Why this 40-second aerial shot in ‘WandaVision’ was one of the hardest visual effects to pull off

• Toronto-based company MARZ VFX did most of the Vision effects shots in "WandaVision."
• Vision flying over Westview in episode six was the most challenging to pull off.
• MARZ had less than four months to create the 40-second sequence.
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Though Ryan Freer had all the previs in front of him mapping out how to pull off the sequence, he was still having sleepless nights figuring out how he and his team at the scrappy upstart visual effects house MARZ VFX was going to pull off Vision's first flying sequence in "WandaVision."

The character of Vision is virtually all CGI (the only real things are actor Paul Bettany's eyes, nose, and mouth). A Marvel movie is generally given around a year to hammer out all the effects that need to be done to make the character camera-ready.

Freer's team had less than four months.

Having just come off the CGI for the Looking Glass character on HBO's "Watchmen," Toronto-based MARZ (short for Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies) now leveled-up to Marvel's first TV show.

Specifically, they were hired to take on most of the shots of Vision.

In episode six ("All-New Halloween Spooktacular!"), Vision has begun to catch on that things are a little strange in Westview and decides to set out for answers. This includes a 40-second sequence where he changes from his Halloween costume into his true Vision form, flies above Westview, then flies to a car, which turns out to have Agnes (Kathryn Hahn) inside.

Freer, the VFX supervisor on the show for MARZ, said that was the most challenging sequence out of the 400 shots they did for "WandaVision."

"When he transforms before he takes off, beside his face, all the rest of him is CG," Freer told Insider.

"He's fully CG when he flies up in the air," Freer continued.

"There's a reverse shot of him looking down, that's CG," he said.

"He overlooks the whole town, and that town was built by spec based off exactly what Marvel wanted the layout of the town to be," Freer said. "So that's not a drone shot, we built that whole thing."

Freer said they began work in mid-August 2020 and finished on Christmas Eve.

"TV is very different and it comes down to speed," Matt Panousis, COO of MARZ, told Insider. "So with our tech we're able to shave off a day on each shot. And then shots that are repeatable, we figure out a pipeline where we can move very quickly through the shots."

And adding to the remarkable work MARZ did on Vision, Freer notes that outside of a couple of compositors, his around 100-person team were not involved in the CG of Vision on any of the Marvel movies. This was their first time working on the character.

It seems MARZ certainly got Marvel's attention.

"The producers we were working with told us that Kevin Feige was talking up how our Vision looked to other executives," Panousis said with excitement of the Marvel president giving the company's work a shout out. "To us, that was a wow moment."