Craft Considerations: Watch composers Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, director Matt Shakman, and production designer Mark Worthington break down “WandaVision.”
Curated by the IndieWire Crafts team, Craft Considerations is a platform for filmmakers to talk about recent work we believe is worthy of awards consideration. In partnership with Disney+, for this edition we look at how main title theme composers Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, director/executive producer Matt Shakman, and production designer Mark Worthington created the many different yet unified worlds of “WandaVision.”
The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first foray into television embraced the medium — and specifically the history of the TV sitcom — in a formally playful fashion. “WandaVision” picks up the story of Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) grappling with the death of her love, Vision (Paul Bettany), in a highly unusual way. She uses magic to create her own reality where her partner is still very much alive and the two can build a family together — with the slight hitch that Wanda inadvertently puts the entire town of Westview, New Jersey under mind control in the process of creating a suburban oasis inflected by the tones, look, and styles of sitcoms she loves.
“It had to feel authentic,” series director and executive producer Matt Shakman said of the sitcom reality that Wanda creates for herself. “And we also wanted to make sure that there was an integrity to it from era to era. So our rationale for the reason that [the eras were] changing is that certain pressures are exerted on Wanda that forced her to kind of flip the book and change the story.”
