The Duffer Brothers - Looking Forward, Looking Back

“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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