WandaVision: VFX Supervisor Explains Why Elizabeth Olsen’s Comfort Factored Into Scarlet Witch’s Digital Costume Pieces

WandaVision came to an end last month and the show's finale featured Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) in her true Scarlet Witch form. After the show teased her comic-accurate costume in an earlier episode, the Marvel Cinematic Universe ended up giving the Avenger her official look, which fans had been waiting for since the character's onscreen debut. Recently, ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with Marion Spates, a VFX Supervisor who works for Digital Domain. The company worked on some of the effects for the Disney+ series, including the Scarlet Witch costume. During the interview, Spates explained why Olsen's comfort played an important role in recreating some of the costume digitally.

"Basically they built the entire outfit, right? They even built her cape, they built everything for Scarlet Witch's outfit," Spates explained. "One thing as we quickly started filming, I was on set for the entire time. Elizabeth couldn't get in a wire, couldn't be hanging on wires with the cape on, because the cape was just so bulky and it was just getting pulled in all these odd ways. So the one thing we had to quickly do on set was to start stripping her down and removing the cape. So we removed the cape, there's a hood, obviously, that's part of the cape as well. So we took that off. We filmed her."

Spates continued, "What we did afterward was put the cape, put the hood on, and that was all done obviously with the CFX because it's all cloth and flowing. There was a little part too, a little leather, like these little straps in the front. I don't want to misrepresent the name of them, I'm not a costume designer, but there was another element in the front kind of like a belt. I'll call it for simplicity's sake a belt, that we needed to remove, too, because it was hard for her to maneuver. And it was getting in the way of the wires. So obviously, one of our jobs as a VFX department is to help Elizabeth be comfortable. So we would remove the things that were making her uncomfortable, so she can actually act out the tasks easier. And then we start putting that back in digitally."

Stay tuned for more from our interview with Spates where he talks about White Vision, Chaos Magic, and creating The Hex.

WandaVision is now streaming in Disney+.