‘Wednesday’ TV series is the brainchild of visionary Director Tim Burton. 8 Academy Award Tim is behind some of the most amazing movies of Hollywood including Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1982), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Big Eyes (2014) to name a few.
Tim Burton is known for his visually distinctive and offbeat movies. His movies often feature fantasy and horror elements, as well as a gothic aesthetic. He has also been recognized for his use of different filming techniques and his unique visual style. He has directed four episodes of this series. Check out VFX breakdown of Wednesday TV Series ahead.
What is Wednesday?
As mentioned earlier, it is a new web series on Netflix. It is based on the fictional character named Wednesday Addams. She belongs to the The Addams Family.
Wednesday; the story of a girl who has a dark soul, dark humour, and a dead-pan face, her entire existence itself is a huge mystery. The new trend-setter series Wednesday of Addams on Netflix achieved worldwide acceptance within a short span of time. Toronto, Canada based studio MARZ (Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies) VFX team’s visual effects deserve their own round of appreciation in addition to the show’s overall commendation.
With the crew from the streaming service speculating about a second season, the Netflix Wednesday series has now already received over 1 billion streams and is quickly becoming one of the most popular shows of all time.
The story highlights the two contrasting worlds of ‘normies’ and ‘outcasts’ in which she belonged to the latter. The atmosphere of Nevermore Academy finally provides her with supporters who encounter similar hostility. Even though she was shunned by the popular kids, she was not all alone in struggling through the intense teenage angst at school.
Back story of Wednesday Addams Netflix series
The iconic character made the debut in Charles Addam’s New Yorker comics in 1938. Addams was the original creator of each character’s names, their personalities and appearances but some characters initially lacked fixed caricatures when he adapted this comic version to the television series named ‘The Addams Family’.
The Addams family named their daughter, Wednesday Addams after a nursery rhyme that begins, “Wednesday’s child is full of woe”, the poem that describes the children’s personalities based on the day they were born. Though she was born on Friday, her personality matches with Wednesday like the rest of her family, unusually morbid and cold.
The iconic female character was further explored in the movie The Addams Family (1991). The character’s signature pigtails and black-themed dress style were revived with an even more severe gothic twist.
Behind the story of making of ‘Thing’
The man behind the ‘Thing hand’, Dorobantu’s innate skill, which is mostly a byproduct of his day work as a magician, was combined with some deft movie magic in post-production from visual effects supervisor Tom Turnbull and his colleagues to create the camera effect. Dorobantu and Turnbull both concurred that the artificial hand’s tail, which was situated atop Dorobantu’s wrist to complete the appearance of a severed limb, was the primary factor in giving the Thing life.
Variations were required to be prepared in case Thing was positioned differently in a photo. Dorobantu claimed that each prosthetic change took close to three hours. Turnbull told Variety, “As soon as we completed the sequence and put the stump on, it was great.” The transformation is so good that you often forget about the performer as it entirely changed the dynamic. And that’s exactly what gave Thing a “personality”.
Dorobantu’s shadow, which would have indicated the presence of a full body linked to the severed hand, had to be completely hidden by elaborate blocking and lighting in order for this to happen. Even specialized props were made so the performer could put his hand through them without being seen by the camera. Dorobantu said, referring to the artificial wrist piece / prosthetic hand, “We call it a stump.” “And we had four or five different models of the same wrist which they made use of all of it in different scenes.
VFX breakdown of Wednesday TV Series
It is all dark soul; dark theme!
Wednesday isn’t meant to be a faithful and exact replication of The Addams Family. The writers develops this concept by providing them a bigger community rather than just depicting them as an undesirable supernatural family navigating the “regular” world.
The original concept is flipped by emphasizing that Gomez and Morticia Addams’ family as simply one of many marginalized communities in the world or as mentioned in the series, ‘the outcasts’, highlighting how unexceptional they actually are.
The VFX shots in the climax scenes were particularly intriguing as many extra supernatural things like evolving of Enid, resurrection scenes, the combat scene etc. were happening together by the end of the series. The crew has released the behind the scenes of the Wednesday series and how the series would have looked without the VFX is indeed bewildering considering the soul of this series is its Gothic outlook which is impossible without visual effects.
The series ends with the obvious hint of a second season and one of MARZ’s VFX producers, Casey Sincic already expressed his hope to return for a second season, especially in light of the tremendous success of the series. The MARZ VFX were responsible for executing the creepy snake hair of Ajax, Uncle Fester and his techniques (electric waves), and not last but not the least ‘the Thing’.
The ‘Wednesday dance’ became too popular around the globe thereby reaching its popularity in every nook and corner and the ‘one-of-a-kind’ dance certainly made the audience curious about the context. The girl who did the lead role in the 1991 film ‘The Addams Family’ (Christina Ricci) makes a comeback in the latest Wednesday series with a remarkable role.
Leading post production studio MPC (Moving Picture Company) is also one of a major VFX vendor. They have also done an outstanding work of 3D set extensions, matchmoving, rotomation and other supporting VFX. They have delivered the amazing underwater compositing sequences of live action plates and CGI integration. Fight in woods of CG characters are also notable piece of visual effects. Check out the making of video of Wednesday.
It’s difficult to discover a TV show that uses no CG components at all due to the VFX industry’s and VFX institutes’ rapid expansion and evolution. VFX artists can nearly always be seen on the “Cast and Crew” list for any genre of film because they are inevitable so as to change environments, to avoid the usage of potentially harmful practical effects like fires, and even add or remove characters from shots.
VFX frequently play a unique role in horror, fantasy, action-adventure, sci-fi, and superhero television. The fact that more and more content was being watched on OTT platforms even during the lockdown is one of the reasons why this business never stopped. It’s a fantastic time for content creators to think about a VFX career and animation because there is still a high demand for a similar type of content. Thus it is no hyperbole to say, the VFX industry is making its way into being one of the indispensable tools of filmmaking.
If you want to make your name in this field, make sure to watch other making of videos like VFX breakdown of Wednesday TV series. Such behind the scenes will give you gist of the entire production and post production pipeline. You will come to know about latest industry trends and technologies of 3D Animation and VFX industry.
Wednesday casting
Some of the major characters of this Netflix series are as follows.
- Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams
- Gwendoline Christie as Larissa Weems
- Riki Lindhome as Dr. Valerie Kinbott
- Hunter Doohan as Tyler Galpin
- Percy Hynes White as Xavier Thorpe
- Emma Myers as Enid Sinclair