{"id":1479,"date":"2021-03-12T19:57:21","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T08:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/?post_type=articles&p=188584"},"modified":"2021-03-15T10:11:07","modified_gmt":"2021-03-14T23:11:07","slug":"wandavision-set-designer-interview","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/articles\/wandavision-set-designer-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Yonder Vision: What Would Westview Look Like In 2021?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"WandaVision\"
Credit: Disney+<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Westview. The bizarre and wonderful microcosm of white picket fences, \u201cpeachy keen\u201d pant suits, and Mary Tyler Moore hair flips. For the uninitiated, this idealistic suburbia plays home to a wishful-thinking, reality-bending witch named Wanda and her density-changing android husband named Vision in Marvel\u2019s hit show WandaVision<\/em><\/a> (now streaming on Disney+).<\/p>\n

Presented in nine 30-minute episodes, each is inspired by a famous American sitcom; The Dick Van Dyke Show<\/em>, Bewitched<\/em>, The Brady Bunch<\/em>, Family Ties<\/em>, Malcolm In The Middle<\/em>, Modern Family<\/em>, the list goes on.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did a tonne of research and came up with our own WandaVision version of a 50s sitcom, a 60s sitcom, a 70s sitcom,\u201d says production designer Mark Worthington via Zoom from Atlanta. \u201cWe wanted it to be particular to our circumstances. We didn\u2019t want people going, \u2018Oh I know that sitcom and that\u2019s not right, they got that wrong.\u2019<\/p>\n

They got it so right. At its heart, WandaVision<\/em>\u2019s retro frontier tells the tale of one woman\u2019s struggle as she plays warden to her grief-stricken world. How far will she go to protect her family? How desperate she will she become to rid a threat? As we\u2019re watching, we\u2019re realising both Wanda and this little quarantined town of Westview isn’t all that different from our current locked-down lives. Restricted to our hometown\u2019s radius. A force bigger than ourselves is controlling us. We’re mourning better days.<\/p>\n

Ahead, Worthington details how he and his team built Westview, how the crew filmed the series amid the COVID outbreak, what television might look like in the future and \u2013 if he was put to the task \u2013 how he would design a set that adequately represents 2021.<\/p>\n

All episodes of WandaVision are streaming now on Disney+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

GRAZIA: Congratulations on the entire series! What an ending! Marvel really took a risk with the formula of this show at a time when the world needed something to fill its mundane days. When you were approached by the studio and you saw the premise (nine episodes, each set in a different era), could you foresee the amount of work ahead? <\/strong><\/p>\n

MARK WORTHINGTON: \u201cOh, I think so. I got called by Matt Shakman, the director, who\u2019s an old friend. He called and said it\u2019s a Marvel project, so I had something else in mind. Obviously when you think Marvel there are certain assumptions you make about what that means. And then he described WandaVision<\/em> to me and I was like, this sounds crazy and amazing. And so I think we understood the challenge. You\u2019re never prepared on any big project for what you end up having to deal with; the winter weather in Atlanta, COVID-19 dropping right into the middle of our shooting schedule. All of these things are utterly unpredictable and we were able to navigate all that. But yeah, I think you do get a sense of the scale. And then of course you get gobsmacked by what the surprises are.\u201d<\/p>\n