recognize the bits