Now that the nine-part epic “WandaVision” has ended and the premiere of “The Hawk and the Winter Soldier” is still a week away, Disney Plus has launched a new documentary-style special to make viewers smarter so far.
“Assembled: The Making of ‘WandaVision'” features interviews with showrunner and executive producer Jac Schaeffer, director Matt Shakman and starring Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Kathryn Hahn and Teyonah Parris. The hour-long program also offers a delightful deep dive with the show’s visual effects and production design assistants responsible for Marvel’s magic, as well as composers Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. (To learn more about the song, watch Variety video interview with the composers of “Agatha All Along”.)
Here are some highlights of this peek behind the curtain.
“Filmed before a live studio audience” was actually filmed in front of a live studio audience
Sure, each episode is titled with television phrases from yesteryear, but who knew that the pilot, “Filmed before a live studio audience”, was actually filmed in front of a live studio audience?
“It has always been our dream, if we did a real show with multiple cameras, we would have a live audience,” says Schaeffer in the special. “We knew it was a risk, we knew it would be an expense – almost an indulgence – but for the actors, for the energy and for the team, it will be really exciting.”
Olsen, Bettany and the rest of the cast seem positively cheerful filming in front of a live group for the episode inspired by “The Dick Van Dyke Show” in the 1950s. “WandaVision” committed to the period even behind the scenes, accommodating the audience members on old school wooden chairs and asking them to come dressed in 1950s costumes. (Presumably, a Marvel-sized NDA prevented them from leaking any spoilers.)
For Olsen, the setting was reminiscent of his childhood in the 90s, watching his sisters Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen in action as “Full House” character Michelle Tanner.
“I’ve done theater before, but filming a TV show for a live audience was a strange experience for me, because I grew up on the set of ‘Full House’ watching these recordings live on Fridays, I never thought it would be a form of reality for me, ”says Olsen on the program.
Paul Bettany wore a fake ass – and blue face paint
Steve Rogers may have “America’s tail”, but Vision’s later synthetoid was perfected at an accessories store.
“Do you want to talk about your ass?” Olsen asks at one point, while discussing his 50’s swing dress and Spanx. “Yes, I wanted to talk about my ass,” Bettany replies.
The dress helped improve her posture, she says, rocking from side to side, before Bettany interrupted.
“I have exactly the same thing, but with my fake ass. It makes me stand upright and makes me want to do that too, ”he says, swinging his brown pants.
Artificial rear side, the show’s visual effects team found that Vision’s usual crimson-red face simply didn’t translate to black-and-white television, so they changed Bettany’s face to blue to get the right shade of , well, gray for the final product.
“We did tests using footage from previous films as my first week at work,” said visual effects supervisor Tara DeMarco in the special. “We knocked on a colorist’s door and said, ‘Can we see what he looks like?’ And we quickly realized that it would have to be blue. “
This makeup trick apparently came out of the book The Way TV Used To Be, when actresses from the 50s and 60s wore blue lipstick to make it look “red” on black and white shows.
Marvel used low technology before flying high-speed wires
Director Shakman’s appreciation for traditional TV is evident in the way he speaks lovingly about “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and the live theater aspects of the “WandaVision” tribute. The artistic director of Geffen Playhouse and former child actor, who directed episodes of “Game of Thrones” and “The Great”, hired special effects coordinator Dan Sudick for some non-Marvel-style effects.
Those pieces of butter that Wanda floats in the air while she is trying to make a homemade meal for Vision’s boss and wife? There was no CGI there, just wires and rods coordinated by Sudick, who came under the command of the artisans who worked on “Bewitched”.
Instead of relying on digital magic to turn that roast chicken into eggs, Olsen froze in place while the team switched props.
That all changed for later episodes, of course, when Olsen says that they spent the last six weeks of filming tied to wires, while filming the battle scenes between Wanda and Agatha Harkness, and Vision and Phantom Vision. The doc offers an insight into the massive scale and breadth of the effects needed for all nine episodes.
Kathryn Hahn says: “I think my most rewarding [moment] That’s when I finally put on Agatha’s hero look and was able to get up on those strands for the first time and feel those huge fans on me, even though I was a hundred degrees outside. It was crazy to feel all the work of all those people who collaborated to help make it. “
“WandaVision” was a seed planted a long time ago, perhaps?
When recalling the long journey of shooting from “Avengers: Age of Ultron” to “WandaVision”, Olsen alludes to the idea that somewhere, someone at Marvel was already exploring the idea of a suitable Wanda Maximoff-Vision novel.
“Starting with ‘Ultron’, Marvel was really excited to bring Wanda to the MCU, and was just preparing for possibilities that we didn’t know whether we would actually fulfill those possibilities or not,” she notes. “So, we would kind of put the Easter eggs in certain places, whether it’s just looking too long with Vision or just, we were trying to play with that in ‘Age of Ultron’.”
As for Bettany, he remembers when Jon Favreau was making the first film “Iron Man” and called his former co-star “Wimbledon” for a role that originally was not supposed to appear on the screen.
“He called me up and said, ‘I’m making this movie with Robert Downey and he’s Iron Man, and I need a really boring and personalityless voice for the computer that runs this world, and I immediately thought of you, Paul'” , remembers Bettany laughing. “How do you say no when asked so gently?”
In the typical Marvel secret, much of “WandaVision” was kept confidential, even from the actors themselves.
“I just got some sides,” says Teyonah Parris of the audition process, which was escalated before he knew who would play it. “I think it was the 70’s episode. I was very confused. I didn’t say it was the 70s, but it is a big scam. And I thought, ‘What do I do with that? I’m not sure, because it’s not Marvel as my mind can process. “
“Assembled: The Making of ‘WandaVision’” is now being broadcast on Disney Plus.