Development In August 2011,
Marvel Studios announced that a couple of short films would be released
direct-to-video, which were designed to be self-contained stories and known as
Marvel One-Shots. Co-producer
Brad Winderbaum said "It's a fun way to experiment with new characters and ideas, but more importantly it's a way for us to expand the
Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and tell stories that live outside the plot of our features." One of the ideas developed as a potential One-Shot was a spin-off from
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), following the story of
Peggy Carter after the events of that film. The idea was looked at again when Marvel was deciding on a short film to produce for the home media release of
Iron Man 3 (2013) and it was chosen for the spot, dependent on actress
Hayley Atwell's availability. Marvel Studios co-president Louis D'Esposito, who directed the previous One-Shot
Item 47 (2012), returned as director, while writer
Eric Pearson also returned from the previous One-Shots. D'Esposito noted that the short had twice the budget of
Item 47, but the same amount of shooting time so "the scope of it is much bigger. It's set in a period, there are more actors involved, the scale's bigger, there are three fight scenes—we've never had that in any of [the previous One-Shots]." Atwell agreed to the project after watching
Item 47, and due to her love for the character and potential "to show off some of her skill sets" that were not seen in the film. Atwell worked for three days with the stunt team to rehearse the pre-choreographed fight sequences for the short. D'Esposito elaborated on the decision to focus on Carter, saying, "It's telling the best story, and finding that story we want to tell—whether it's connectivity to the Marvel Universe, or it's highlighting a character. In the case of Hayley, it's a little bit of both. We wanted to tell Peggy Carter's story—she's been left back in the '40s. Announcing to the world that she was running
S.H.I.E.L.D. with
Howard Stark is a great connectivity."
Filming Agent Carter was filmed over five days, with Gabriel Beristain serving as
cinematographer. The budget did not allow for a
storyboard artist to be hired, so D'Esposito, Winderbaum, and Beristain worked together to plan a shot list for the production using
stand-in actors. The stunts were also pre-filmed to show the actors. D'Esposito explained that having the shots planned helped with planning the visual effects for the film. The
mid-credits scene with
Neal McDonough as
Dum Dum Dugan was planned to show the character in a pool, but had to be changed on set to taking place beside the pool when it was found that the muscle suit McDonough wears to portray the character could not get wet. D'Esposito chose to differentiate the short from
The First Avenger by avoiding the sepia tone used for that film by director
Joe Johnston, instead using a cooler blue color. The production used two old lenses (for both night and day) that gave the short some "better" lens flares that D'Esposito felt gave the period setting a more modern feel. D'Esposito used a
Steadicam or a
camera dolly for the action sequences, to avoid a "quick cutty or blurry or shaky" feel. D'Esposito said that the crew was ultimately "pushing our limit" to get the planned shots on schedule, and he eventually realized that he "wasn't going to get every shot and I wasn't going to get every punch and kick, so what we do is get the optimum".
Post-production Visual effects shots of 1940s New York from
The First Avenger were reused in the short for budgetary reasons. D'Esposito noted the sequence where Carter comes "flying with the gun into the door" and the last fight, when Carter is "being attacked by the big guy", were both created with visual effects elements after they ran out of time to complete filming on them on set. In early 2013, Marvel approached visual effects company
Perception to create the main-on-end
title sequence for the short. Visual effects supervisor Sheena Duggal was told to retell the story of the short in 90 seconds, so she decided to use stylized versions of imagery from the period and the short itself. A mixture of 2D and 3D animation was used to achieve a final 2D look. ==Music==