The Duffer Brothers - Looking Forward, Looking Back

The Duffer
Brothers –
Looking
Forward,
Looking
Back
By Laura Thompson,
Duke School Alumna
It’s early June.
Matt and Ross Duffer, Duke School Class of 1999,
have just returned to Los Angeles after spending
much of the spring in and around Atlanta,
Georgia, filming the second season of their hit
Netflix series Stranger Things.
The past year has been busy and a bit surreal for
the twins—known professionally as the Duffer
Brothers. The first season of their 1980s-inspired
science fiction series gathered a worldwide
following and has collected a bevvy of industry
awards and nominations.
Now the brothers are immersed in editing the
second season’s nine episodes after writing the
scripts and overseeing production days that often
began at 5 or 6 a.m. Visual effects sequences are
being created, and soon sound mixing, coloring,
scoring, and publicity will be in full swing in
advance of the series’ October 27 global release.
But in some ways, not much has changed since
the brothers were kids growing up in Durham.
It’s summer, and the Duffers are making a movie.
‘More than a hobby’
Photo Credit James Minchin/Netflix
Long before the Duffer Brothers introduced
audiences to the residents of Hawkins, Indiana,
and the Upside Down, Matt and Ross told stories
in their own backyard. Their film career began in
the third grade when their parents, Allen Duffer
and Ann Christensen, gave them a Hi8 video
camera for Christmas. Their earliest efforts mostly
starred their stuffed animals. Soon they moved
on to “feature” films of about an hour long,
filmed over the summer with their Duke School
classmate and neighbor Tristan Smith.
“Our summer movies in middle school were all
generally comedies because we didn’t think we
had the chops to make something serious,” said
Ross.
Editing was rudimentary, with the young
filmmakers cutting scenes together in camera.
They played cassette tapes over the action as a
soundtrack.
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“The movies we made—I mean, they were pretty
bad,” said Matt. “And then in seventh grade we
made a movie that wasn’t so bad. That’s when
the parents in our lives were like, ‘oh, OK.’ They
started to see that we were learning what we
were doing and maybe this was actually going to
be more than a hobby.”
While some of their classmates spent summers
away at camp, the Duffers stayed in Durham to
create their movies. They sometimes engaged in
what Matt called “guerrilla filmmaking,” stealing
shots at locations around their hometown—and
at least once getting shut down by management
at a local mall.
Their parents followed up the gift of the camera
with an iMac computer, with which the boys
learned to edit their movies digitally. They made
movies for school projects in addition to their
summer films.
“In high school, when grades were introduced,
[a video] was an instant ‘A,’ we realized,” said
Matt. Their classmates realized it, too, and soon
the brothers were highly sought-after directors at
Jordan High School. “Then it became like every
weekend we were doing a video for somebody.”
In 2001, their short thriller Mad Cell, created
with Tristan, took home top prize in the under-18
category at the “Real to Reel” festival in Shelby,
North Carolina. By now, inspired by some of their
favorite John Carpenter and Stephen Spielberg
movies, they had waded into the horror-suspensescience
fiction genre that has defined much of
their work since.
They also knew they wanted to be professional
storytellers.
‘Extremely determined —
and a little delusional’
After high school, the brothers attended
Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and
Media Arts in Orange, California.
“I remember talking about going to California for
film school back in at least sixth grade,” said Ross.
“So it’s been quite a time that we realized this is
what we want to do.”
“At that point we were just extremely
determined—and a little delusional,” said Matt.
“Which is good. You have to be, a little bit.”
Although filmmaking was an uncommon pastime
among their peers in Durham, the Duffers quickly
realized that was not the case in California.
“You move out here and you realize, ‘Wow, a lot
of people want to do what we want to do,’” said
Matt. “Meaning a lot. So it’s super competitive
and really scary.”
The Duffers studied directing while also writing
and editing film projects. Their senior thesis
film, Eater—about a man-eating, shape-shifting
creature that might foreshadow Stranger Things’
menacing Demogorgon—is full-on horror. Their
parents are credited as executive producers.
“I think our parents always believed that we were
serious,” said Ross. “And we were.”
After leaving the supportive bubble of film school,
however, things got harder.
“We got an agent right out of film school, so
it felt like you’re doing everything right,” said
Ross. “But to actually get paid to tell stories is a
different challenge entirely.”
The brothers worked on some short films, but
success did not come easily. They saw many of
their film school classmates leave the industry
after a few years.
“It’s hard to pay your rent, you can’t order a
Coke with your meal,” said Ross. “It’s a bit of a
struggle.”
“It’s kind of like a clubhouse,” Matt said of the Los
Angeles film industry. “It’s really hard for them to
open the door to you to start getting paid work. It
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was hard for people to take us seriously, especially
when we were first out of college.”
Finding a new direction
Eventually, after trying unsuccessfully to find
work as directors, the Duffers decided to make
their own opportunity. They wrote the script for
a feature-length film, Hidden, about a family
sheltering in an underground bunker after their
town is devastated by a mysterious outbreak.
They pitched it to film studios with the condition
that they themselves would direct it.
“It was kind of the only path available to us—to
write something original and then not let anyone
else have it,” said Matt. “We basically held the
script hostage.”
Warner Bros. purchased Hidden and filmed it in
2012 with the Duffers directing. However, the
studio decided not to give the finished film a wide
release.
Nevertheless, Hidden’s script had caught
the attention of director-producer M. Night
Shyamalan, creator of contemporary thrillers like
The Sixth Sense and Signs. Shyamalan invited the
Duffers to join the writing staff for the Fox scifi
television series Wayward Pines, based on the
novels of Blake Crouch.
“We were really hired to just consult for a few
weeks,” said Ross. “And then a few weeks turned
into like six months of intense work.”
Wayward Pines became a training ground for a
number of young screenwriters and filmmakers
who, like the Duffers, had never worked in
television before.
“It was really just a boot camp for television,
because we didn’t understand television at all,”
said Ross. Being “thrown into the deep end, a little
bit” on a big-budget project for a major network
was an intense experience, “but I remember at
the end of it, Matt and I looked at each other like,
‘We think we can do this on our own now. We
think we can put something together.’”
Ordinary meets extraordinary
Feeling more confident in their abilities and more
secure in their prospects of finding work as writers
in a pinch, the brothers again began to dream of
their own storylines.
“Growing up, we were movie people,” said Matt.
“The genre films from the ’80s—the Spielberg
stuff, the John Carpenter stuff—particularly in
high school we became obsessed with some
of the horror films from the ’80s. So we started
talking about what a long-form version of those
movies would feel like. And we got excited about
that.”
The idea that eventually grew into Stranger
Things began with a single script. The Duffers
drafted a pilot episode with a rough outline for an
eight-hour, single-season series. Recognizing that
the television industry was trending away from
limited series, they later revised their outline into
a story that could sustain multiple seasons. They
began to pitch the series to studios.
“It was not an easy sell,” said Matt. More than a
dozen studios passed on the project in a week
of pitches. “We came away from the first week
feeling like this was not going to work.”
“It was hard. We were very inexperienced. We
didn’t have a track record. The one movie we had
was dumped by its studio. Our producers had
never done television before. It was an ensemble
of kids, but it wasn’t for kids. These executives are
looking for reasons to say no, and we had about
10 to 20 reasons for them to say no.”
When the brothers heard that the online video
streaming service Netflix might be interested in
their series, they brushed up their pitch and went
in for a meeting.
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“It’s kind of scary,” said Matt. “They don’t give a
lot of reaction in the room, so we actually came
out of that pitch having no idea.”
But Netflix called the following day with an offer
to make the full first season. “We just were beyond
ecstatic when we got that phone call,” said Matt.
Stand By Me had such an impact on us. That’s why
the Spielberg stuff and Stephen King stuff had an
impact on us, because it felt like they were stories
about us and our friends.”
Despite the nostalgia factor, 1980s film buffs are
just one part of the show’s fan base.
Stranger Things, a tapestry of 1983 suburban
childhood threaded with otherworldly creatures,
supernatural power and Cold War-tinged
government conspiracy, clearly showcases the
Duffers’ cinematic influences.
“The meeting of the ordinary and the extraordinary
is our favorite thing
in the world,”
said Ross. “When
you’re a kid in the
suburbs of North
Carolina, when
you see movies
about kids in the
suburbs going on
these extraordinary
adventures, that
just really opened
our minds and
excited us because
we’re like, ‘oh
my God, my life could be amazing.’ You start
daydreaming about finding that treasure map in
the attic or whatnot.”
When Netflix released the first season of Stranger
Things in July 2016, early reviewers were quick to
point out homages to films like E.T.: The Extra-
Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind
and Firestarter. For the Duffers, the story also
echoes real life.
“People go, oh, when we have the kids walking
down train tracks, we’re referencing Stand By
Me,” said Matt. “Which, yes, but we also walked
down train tracks with our friends. That’s why
“What was really nice and surprising was that it
found an audience way beyond that, especially
younger audiences who did not even know
those films, who did not grow up on them, that it
worked for them” said Matt. “And it worked for
even older people who don’t have a fondness for
those films. You don’t have to have those films as
reference to enjoy
the show. And that
was always our
hope.”
With the show’s
rapid success,
Netflix confirmed
a second season
of Stranger Things
within weeks of
the first season’s
Photo Credit James Minchin/Netflix
On the set of Stranger Things, Season 1
release.
“We were just
hoping some people were going to watch it
and we could keep telling this story,” said Ross.
“Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine
what was going to happen with it.”
“It’s funny—when you’re in the middle of making
the show, it’s just this little family and we all
thought we were making something cool that we
were excited to show people. You sort of forget
that you’re making this for a wide audience until
suddenly it goes out there in the world. All eight
episodes dropped, and then suddenly people are
binging it. It was a really sort of surreal experience
as the audience grew and the word of mouth
spread.”
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Since then, the Duffers have been immersed in
expanding the story, taking their characters to
new places and trying to improve on their own
work.
“It’s not like you watch season one and you’re
like ‘Wow, we knocked that out of the park,’”
said Matt. “Even when we first finished it, you
basically just see everything that’s wrong with it.
The good thing about being successful is you get
another chance at bat, and the hope is that you
do it better.”
said Matt. “It’s starting to happen. You get the
kernel of an idea—wouldn’t this be cool, wouldn’t
this be interesting, wouldn’t this type of a world or
concept or setting lend itself to a cool story? And
then you just kind of dream about it. Eventually
we’ll sit down together and start hashing out
what it would look like.”
“But that’s so far off right now because Stranger
Things is our lives—it’s our weekends, it’s often
our nights. So you don’t have a lot of time to think
about other things.”
The Duffers estimate they have story ideas to fill
at least four seasons. For now, though, they are
focused on season two.
“We really just try
to do what we did
first season, which
is block everything
out and all the
noise and just try
to focus on telling
a story we thought
was cool and put
everything into it,”
said Ross. “I don’t
think we’re going
to keep doing this
if we think we’ve
nailed it. I think the
hope is that we can
keep doing it better and better.”
Looking forward, looking back
The process of writing, directing and producing
an original story can be all consuming, but the
Duffers still want to make room for the kind
of spontaneity,
excitement and
wonder that first
drew them to
filmmaking.
“I think there’s
a sense of fun
where it’s not
overly planned,
where there’s an
opportunity to
surprise yourself
Photo Credit James Minchin/Netflix
On the set of Stranger Things, Season 1
every day and
to try to have as
much fun as we can
making it,” said
Ross. “That’s what it was when we were making
those movies back in middle school and high
school.”
The success of Stranger Things has opened doors
for the Duffers to continue expanding their career
possibilities. Offers to direct other projects have
started coming in, and the brothers are also
thinking about new stories they want to create
themselves.
“You just start to daydream about other ideas,”
The world of Stranger Things draws a number of
details from the Duffers’ early life. Viewers familiar
with the brothers’ hometown will notice that the
fictional Hawkins bears some resemblance to
Durham. The Byers family, for example, lives near
the corner of Cornwallis and Kerley roads, a reallife
intersection not far from Duke School and
from the brothers’ childhood home.
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“I like that we actually ended up shooting down
in Atlanta because a lot of the landscape, a lot of
the neighborhoods—it looks like where we grew
up,” said Matt. “So it makes it feel more personal,
in a way. The woods look like the woods we grew
up with.”
The show’s 1980s horror-film atmosphere
and predominantly school-aged cast further
underscores the connection to the brothers’
childhood.
“I think that’s why the show’s been so fun for us
and so much easier for us to write than other
things, because so much of it is so personal,”
said Matt. “The first thing we wrote was the kids
playing Dungeons & Dragons [in episode one],
and it just wrote itself in like 10 minutes. It was
so much fun because we grew up playing fantasy
games with our friends.”
(A second Dungeons & Dragons scene in season
one’s final episode includes a shout out to the
brothers’ early filmmaking partner Tristan Smith,
as the characters complete a mission for “King
Tristan.”)
Minor characters and locations in the Duffer
Brothers productions often take the names of
people and places the brothers know. In their
feature film Hidden, the young protagonist Zoe
wears a maroon jacket featuring her school’s
dragon mascot—a reference to Duke School. The
Duffers attended Duke School from kindergarten
through eighth grade.
“It’s interesting to think about if any of this
would have happened without Duke School, just
because it’s a place that allowed you to explore
your interests and really use your imagination,”
said Ross. “Obviously a lot of it came from our
parents—our dad’s a movie buff, and they’re both
so supportive of this—but certainly Duke School,
I’m sure, helped lead to this.”
Filmmaking is essentially “doing something
creative with a group of people, which is basically
what Duke School trained us to be able to do,”
said Matt. He also recalled one of his teachers
telling him he could do and be whatever he
wanted.
“That always stuck with me,” he said. “I have
this dream, and I want to be a director, and this
teacher is telling me that I can actually do that.
And I think it’s important to hear that when you’re
a kid.”
Wherever their future leads them, the brothers
continue to be driven by their backyard filmmaking
roots. Above all, they said, they hope to continue
doing what they have done since they were in the
third grade—telling stories that excite them.
“It’s so much work that you have to have fun
doing it, or else why are you doing it?” said Matt.
“Sometimes you forget though, and then you
take a step back and take it in and you’re like,
OK, we’re basically a bunch of children playing
with expensive toys. And all these actors, all these
kids, everyone—it’s just make believe. It’s sort of
silly in a way.”
“But, you know, it’s been a lot of fun.”
Laura Thompson ’98, attended Duke
School from second through eighth
grade. She began her journalism career
as a writer and co-editor for the Middle
School newspaper, “The Dragon’s
Roar.” She is now a writer and graphic
designer living in northern Virginia.
In 2001, Matt, Ross and their friend
Tristan Smith, made a short film, the Smuffer
Brothers, and entered it in a film festival in Shelby,
NC. Laura, an aspiring journalist at that time, saw the
potential for a “hometown boys make good” feature, so she
traveled to the film’s showing and awards ceremony. Not
only did the film win first place in its division, but Laura’s
article also won a national youth journalism award. Now, 16
years later, Duke School wanted to rekindle this magic by
having Laura—once again, write a feature story about her
Duke School friends!
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