WandaVision reveals what non-CGI vision looks like: Paul Bettany’s ears and blue skin

WandaVision’s BTS documentary offers a good look at Paul Bettany playing Vision without any CGI, and the results are surprisingly fun and blue.

the WandaVision The behind-the-scenes documentary reveals what Paul Bettany looks like as Vision without CGI, and the visuals are not only quite hilarious, but also show that he had to be blue in color for the first few episodes. Despite dying (twice) in Avengers: Infinity War, Vision returned in WandaVision, which was ultimately confirmed as the part of the Mind Stone within the Scarlet Witch that manifests outward due to her pain, recreating not just Vision but turning the entire town of Westview into her idyllic comedy-inspired home from situation. As was the case The mandalorian, a Disney + documentary – titled Assembly, shows how the series, its surroundings and the characters came to life.

Although the document does not contain any major disclosures, it is an interesting look at how WandaVision it was made, especially since this is far from a normal MCU production. Mimicking the style of sitcoms from the 1950s and 1960s, for example, meant using old-school wire tricks and construction sets to wear in front of a live, studio-inspired audience. The Dick van Dyke Show (with the advice of the man himself). Marvel tried to take all the considerations into account, including changing the televisions that SWORD used and how the magnetic fields would appear in each era, and that even had to go as far as Vision’s appearance.

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For much of its journey, WandaVision was able to stick with the MCU’s established process to bring Vision to life. That is, putting Paul Bettany in costume and makeup, even painting his face the same color as Vision’s “flesh,” and then removing parts of him to augment them with CG on top, completing his synthetic look. Assembled: the creation of WandaVision she gets a good look at Bettany early in the process, which looks quite amusing due to her ears not touching. However, things had to go further for the ’50s and’ 60s episodes because they were in black and white. The special effects team noticed that Vision’s purple skin didn’t transform well into black and white, testing with footage from previous MCU movies, but found that it didn’t look like him. So they tried a few options until they found the right shade of blue that would allow their appearance to show through when the color was removed. This is similar to the techniques that actresses of the time would rely on (albeit without the CGI part), like using blue lipstick to make it appear red on screen.

The way Vision comes to life allows Marvel to retain as much of Bettany’s performance as possible, painting her ears and layering the effects, but maintaining her physical performance. This was particularly important in getting it right because he’s at the heart of the show and because director Matt Shakman emphasized the need for him to appear as Vision even when he’s at home with the Scarlet Witch, rather than scenes where he could have been more. easy. (and faster and cheaper) to have him in his human form. Tara DeMarco, Visual Effects Supervisor at WandaVision, said:

“We’d go back to Matt and say ‘you know, for this beat, does it really need to be synthetic? Could it be human?’ And Matt and Jac [Schaefer, WandaVision’s head writer] He would often come back with ‘Well he’s his true self, you know when he’s at his house, we want the specific beats to be synth, even if they’re visual effects shots, just because he’s who he is when he’s at home with Wanda. ‘So we let the story determine when we would use the visuals. “

The visual effects team at WandaVision underscore the importance of matching the bar set by Marvel Studios movies, and that the effects are raised and added to what is happening, but without overshadowing or taking away anything, and Vision’s CGI is a good example of how they can do that. that. Effects can make things look a bit weird before they are applied, which is unfortunately doing Paul Bettany no favors, but both black and white and color are worth it, and it makes the Elizabeth Olsen’s performance is even more impressive. .

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