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WANDAVISION www.postmagazine.com 20 POST MAR/APR 2021 "Initially, we plotted out the timing of the house being built as well as the composition of the magic in each shot," DeMarco explains. "This meant start- ing early on in the extraction of the greenscreen photography of Wanda so as to place her in each shot with the blocked-out house geometry and a torus for where the magic would be at that point." The assets team modeled Wanda's house in 3D using Lidar and on-set photography as reference, then built both the internal and external structure, including the framework, plasterboards, pipe work and brickwork. The internal components of the house were built using the 1950s set as reference. Each piece of geometry was separate so it could be used in effects. One of the important aspects of the house-build- ing sequence is that Wanda's magic had to feel powerful and filled with grief. "Using Houdini, we started with a shockwave that pulses out from Wanda to set the outer wall of the explosion. We then built a particle system inside the dome that pushes out with incredible force and clumps together to form tendrils," DeMarco explains. "To sustain the energy flowing out of Wanda, we were constantly emitting particles from her chest and hands, and pulling this through curves towards the edges of the FX dome area." In Houdini, the house was split into separate sections — structure, plasterboard, windows and so on — so that parts could form independently. Separate setups were used for parts of the house flying in and for parts of the house being "born". The "flying in" setup followed a similar trajectory to the vortex force field around Wanda. Here, curves were also used to set the basic shape and direction the magic would flow. The curves start at Wanda's hands and flow into a circle that represents the size and position of the vortex. By setting the activation along these guide curves, the artists would control where and when the magic would appear. The house model was fractured into cubes that were heavily inspired by House of M's comic artwork, whereby the building blocks appear as tetris/jigsaw 3D blocks. To realize this, the artists pre-fractured the entire house into blocks and used a growth solver to spread the activation of each of those blocks within a point cloud. As soon as the pieces became active, they started moving toward their final size and position. The active house pieces were then used as a source for Wanda's red magic. The house was rendered in Foundry's Katana, and the illusion of the external structure in color and the internal components of the house in black- and-white (for the 1950s era) were crafted in comp using AOVs passed from lighting. To create Blondie Street, surrounding Wanda's house, ILM used a mix- ture of 3D and 2.5D projections, again created using Lidar and on-set photography. The shrubbery was created with SpeedTree. Saying 'Good-bye' In a compelling finale scene by ILM, Vision begins to slowly disappear, this time in a sheath of yel- low light and filament. The camera rotates around the couple as Vision disintegrates, requiring three different plates to be stitched together: one for the travel toward the house on the edge of the Hex wall as it closed in on Wanda and Vision, and two of the actors inside the house. All three takes need to flow seamlessly as one. So, they were camera-tracked, as were the actors, with their body positions matched up as closely as possible in 3D space across the section where the transition from one plate to the other occurs. Subsequent 2D warping and patching was also required. Meanwhile, the group captured Vision's body head, and facial movements to generate his head in 3D. "Vision's internal structure is revealed as a glow- ing net of wires and particles, not quite organic, not quite machine," says DeMarco. Again, using Houdini, ILM created multiple par- ticle, mist and filament layers. To tie the effect with the TV signal distortion and artifacts theme, some of the layers moved on a 2.5D space. The particles were created in the correct 3D world space, but their motions were constrained to the plane of the camera. This allowed the team to generate scanline and block artifacts that interacted with the three-di- mensional world. During this reveal, the team removed the actor and replaced him with these varying effects elements, which were animated to swirl and dissipated away. In terms of the house, four differently-styled inte- riors were modeled to represent different decades, and the artists glitched and wiped between those decades using 2D techniques. Towards the end of the shot, the final environment was broken up into particles and wispy creation magic by the effects department. One of the most challenging aspects, accord- ing to DeMarco, was retaining a photographic feel while keeping the overall effect simple-looking. Processing all the glows and light interactions through detailed mist renders provided texture and breakup. All of this was then composited together using Foundry's Nuke, with additional 2D chromatic glitching added over the environment and Vision to keep in line with the glitching treatment applied across the whole show. Stay Tuned Since 2008, fans have moved through three phases of the MCU. WandaVision was the first offering in Phase Four, which will encompass additional series and films over the next few years, including The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which began airing in mid-March, picking up after the events of Endgame. Despite the release of so many MCU proj- ects over the past dozen years, Marvel Studios managed something extremely unique with WandaVision, while delivering on the high ex- pectations of audiences — including high-quality visual effects. "We all knew the show had to have the same quality of visual effects, just over a longer period of time in terms of airing," says DeMarco. WandaVision tapped out at 3,010 VFX shots. "It took a while to wrap our minds around the shot count and the turnaround time," says DeMarco, "and trying to preserve the quality from the feature films and get it onto the small screen. The whole big picture was a challenge, and while difficult, it felt achievable. I think we've created something great." Indeed they have. Audiences think so, too. Viewers crashed Disney+ twice — when Episode 7 went live and when the series finale dropped. The Hex is an effect that surrounds the town. Paul Bettany plays synthezoid Vision. Wanda Maximoff is played by Elizabeth Olsen.