Stranger Things: Opening and Ending the Series' Final Season
The cinematographer of Season 5's first and last chapters breaks down his approach to lighting and shooting a key scene from each episode.
Season 5, Episode 1 — "Chapter One: The Crawl"
The fifth and final season of Stranger Things begins in Hawkins, Indiana, 18 months after the events of Season 4 have ended. The military has taken over the quarantined town and is searching for Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who hides out in the woods at Jim Hopper’s (David Harbour) cabin. The rest of the gang has been scouring the Upside Down for the villain Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) through covert "crawls," but with no progress, their patience is wearing thin.
Late in the season's first episode, "Chapter One: The Crawl," our main group of characters is gathered in the basement of the Squawk Radio building and awaiting news on the latest crawl. The interior radio-tower set was a stage build based on an actual North Carolina radio station from the 1940s, and it fit the bill as a perfect hideout for the Hawkins gang and makeshift base of operations. It was important for it to feel authentically lived-in and grungy. Gaffer Stephen Grum and I worked with set decorator Jess Royal to find the right mix of practicals so that we could motivate a mixed color-temperature palette through tungsten desk lamps, wall sconces and uncorrected fluorescent overheads. Our fixtures team, led by Joshua Earles-Bennett, built our custom "Faux-Flos" in T12 housings containing Cine 5 LED ribbon which we used on many sets including this one. Going with LED over fluorescents gave us the ability not only to dim, but also to control the way the lights would flicker, which would be crucial later in this scene.
As the scene progresses, we push in and center punch Will (Noah Schnapp) as he sees flashes of a Demogorgon’s POV. This moment marks the return of his telepathic connection to the "hive mind," a central theme to this final season. Will was equally central to Season 1, and his return to prominence this season was one of many full-circle elements that writer-directors Matt and Ross Duffer wanted as a thematic bookend to the series.
When testing, I was looking for a unique optical effect that we could use for Will as he enters into the trance. I was introduced to the Center Spot Diopter filters from Schneider, and found that by stacking two different diameters and shaking it in front of the lens, we got the perfect tunnel vision effect that interacted with the practicals on set and allowed us to ramp up the intensity in the middle of the shot.
Intercut with Will’s trance is the Demogorgon POV shots — the first time in the series that we introduce "Demovision." The Duffer Brothers wanted something reminiscent of the energy of the wild POVs in Evil Dead 2, but here, we needed the camera to go low to the ground at up to 30 mph and to be able to turn on a dime. We worked with racing champion FPV drone pilot Blake Sams, who was able to bob and weave the camera dynamically and could even simulate the Demogorgon’s galloping leaps. We used a Sony FX-6 on the FPV drone, which came in handy for certain shots where we needed to rate the camera at 12,800 ISO to shoot dusk for night; this helped us save money on lighting and maximize our dusk-shooting window.
After these Demovision flashes, Will blacks out and collapses to the ground; we used a Bodymount from Doggicam with a Red Komodo to lock into Will’s closeup while the background horizon rolls. Over the course of the season, Will learns to harness his power and to fight back using this connection to the hive mind.
Season 5, Episode 8 — "Chapter Eight: The Right Side Up"
When we get to the finale episode, "Chapter Eight: The Right Side Up," Will’s telepathic powers come into play once again as he takes control of Vecna and delivers the crucial blow. In this scene, our heroes are all playing different roles in attacking the giant, spider-like beast known as the Mind Flayer. They chip away at it from all angles, using blowtorches and spears, while Eleven goes inside the Mind Flayer, where Vecna has 12 abducted kids trapped in rib-like spires.
The "Pain Tree" set was a big challenge, as it was all curving organic shapes, full of sand with an elevated island in the middle, broken up with spikes protruding from the ground and surrounded by 12 huge spires that were built up to 25' high. The sculptors did such inspiring work on this set, and it was finished with incredible attention to detail. With the uneven terrain, we’d be shooting mostly on Technocrane, and we worked with production designer Chris Trujillo and supervising art director Sean Brennan to create hidden breaks in the set, so that we could wild out sections and arm in on the Technocrane.
The Pain Tree is the literal belly of the Mind Flayer beast that’s moving throughout the battle. It wasn’t possible to put the set on a gimbal, but we could sell the movement through shifts in the light coming in from outside. The motivated light on this huge set came from the gaps between the spires. For this more directional light, we used 16 sections of truss on chain motors, each rigged with nine Creamsource Vortex8s around the perimeter of the set. We used pixel mode to animate a dynamic movement that created the feeling of a diffused sun moving around the set. For soft top light, we had 120 Arri SkyPanel S60-Cs space lights rigged on truss in rows of six, allowing us to raise and lower sections to get more flattering light. This approach allowed us to avoid any lights on the floor, and freed us up to shoot multiple cameras for the heavy action sequence ahead.
During our pre-light, we programmed several different types of chases and cross fades so that we could have a number of options on the shoot day to work with depending on what the beast was doing in the battle. We also had several movers that we used with slowly rotating gobos, which helped sell the effect of harder shadows. Once we combined this lighting with some amazing camerawork from A-camera operator Nick Muller, it really felt like the set was alive and moving.
After nearly a year of shooting and over 300 sets, this was our last big one. Seeing it all come together — thanks to the hard work and talented craftsmanship of so many sculptors, painters, rigging grips and more — I felt so lucky to be able to be a part of this awesome team.
Images courtesy of Netflix and the filmmakers.
