‘Wizards Beyond Waverly Place’: Behind The Magic Of Rebooting An Iconic Disney Channel Series

deadline.com:

Laughter echoes from a Los Angeles, California, soundstage on a Friday afternoon in September, as the cast of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place works on nailing a midseason cold open.  “Ow!

Ow!” yells the dialogue coach from behind the camera, hyping up the young cast as they prepare for another take. She’s just delivered another round of notes, asking the kids to change their inflection here, try a new line there — and most importantly, have fun while doing it.

After a few takes, things start to click into place, and the magic, so to speak, is palpable. “That is absolutely the best feeling in the world,” Jed Elinoff, who showruns with Scott Thomas, tells Deadline of watching the cast get into their groove. “There is no place quieter than a soundstage when a joke dies, and there is no place better than a sound stage when it hits and you know that it is funny.” On most sound stages, a hush falls over the set when the cameras begin rolling.

Any noise is met with glares and gestures to quiet down. But not this one. There’s no studio audience for the day’s shoot, so the crew is filling in with boisterous feedback after every punch line.  “Anytime I’ve done single-camera or when I’ve directed, I laugh out loud, and then everyone looks at me and they’re like, ‘Shut up.