'Stranger Things' Cast & Creators Break Down the Season 5 MAC-Z Battle (VFX, Cinematography & More) — Transcript

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1. 0:02Yeah.
2. 0:04How fast do you think the Demogorgons
3. 0:05run? Like they're like How fast does a
4. 0:07horse go? Any nerds in this room
5. 0:09that know what a how fast a horse goes?
6. 0:11>> Don't throw me, you
7. 0:15You want to explain to me what in God's
8. 0:16name is going on here?
9. 0:17>> Hey, I'm Ross. And I'm Matt. And we're
10. 0:19the creators of Stranger Things. Hey,
11. 0:21I'm Finn Wolfhard.
12. 0:22>> Hey, I'm Caleb McLaughlin. Hi, I'm Noah
13. 0:24Schnapp.
14. 0:24>> Hi, my name is Sarah Hindsgaul.
15. 0:26>> I'm Amy Parrish.
16. 0:27>> My name is Craig Henighan.
17. 0:28>> I'm Beth Patterson. Today we're going to
18. 0:29be looking at a scene from Stranger
19. 0:31Things season 5. It's the scene that we
20. 0:33call the Max Z battle. Hit play. Listen,
21. 0:37these kids, they are not safe, okay?
22. 0:39They are in danger.
23. 0:41>> And why exactly do you think they're
24. 0:42here now? Hmm?
25. 0:43They're under our protection.
26. 0:44>> I don't remember how long we shot this
27. 0:47scene for. Was it like a month? I swear
28. 0:49it felt like a month. Cuz there was 2
29. 0:51weeks of like rehearsals of the water.
30. 0:53This is our backlot. It's the first
31. 0:54backlot and only backlot we've ever had
32. 0:56on the show. It took our production
33. 0:58designer team about a year to do. Pretty
34. 1:01much everything on the ground up to
35. 1:02about 10 to 15 ft is real and practical.
36. 1:06Beyond that, we had a huge wall of blue
37. 1:10screen. Listen, these kids, they are not
38. 1:13safe, okay? They are in danger. This
39. 1:15group is in a quarantine. They don't
40. 1:17have access to the mall because it's
41. 1:18gone, so it makes sense that some of
42. 1:20their fashion choices are repeating from
43. 1:22previous seasons. The cool thing about
44. 1:24Winona's outfit is it was her choice
45. 1:26specifically to keep that plaid shirt in
46. 1:28the closet. That was a shirt that was in
47. 1:30season 4.
48. 1:31>> It's the same topper that she's been
49. 1:33wearing, the same hair piece as we've
50. 1:36done since season 2. All the families
51. 1:39kind of
52. 1:40have a similarity, so you can see that
53. 1:42they're related. I chose to do some of
54. 1:45it with wig work just to have enough
55. 1:48hair to make a very heavy bang on her. I
56. 1:51really feel like that face framing and
57. 1:54the way it falls is how we know her and
58. 1:56it should stay consistent.
59. 1:58>> Early on, you know, some big reference
60. 1:59points were films like The Goonies,
61. 2:01Stand by Me. As we got into later
62. 2:04seasons, things got a little darker.
63. 2:05We're talking more about Hellraiser,
64. 2:08Nightmare on Elm Street, Evil Dead. So,
65. 2:11you know, the show continues to to grow
66. 2:13and evolve. If I may object, officer,
67. 2:15I've seen what's coming. And no
68. 2:17disrespect meant, but you and your men
69. 2:19can't protect So, this character,
70. 2:22when I saw him on paper first time, I
71. 2:24think he was called sh-
72. 2:26head Derek.
73. 2:28I love little Derek. In reading the
74. 2:30script about Derek, it stated that he's
75. 2:32wearing shorts. We put him in shorts,
76. 2:33colorful sweaters, high-top sneakers.
77. 2:36That sweater, I love how it's it stands
78. 2:38out amongst like all the military and
79. 2:40camo that is within this scene. This
80. 2:43flat top was really, really hard. Every
81. 2:45time there was humidity in the air, and
82. 2:47I think there was a little bit of rain
83. 2:49on this day, he would get this wave in
84. 2:51the front. We just kept it, and it's
85. 2:54part of his look because we just
86. 2:56couldn't fight it. I do love how weird
87. 2:58it is. Sometimes it's the mistakes that
88. 3:00really makes it special.
89. 3:10In previous seasons, we've always seen a
90. 3:11profile shot of the neck, and you see
91. 3:13little goosebumps, and I have a little
92. 3:15shiver sound that we created God way
93. 3:18back in season 2 that sort of signifies
94. 3:20that Will's about to sort of go into
95. 3:23some sort of like other realm. Funny
96. 3:25enough, it probably was like a like a
97. 3:27hiss of some sort, like a snake hiss or
98. 3:29a like a hiss from a goose.
99. 3:31They're here.
100. 3:42This is a huge crane shot moving in on a
101. 3:45kid. So, and these are non-actors. None
102. 3:47of these kids were prepared to have a
103. 3:50massive close-up, but especially the
104. 3:51girl, that giant crane push-in, she
105. 3:54bravely raised her hands and said she
106. 3:57was willing to do it, and she nailed it.
107. 4:00She nailed it She nailed it every time.
108. 4:01So, I told her she should get into
109. 4:02acting because that would intimidate the
110. 4:05vast majority of people. It was really
111. 4:07fun to be able to like spend time for
112. 4:08for once kind of being the older end of
113. 4:12the cast.
114. 4:14Like how we were with Joe, Kerry, and
115. 4:17Charlie, and Natalia. The best way to
116. 4:19work with kids is you you treat them
117. 4:21respectfully. Our AD would say, "Hey,
118. 4:24who wants to scream?" And they all raise
119. 4:26their hands, and then we would go around
120. 4:27and say, "You scream, you scream, you
121. 4:29scream." until we found the best
122. 4:30screamer. And then we would put them in
123. 4:32a close-up.
124. 4:43Matt and Ross are really, really great
125. 4:45at building tension. They're really
126. 4:47great at letting sound and music sort of
127. 4:49breathe.
128. 4:54In real life, lights really don't make a
129. 4:57whole lot of noise. They don't really
130. 4:58make all those sounds, but the idea was
131. 5:00to sort of orchestrate these lights
132. 5:02flickering, amp up the uh-oh,
133. 5:04something's about to happen factor. Our
134. 5:07gaffer and our cinematographer are
135. 5:08masters of flickering lights. One of the
136. 5:11things that we've kind of had to dial in
137. 5:13over the years to have the lights
138. 5:15flicker in a way that's eerie and and
139. 5:17very Stranger Things, but isn't
140. 5:18annoying. Just figuring out exactly how
141. 5:21much you want the lights to dim. There's
142. 5:23an art to it.
143. 5:24>> Well, I will say though, this did get
144. 5:25annoying because we were out there for
145. 5:27like 2 weeks, and the lights were just
146. 5:29flickering the entire time we were
147. 5:31filming.
148. 5:33You know, we started off with just
149. 5:34hearing bangs. The bangs were pretty
150. 5:36thuddy and sort of distant, and then the
151. 5:38bangs started getting a little bit
152. 5:40louder, and then I started introducing a
153. 5:42little bit of the Demogorgon vocal. So,
154. 5:44the bangs get a little bit more
155. 5:45frequent. It's just the idea of building
156. 5:47up this tension. Because this is a real
157. 5:49sound stage that needed to be filled, I
158. 5:51know we dressed hundreds of military
159. 5:53soldiers. This is a series of multiple
160. 5:56days in a row, so sometimes actors can't
161. 5:58return, sometimes they don't come back.
162. 5:59So, there's hundreds of soldiers dressed
163. 6:02for the scene.
164. 6:06This shot is something that we planned
165. 6:09very quickly. The pose that the
166. 6:10Demogorgon does, we made sure it was in
167. 6:13the previs and then all of the temps.
168. 6:15>> Luckily, these actors are they're really
169. 6:17game. I mean, we will show them previs
170. 6:19sometimes.
171. 6:20>> Yeah, we previs'd this for
172. 6:22>> [laughter]
173. 6:22>> Is that what they sounded like? We do
174. 6:24temporary animation just even before
175. 6:27shooting just so that everybody has an
176. 6:28idea of what's going to be happening.
177. 6:30You know, the cameraman could shoot
178. 6:31exactly the right kind of frame so that
179. 6:33when we put in the the final animated
180. 6:35piece, it really feels like this is what
181. 6:38it's supposed TO LOOK LIKE.
182. 6:45WE ACTUALLY HAD THREE PEOPLE ON THE SET
183. 6:47in unitards with their faces covered so
184. 6:49that nobody looked at their faces, and
185. 6:51they had tennis balls on their heads so
186. 6:53that people knew the height of the
187. 6:55Demogorgon. Sometimes we'll do tricks,
188. 6:58we'll play sound for them. So, we'll
189. 6:59play Demogorgon roars, we'll play
190. 7:01gunfire.
191. 7:11The roar is sort of combination of like
192. 7:13you take dry ice and you sort of like
193. 7:14squeal it across metal. There's a lion
194. 7:16roar in there. Sometimes I would use
195. 7:19baby cries, recording that stuff,
196. 7:21stretching it, and then maybe only
197. 7:23taking the middle of it or the front
198. 7:25part of it, but then you attach it to
199. 7:26the dry ice squeal, and then you kind of
200. 7:29like you just sort of it just these
201. 7:30building blocks, right? Stunt rehearsals
202. 7:33started 6 weeks before we started
203. 7:35shooting. They had to plan out every
204. 7:36second of every throw, every time the
205. 7:39Demogorgon runs from one place to
206. 7:41another. We had to really know exactly
207. 7:44where he was going to be. They mix in
208. 7:46motion capture wherever they can, but so
209. 7:48much of it is has to be timed to what
210. 7:51the stunt people and the actors did on
211. 7:53the set. So, someone's being thrown,
212. 7:55that's a real person being thrown
213. 7:57across, and we have to kind of meet the
214. 8:00animation where the stunt guy gets
215. 8:02thrown to the ground so that it feels
216. 8:04natural. No!
217. 8:08This is our demo vision. We just put
218. 8:11a camera on a drone, and then the drone
219. 8:13guys were really amazing at giving the
220. 8:16drone this like up and down feel as if
221. 8:19it is the Demogorgon galloping. Does the
222. 8:21Demogorgon gallop?
223. 8:22>> Yeah. We figured out kind of what the
224. 8:24gallop would look like, and the drone
225. 8:26would fly down the street. We used that
226. 8:28as our base, and we put in all of the
227. 8:29vines and the spores and the weird demo
228. 8:32vision look to it.
229. 8:36The sonic idea around this was to sort
230. 8:38of give the audience or the viewer an
231. 8:40idea of like going into Will's mind, in
232. 8:43essence going into the Demogorgon's
233. 8:45mind, the galloping of the Demogorgon.
234. 8:48You can hear their breathing.
235. 8:49>> All the Demogorgon stuff this year is so
236. 8:52cool because they really like honed in
237. 8:55on the like sound of the Demogorgon.
238. 8:57Like it's like snarling. It really does
239. 8:59feel real. Like all of them feel very
240. 9:01like real, wild, you know, animals
241. 9:04almost. I have this library of seals.
242. 9:07The interesting thing about making
243. 9:09monster sounds, you got to try to have a
244. 9:11hook. My hook was sort of try to take
245. 9:13these seal sounds and put them in to the
246. 9:17Demogorgons. Sometimes just like that
247. 9:19sound just works. For the creation of
248. 9:21this, we were inspired by Evil Dead,
249. 9:23Evil Dead 2, which brilliant by Sam
250. 9:25Raimi, just in terms of the energy of
251. 9:27the evil just rushing through the woods.
252. 9:30Um, we wanted it sort of get that energy
253. 9:32and rush and excitement anytime we cut
254. 9:35Will's vision.
255. 9:36There he is. Ah.
256. 9:41Anytime you're seeing a rift opening, we
257. 9:42just have lights that we just turn make
258. 9:45them glow red. So, again, now you have
259. 9:47actors just imagining that the ground is
260. 9:49opening up or the roof of the tunnel is
261. 9:51opening up behind them, but it really
262. 9:52was just a tube, a red tube that just
263. 9:54turned on bright, and you just had to
264. 9:56use your imagination. They really did
265. 9:58build these tunnels. These are almost
266. 10:00entirely practical, but they had a whole
267. 10:02kind of Lego set of pieces that we could
268. 10:05reconfigure so that people could run,
269. 10:07you know, whatever distance they needed
270. 10:08to run and go around corners. How hard
271. 10:11is it to run in that tunnel? Pretty
272. 10:12challenging. And it was very slippery
273. 10:14cuz it's especially like stopping at
274. 10:15that moment. And like with the rift
275. 10:17opening, like having the right eye line
276. 10:19and knowing where to look at was
277. 10:21interesting. I'm going to say
278. 10:22challenging. It was just interesting. I
279. 10:23was able to sort of introduce the rift
280. 10:26the rift sound, which is the sort of
281. 10:27like high moan moaning cry.
282. 10:32And then the low end of that sound is
283. 10:34sort of this undulating churning sound.
284. 10:37Again, there's a lot of backgrounds in
285. 10:39in in some of these scenes where it's
286. 10:41insects and it's crickets and it's like
287. 10:43cicadas, but they're pitched down two or
288. 10:46three octaves and then they're reversed
289. 10:48and then they're resampled and that and
290. 10:50that becomes a layer of what the upside
291. 10:51down could be.
292. 10:54Okay, you don't have to be scared, but
293. 10:55it's like how scared am I? Because you
294. 10:57don't want to get too scared and then
295. 10:58there's another moment and you're like,
296. 11:00oh, you have to know how to gauge that
297. 11:01meter. Totally. Keeping the composure
298. 11:03for the kids at the same time. I
299. 11:04couldn't BE LIKE,
300. 11:05>> [screaming]
301. 11:05>> OH MY GOD!
302. 11:06AND the kids are like, oh, he's actually
303. 11:08really scared, you know, so it's it's a
304. 11:09balance. Well, you did a great.
305. 11:12Hey. Thanks. That's who Lucas is. He's
306. 11:14resilient. He's a He's a soldier. Going
307. 11:17into the season, he he has that mindset.
308. 11:20He's ready for any battle that is to
309. 11:22come.
310. 11:29When we first read the scene, it was an
311. 11:32undetermined number of Demogorgons and
312. 11:35we kind of kept turning it down and we
313. 11:37ended up with, you know what? Three
314. 11:38Demogorgons can do a lot of damage. This
315. 11:41is one of my favorite shots. I love this
316. 11:43shot with the demos. It was actually
317. 11:44extremely challenging because of the
318. 11:45amount of area that we had had to light.
319. 11:52Okay, one er starts here, right? Moving
320. 11:53to our one er What I think we're
321. 11:55watching right now is that one er Two or
322. 11:58three minutes of a
323. 11:59seamless uh trip through the battle.
324. 12:02What that means is that I have to have a
325. 12:04lot of hair stylists on set. You don't
326. 12:06want to be the recent for the reset of
327. 12:08this scene. If you screw anything up,
328. 12:11like you have to go back and do it all
329. 12:12over again and there's so many things
330. 12:14moving, bodies flying. A lot can go
331. 12:17wrong during during the course of the
332. 12:18day. And yeah, it often does.
333. 12:20>> We shoot it, right? And you you shoot
334. 12:22this whole thing and then between each
335. 12:25shot, you basically have like, you know,
336. 12:2820 hair stylists, makeup artists,
337. 12:31costume people running into reset all
338. 12:34these people to make sure it's perfect
339. 12:37for the next setup.
340. 12:42So, honestly so nice to do it as a one
341. 12:44er cuz you kind of like forget you're
342. 12:45filming. Like you're just in it and
343. 12:47you're running and it all is happening
344. 12:48and you're living the world, so it makes
345. 12:50it like easier to act in it.
346. 12:52>> high stakes of like the scene also went
347. 12:55in with the high stakes of like the
348. 12:57filming of it, which was
349. 12:58>> And you have like these real reactions
350. 13:00to like you're seeing a body fly over
351. 13:01you for the first time and I'm
352. 13:03it's like it feels just so real.
353. 13:05Totally.
354. 13:05>> Which is like what you're going for when
355. 13:07you're filming this. When they throw
356. 13:09these stunt performers, they're in
357. 13:11harnesses that we have to put underneath
358. 13:12the costume. You'll have them harnessed
359. 13:14and then they get pickpointed, which is
360. 13:17a shackle that needs to be clipped in
361. 13:18and sometimes you have to cut holes in
362. 13:20the costume. Our stunt coordinator said
363. 13:22that, you know, he's never done anything
364. 13:23like that cuz generally you're doing a
365. 13:24stunt like that, you're flinging someone
366. 13:26around, you're going to get a close-up
367. 13:27of it, but we wanted it to feel like
368. 13:29there's this all this action happening
369. 13:31around our characters, but we wanted to
370. 13:33sit closely um to their point of view.
371. 13:40THE scene was chaos, the the actual
372. 13:42sonic chaos that you want to have in a
373. 13:45scene like this, but you need to
374. 13:47understand the dialogue, you need to
375. 13:49understand all these different story
376. 13:50beats. You know, you're ducking and
377. 13:51diving, GUNFIRE AND RICOCHETS.
378. 13:57>> [screaming]
379. 13:59>> IF YOU REWIND IT UP TO THE point where
380. 14:02Derek looks up at the guy, there right
381. 14:04here. So, our camera operator went up to
382. 14:07to find this stunt and see this soldier
383. 14:09get flung over the rail and then when
384. 14:10the camera tilts back down, that's a new
385. 14:13shot.
386. 14:13>> we looked for places like that, little
387. 14:15whip pans that we can kind of hide a
388. 14:17seam in. The purists will get mad at us
389. 14:19cuz we had to stitch it together, but
390. 14:21we're working with kids and um heavy
391. 14:23stunts. You don't want to do it too much
392. 14:24cuz you you want the actress to stay um
393. 14:27as in it as possible. So, the longer you
394. 14:28can go, the better.
395. 14:29>> We looked a lot at Children of Men, what
396. 14:32Lubezki and Cuarón did in those big
397. 14:34incredible one ers in there and I think
398. 14:36it just feels very alive. It feels
399. 14:38almost documentary like. It's a very
400. 14:39wide angle lens, which we did here so
401. 14:41that you're able to see a lot of what's
402. 14:43going on even in the deep background. It
403. 14:45also forces our camera operator to be
404. 14:48very close to the characters, which
405. 14:50gives it that documentary film feel and
406. 14:52that feel of like we're in the middle of
407. 14:54middle of a war.
408. 14:55>> Our camera op, Nick Mueller, is
409. 14:56incredible and what makes him such a
410. 14:59great camera op or one of the reasons is
411. 15:01he used to be a dancer when he was
412. 15:03growing up. So, he's very very precise
413. 15:06in his movements and something like this
414. 15:07is very choreographed. And so, he's
415. 15:10almost dancing with the actors. It is
416. 15:12like a bit of a ballet and they're going
417. 15:15off his movements, he's going off their
418. 15:16movements and everyone's sort of working
419. 15:18together.
420. 15:32It was cool to be able to do these
421. 15:34scenes, especially this scene, with
422. 15:37these other kids cuz it almost feels
423. 15:39like we're kind of protecting our
424. 15:40younger characters, our younger selves a
425. 15:43little bit. When we did have kids on
426. 15:45set, we had as few minutes with them as
427. 15:48possible, obviously. We wanted to spend
428. 15:50as much of their time in front of the
429. 15:53camera and not in the hair trailer. So,
430. 15:56with every single one of them, it was
431. 15:58really a little bit of a puzzle to just
432. 16:00get them out on time.
433. 16:11I had one tiny scene in season 4 where I
434. 16:13had to like run for like a second and I
435. 16:16almost puked. And so, when the Duffers
436. 16:18were like, oh, like you're going to be
437. 16:19running and like protecting these kids,
438. 16:21I was like, I got to start running.
439. 16:24I had a trainer
440. 16:26for like stamina. And then the minute we
441. 16:28were done filming this scene, I never
442. 16:30did any physical
443. 16:31exercise again.
444. 16:34The one er was always meant to be the
445. 16:36centerpiece of the scene and and I think
446. 16:38it really it really works. 5 minutes is
447. 16:40not a long time, but if you really look
448. 16:42at the the details of the shots and like
449. 16:44how many angles and lines and like the
450. 16:47Demogorgon coming that way and then like
451. 16:49three military guys getting like killed
452. 16:51in the background or guns being blasted.
453. 16:53Like that's a lot and that's intentional
454. 16:55and that is challenging.
455. 16:56>> The goal of the sequence though is
456. 16:57you're not really thinking about it. You
457. 16:58don't want to be like, I'm showing off
458. 17:00and look what we can do with our one er.
459. 17:02It's it's really just about making the
460. 17:04audience feel immersed in this battle
461. 17:06and feeling like they're there with the
462. 17:07kids and they're there with Mike. We
463. 17:09don't want people thinking about
464. 17:11uh the filmmaking.