WandaVision VFX Director Confirms Avengers: Age of Ultron and Infinity War References

By Julia Delbel Posted:
wandavision marvel mcu

One of the biggest Marvel news stories during WandaVision 's nine-episode run was the plethora of theories about where the show would go . It wasn't only fan prediction about potential big reveals down the line, but ones that looked at smaller details in the series and believed they were Easter eggs planted by the producers as a small "reward" for those paying close attention.

Despite a lot of these theories and ideas ultimately not coming to fruition , there were some things incorporated into the show that definitely had deliberate meanings and connections to other MCU projects.

THE SOURCE OF WANDA'S MAGIC

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Avengers: Age of Ultron (left) and WandaVision (right)

WandaVision 's visual effects team leader Tara DeMarco recently sat down with Inverse to discuss her work on the series. During the interview, she talked about the scene in which Wanda creates the Hex and the parallels to a moment in a past MCU movie, referring to both scenes as examples of a "dramatic outpouring of grief."

“For the beat where Wanda creates the house, we did look at her moment of grief in [ Avengers: ] Age of Ultron where she explodes and kills the Ultrons. We thought there would be a similar dramatic outpouring of grief. The idea is that in both scenes, the power is coming from her heart. It’s a broken heart. You’ll notice both when she creates the house and when she creates Vision, most of the power is coming from her heart. Because that is what is driving this whole world creation.”

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Avengers: Infinity War (top) and WandaVision (bottom)

DeMarco also confirmed that the yellow energy which formed the Hex's version of Vision (as opposed to the red energy which transformed the rest of the town) is also connected to the greater workings of the MCU, saying “Vision’s color is the color of the Mind Stone. It just felt right to keep it in that same family.” She said that it was inspired from his death scene in Avengers: Infinity War , “and a little of [director] Matt Shakman wanting to see monofilament fine circuitry. It’s meant to be romantic, like this beautiful creation of her love. [Shakman] wanted something delicate to be what’s formed by him."

Another visual effect in WandaVision inspired by Infinity War was that of the reverse-Blip seen in the episode "We Interrupt The Program". That film's visual effects team was led by Dan DeLeeuw, who did not work on WandaVision , but DeMarco said the show's crew "did use references from their films."

“We did not speak to Dan about how those effects were achieved. But we did use references from their films,” she says. “We did go to one of the vendors who created one of our favorite blips, which was the Nick Fury blip. Matt Shakman loved that the Nick Fury blip was slow and lyrical. His idea was that ours would be as lyrical as a ‘reforming.'"

DeMarco also explained that even those seen disappearing in previous projects turned to gray ash before blowing away, the WandaVision team wanted to take a different approach because "They were coming back to life."

"We tried to have the un-Blip people come back in color. We thought it would be really creepy if they were gray. If you watch any blip from Infinity War , they turn to ash and blow away. We didn’t want them too ashy. They were coming back to life. So the idea was we would see some of the colors and we would lose a little bit of the ash.”

PICKING UP THE BATON

Previous interviews with members of the WandaVision crew have revealed that Marvel Studios gave the creative team a ton of freedom to tell their story, develop characters, and carry on world building that had begun in previous projects. The show's visual effects team seems to have established some new "rules" of sorts when it comes to Wanda's powers, and this is something viewers will likely see continued by the people handling that department for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness .

The un-Blipping effect is another element of WandaVision that may return in future Marvel projects. WandaVision was the first look fans got at physically seeing people return from the Blip, and given how monumental an event it was for the entire universe, it's possible another character's return from it will be shown at some point.

All nine episodes of WandaVision are available to stream on Disney+.

- In This Article: WandaVision
Release Date
January 15, 2021
Platform
- About The Author: Julia Delbel
Julia Delbel joined The Direct when the website launched in 2020. She is primarily a features writer for the Marvel section of the site, though she has also dabbled in the DC Universe. Besides these, Julia covers other major franchise content, particularly those under the Disney banner.