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The latest episode of Disney+’s Ms. Marvel” is a declaration of love to Pakistan. Director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy sought to take the Marvel superhero from the studio to the vibrant and colorful streets of Karachi, Pakistan, and with that she plants a giant Ant-Man Easter egg on one of the locations.
As a result, Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) and her mother Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff) fly to Pakistan on a long-overdue family visit, where Kamala also learns more about her unique powers. However, due to the political situation in Pakistan, the show was filmed in Thailand.
Obaid-Chinoy worked with production designer Christopher Glass on everything from mood boards to sharing visual ideas while faithfully recreating Karachi. At location scouts, they looked at other cities in Asia before deciding on Bangkok. Glass says, “Sharmeen saw the photos we got from Thailand and she said, ‘This looks more like South Asia than any other place,’ and when we hit the ground she was absolutely right.”
Obaid-Chinoy says, “When I was thinking about my episodes – Obaid-Chinoy directed the episode. 4 and 5 – I’ve been thinking about how to use my outdoor work experience as much as possible. I end up shooting almost all of my episodes outdoors.” She eschews green screens and volume screens, adding, “You have to make sure that the imagery, the sets, the props and the vehicles are appropriate.”
The biggest challenge for Glass was the weather, especially rain. “It’s always been a problem for us, we had to come up with ways to cover sets when it rained. Luckily the rain came and went very quickly but that definitely made the shoot more challenging because you were in the middle of shooting and then you had to stop and then wait and start over.”
An intense chase ensues as the Clandestines escape from the DODC’s supermax prison and make their way to Karachi. Obaid-Chinoy and Glass put together a mood board with images of shops, wheelbarrows and other things authentic to the streets of Karachi, which he then recreated.
Glass looked at photos the director had shared with him and the area where she lived. After looking around, Glass found an ideal spot that was colorful and close to the mood board’s vision – something that was hyper-realistic and colourful.
The pivot of the story in the episode takes place in the home of Nani, Kamala’s grandmother. Although location scouts were in search of the perfect home, the house was built from the ground up from an empty old nightclub. Obaid-Chinoy gave Glass clear instructions on how it should look. “A lot of that came from the house I grew up in,” says Obaid-Chinoy. “We talked about the tiles I wanted on the floor and even the swing.”
A main set in the house was Nan’s “dusty room”. Glass says, “Nani keeps all of her artwork and the newspaper clippings in this room. We wanted this set to reflect Kamala’s room in Jersey.”
He adds, “The pinks that we had in her high school earlier in the season appear here, and we wanted to tie them to her here. It’s like she comes in and says, ‘My grandmother is really great.'”
And what would “Ms. Marvel” without its Easter Eggs? The episode plants an Avengers/Ant-Man reference when Kamala is at the train station and she spots a giant mural of Ant-Man.
Glass says he sought out local street performers for the series. “Sharmeen gave me a list of artists and for this mural we wanted Ant-Man and a comic book throwback.”
