M+E Connections

‘Stranger Things’ Creators Tout Technicolor Services

Leading up to the second season release of Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” Technicolor conducted a video interview for journalists featuring the creators of the hit series, Matt and Ross Duffer, to discuss the critical role that color and sound has played in executing their creative vision and bringing the show to life.

The Duffer Brothers explain the collaborative nature of a project with the scope of “Stranger Things” and the impact that color artists like Skip Kimball, Technicolor senior digital intermediate colorist, have on creating the visual signature and identity of “Stranger Things.”

“Skip won us over immediately,” Ross said. “He started talking in a very detailed way about all the different grain that he has. He developed this whole system to emulate this look we wanted to achieve. It’s something that’s very specific to Skip and Technicolor, that he has this technology. The minute we saw it applied to some test footage that we shot, it just blew us away.”

The Duffer brothers also discussed the importance of sound in their storytelling, and they relied on the Technicolor Sound team, which includes Emmy-winning, supervising sound editor Brad North as well as sound re-recording mixers Adam Jenkins and Joe Barnett.

“Sound is very important to us, even in our scripts,” Ross said. “We write-in tons of sound effects. We start thinking about what it should sound like from a very early stage in the process. We’ve had the same mixers, Adam, Joe, and sound designer, Brad for 2 years now and we couldn’t be happier. What they’re able to accomplish in the amount of time they have is absolutely incredible,” Matt added.

Matt explained how they were able to maintain connection to these critical processes.

“We were mixing and coloring right next door, so many times we would go look at the visuals, and then we’d walk 10 feet to the audio mixing room and listen to it.” This close collaboration is important as the vision for the show evolves, characters develop, and the story takes control.

“I remember in season one how the color changed over the course of several months as we were working on it. And the sound, our sound developed,” Matt said. “We’ve all found kind of the voice of the show; it’s that language that we’ve developed with Technicolor specifically.”

To see the video interview with the Duffer brothers, click here.