A deep dive behind the scenes look into the ideation and creation of three scenes from What If...? Seasons 1 and 2, as told by Executive Producer and Director, Bryan Andrews.
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00:00To have a chance to be part of something brand-new at Marvel
00:04and help them start up their animation division
00:07and be the first flagship show in that,
00:09it's pretty special.
00:14Hi, I'm Brian Andrews.
00:15I'm the executive producer and director of What If?
00:22This first clip is from Season 1, Episode 8.
00:26This first clip is from Season 1, Episode 8.
00:29What If? Ultron 1.
00:31This is the part where Ultron goes to town on the Watcher,
00:34breaks into his house and starts blasting with crazy powers.
00:40Basically working with the vendors
00:42and then also our in-house art team
00:44coming up with the look of the powers
00:47and the various 2D effects that we'll be doing
00:50and putting on top of our 3D for 2D characters.
00:53It was always a challenge
00:54trying to integrate those things a little bit,
00:56but everyone worked really hard and we were able to accomplish a lot.
01:00The studio always loved this whole sequence
01:03and this idea of these two guys fighting
01:05and we wanted to get as big and crazy powerful as possible
01:08because I felt like in the movies
01:09with these incredibly powerful individuals
01:11we never really got to see enough.
01:14Sometimes I just feel they didn't go big enough
01:16with some of their crazy galactic villains and or heroes.
01:20And with these guys being at the top of their super cosmic game
01:24it gave us that opportunity.
01:26Also, I mean, growing up studying animation,
01:29loving animation, watching film,
01:31anime has been a huge influence.
01:33Not just the look, everyone goes to the look
01:35when they talk about anime,
01:36but for me it's more about the sense of timing
01:39and also the sense of how they design
01:41A, their action, but also how they design the effects
01:45and how the drawings of the effects perform.
01:47We wanted to bring some of that into this show.
01:51And the moment when, you know,
01:53Watcher levels up and armors up,
01:55that was an idea we had early, early on
01:56once we knew he was going to scuffle,
01:58that he has to have some amazing armor
02:00and Ryan Minard did an incredible job
02:02designing both these guys, Ultron and Watcher in his armor.
02:06And also being able to bring Kirby Crackle,
02:09the famous Kirby Crackle that's existed in the comics,
02:12what Jack Kirby would always draw as a sense of power,
02:15being able to bring that to life in these shows
02:18is also totally fun.
02:19And that's all the fun technical art stuff,
02:21but I mean, story-wise, just having these guys go to town,
02:25and I think Jeffrey Wright was also quite excited
02:27at the notion of the idea that his character
02:30was actually going to get physical.
02:32We told him, don't worry about it, we got you covered.
02:35The fact that he said that was great
02:36because that's already where I was leaning
02:38and the fact that he was saying that,
02:39it gave us total license to absolutely go for it.
02:42So we did.
02:45And then these were awesome.
02:46This was tough to do, all the different bursts
02:49to all the different multiverses.
02:51It costs money to show a different thing
02:54every other, you know, second.
02:57And there's only so much budget that we have,
02:59so our team did the best they could
03:01and we tried to whip together some crazy parallel
03:04super-multiversity worlds that we can flash through
03:07for just a moment.
03:08And then, yeah, we needed to give a moment
03:10where you think the Watcher might actually lose
03:12and then he summons up just enough skill
03:13to then get the heck out.
03:15And we always knew early on, it was like,
03:18when the Watcher can't face off fully against this Ultron,
03:22that he was going to go to the other Strange for help
03:24and that just set the stage for a fantastic finale.
03:28Run. Watch. It doesn't matter.
03:32From here, I can see everything.
03:36No one can stop me now.
03:42This clip is from Season 1, Episode 9.
03:45What if the Watcher broke his oath?
03:48This is after the Guardians of the Multiverse
03:50have been put together
03:51and they've already defeated Ultron.
03:53You think it's all over, but then Killmonger is like,
03:56nope, I got the suit now and I'm going to do cool stuff.
04:00I forget exactly how we cracked this and found this.
04:03Some of these things just fell into place so quickly
04:07and I can't remember if we knew this twist was going to happen
04:10until we did the Killmonger episode.
04:13And then we realized, oh yeah,
04:14he's got to be one of the dudes that gets chosen
04:16so that he can have this betrayal
04:18so it gives us one more little twist moment.
04:21Our writers were fantastic at coming up with some of this stuff
04:24and working it in in a way that can feel compelling
04:27and keep you guessing.
04:29And it's also fun because it gave the Watcher a chance
04:32to now be above all that and be five moves ahead of everyone.
04:36This thing was fun to do.
04:37Everything's happening and all the effects are happening.
04:40It's tougher animation, it's tougher design, it's tougher paint.
04:43But in the end, it feels exhilarating, it feels mind-boggling.
04:46It's big.
04:47And the audience seemed to respond to it, which was great.
04:50And seeing Strange Supreme come back with one last chance
04:53to do something amazing,
04:55that was just so much fun to be able to do this with him.
04:57He was a great character.
04:59And Benedict did a fantastic job with this guy,
05:01so it was a blast.
05:04For this part where they're battling over the stones,
05:07I remember when we were thinking about the story room,
05:10we felt that this could be a pretty amazing moment.
05:12And the visuals would just come as we're discussing it.
05:16I had to quickly scratch down some notes
05:18and then talk to Paul Lesane, our production designer and art director,
05:21and start generating some paintings to get that thought out.
05:24And we came up with this kind of look,
05:26this kind of desaturated, almost black and white,
05:29just a hint of color look.
05:31And it made it feel like it was even more powerful,
05:33the fact that we took so much color out.
05:35And then it gave contrast when Doctor Strange rises up
05:38and blasts with all of his colors.
05:40And then Watcher comes in with his golden powers and stuff like that.
05:43It all works.
05:45And that's such a fun thing early in the process,
05:49is playing with the art.
05:51It's like opening up a bunch of crayons,
05:53jumping down on a giant piece of paper with all your pals
05:56and sketching out crazy stuff like you were a kid.
05:58It's a sandbox, and we're all playing in it,
06:01and it's a hell of a lot of fun.
06:08And these are some beautiful paintings that our guys did,
06:11and I can't say enough about our team, they're so fantastic.
06:14This whole ending thing,
06:16the idea of Strange being trapped in his little orb
06:19and then watching these guys in his little orb,
06:22it was so long ago when we came up with this,
06:25it all started to dovetail pretty close together.
06:28We had, I think, the idea for the ending ending.
06:31Once we knew Ultron was going to be a villain
06:33and he was going to get the Guardians together
06:35and all that type of stuff, and we're going to bring back Strange
06:37because he's the only one strong enough to help this team fight this evil villain.
06:41It's funny how that came to be so fast.
06:45And I was like, okay, now what are the other episodes
06:47that are going to lead up to this moment?
06:49So it's kind of like sometimes that happens.
06:52Sometimes you do figure out your ending
06:54before you figure out some of the other stuff,
06:56and you're just trying to lead into that ending that you had in mind.
07:01This part when we got back into the pub,
07:03and it was the saying the goodbyes of everyone,
07:05everyone going back to their stuff.
07:07Again, our art department lit this so beautifully.
07:09We just wanted it to be so warm and so inviting.
07:11Everyone's going back to the moment they came.
07:13And we already knew that what we're going to do in the second season,
07:15that we're going to go back to Peggy and carry on that storyline,
07:19which is why we loved having the picture of Steve in there
07:22and connecting the two in their history.
07:24And it's funny, this moment right here,
07:26it's very close encounters for me.
07:28For those of you who've seen close encounters,
07:30like when Richard Dreyfuss turns to look back at the world
07:33for one last time before he steps onto the alien ship.
07:36To me, this always felt like that.
07:38And the same with everyone on our crew.
07:39It was so fun to get this in here
07:41because it was almost like our own little secret homage
07:43to that moment from that movie that inspired us so much when we were younger.
07:48This clip is from season two, episode nine, the finale.
07:53We have our crazy demon, Strange.
07:55The poor guy's been tormented too much.
07:57He can't hold onto his stuff.
07:59The idea was that all the millions of powerful,
08:02horrible beings that he's consumed over time
08:04finally, in a way, took over his id, his internal being.
08:09So at this moment when she takes all the stones
08:11and punches that stuff out of him,
08:13you get to see Strange for a moment.
08:15It's almost like he's waking up from a dream or waking up from a nightmare.
08:18He literally is so weak and so destitute and has no strength anymore.
08:23And that's why they say, you know, we're not done with this stuff.
08:26We're heading back in on ourselves.
08:28And they basically repossess him, retake over,
08:31and continue on with what they're doing.
08:33So it was a little way for us to explore that stuff,
08:36which just felt kind of epic and grand.
08:39And that was fun.
08:41And designing this guy was amazing and such a blast.
08:43And having this ending feel very...
08:45This was our Balrog moment.
08:47This is a little bit of our Gandalf the White.
08:51No, Peggy!
08:52We were all inspired by those Lord of the Rings films and stuff.
08:55And that moment in the Two Towers is so fun.
08:58So it's a quiet little homage that our team and ourselves are coming up with.
09:03And then this one moment where Strange can snap out of it
09:06just enough to hold off just a little bit.
09:09It's a hint of a redemption.
09:10Like, can he ever be really redeemed?
09:12That's, I think, for the audience to decide.
09:14But at least in that one moment,
09:15a little bit of that old Strange came back before he got nuked.
09:20And then we get to our crazy whiteout.
09:22And we get to see what happened afterwards.
09:24And the notion was the idea that
09:26he was trying to fix Christine one last time.
09:29He was trying to create his universe again.
09:33And by the idea of, like,
09:34if I can collect all of these world killers from all over the multiverse,
09:38that's going to be enough power I can jumpstart a new universe,
09:41which is what this shot is right here.
09:42It's that new universe being born.
09:44But the thing is, he didn't realize he had enough beings within himself.
09:49He could have just used himself as the fuel source.
09:52But he was being selfish because he wanted to be with Christine.
09:55But that's not supposed to happen in this universe.
09:59So in a way, it reset itself properly.
10:01And we explore some of the ramifications of that,
10:04you know, later in Season 3, in a way.
10:07We actually touch on it a tiny bit.
10:10But you have to watch all of Season 3 to figure that out.
10:12But it's pretty fun.
10:13It's a big, epic concept.
10:15And I think the studio was pretty excited about that notion
10:18of following through with some of that stuff that was going on with Strange.
10:22This scene right here where he's able to talk with the Watcher.
10:25These guys are like pals now, it seems.
10:27And we wanted to set the stage for the fact that they are pals
10:30and that he sees her differently.
10:31And he stepped out of his armchair just watching,
10:34binging shows, constantly binging universes.
10:37He's actually getting involved a little bit.
10:39And we wanted this scene to be just incredibly warm, incredibly lush.
10:43That's why we went for the dappled lighting,
10:46trying to bring in some of that, how we would shoot it
10:49if we were shooting it live action.
10:51Something we always want to do with the entirety of the show
10:53is pay attention to lighting, pay attention to lensing,
10:56how it reflects the story and the characters and the environment.
11:00And we had a blast doing it.
11:08That final shot with the tree, that was a last-minute shot
11:12because Loki wasn't even out yet.
11:14And so we got to see the artwork for it,
11:16and they weren't even finished with the artwork for it yet.
11:19So our team was starting to co-design it
11:22at the same time that Loki was doing it,
11:24and they still took the reins and did it.
11:26But it's a beautiful shot, and it's a great image.
11:28So what if? What if there was more?
11:37What if there was more?