A year after the premiere of Stranger Things, the Duffer Brothers returned to their alma mater to give a masterclass talk to aspiring filmmakers based on their experiences as fresh-faced showrunners of one of Netflix's biggest hits.
Ross and Matt Duffer graduated from Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts in 2007. They made shorts and independent projects until they eventually landed spots as staff writers on Wayward Pines. Then came Stranger Things, and we're still enjoying adventures in Hawkins today.
Though their talk is from 2017, there is still some great advice here, so let's dive in.
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Stop Chasing Trends
The Duffer Brothers learned the hard way that trying to please the industry and follow the hot new thing isn't always the best approach.
"By thinking about the business aspect of it and what the marketplace needed—what was the hot new trend? What's selling? What's working? What's not?" Matt Duffer said. "And we didn't—I feel like that was kind of the—it was like a leash or something. It was preventing us from doing good work. And so it was only when I stopped thinking about the business—it can be really deadly, I think, looking at Variety and Hollywood Reporter and Deadline every day, even though I do it. I feel like there's something a little toxic about it."
This advice means even more in today's industry. The pressure to chase trends has intensified, and now we have to deal with algorithms and analysts (ugh). But that approach usually leads to derivative work that arrives after the trend has already peaked.
For the Duffers, the breakthrough happened when they stopped writing what they thought people wanted. They wrote what they wanted to see, even if it was a period horror series that focused on kids. Admittedly, a hard sell, but there was obviously an audience for it.
The advice connects to a bigger idea about finding your voice as a screenwriter. The marketplace changes constantly. What executives want this year won't be what they want next year. It could be killer nuns one month and faith-based animation the next.
But a script that comes from your creative passion and what you're really interested in will eventually interest someone else. You just have to find that audience.
Focus on Writing That Actually Works
Don't try to write the great American screenplay on your first attempt. That means your first project doesn't have to be perfect or a masterpiece. Just get the thing on the page. I've worked with plenty of writers who get stymied when the thing isn't the best possible version, or a draft doesn't go the way they want—and they get stuck.
"We're not writers. We don't see ourselves as writers, and you're trying to write this—it's almost like you're thinking, you're trying to write this great movie, this great novel, and you're trying to be so fancy about it, and that that should not be your first goal," Ross Duffer said.
Their advice?
"The first goal, and it's actually way harder than it seems, is just to write something that works. Just works at all on any level, because that was our biggest struggle in there, was just—we're trying to be too fancy."
Their first script that actually functioned came from a simple premise that was almost more of an exercise.
"This guy is going to wake up in the morning, and he's going to realize that he has 12 hours to live," Ross Duffer said. "And it was just a little exercise for us, which is that there's automatic tension in every scene when we know this guy's gonna die. And that was the first script that we wrote that was like, 'Okay, maybe this is working a little bit. It's at least moving forward. And that's the script that led us to our first agent."
Understanding how to develop compelling screenwriting concepts (and stick with them) starts with finding ideas that create inherent dramatic tension.
Stranger Things 2 Credit: Netflix
Getting Knocked Down Is Part of the Process
Rejection feels personal. It sucks. We know. Ross Duffer said bluntly that every filmmaker will fail. It's inevitable.
"When you get rejected, or something doesn't work, it can feel very personal," he said. "I think that's the hardest thing is just getting knocked down and standing back up again and putting yourself out there over and over. And I think that's a big difference between people who make it and who don't, is that the ones that love it so much that they can't imagine doing anything else. That's why when they get knocked down, they can get back up."
This can happen at any level, as he pointed out.
"Whether it's people not liking a movie you make that you spend two years of life on, or it's even, 'Oh, I made this short film for class,' and it gets knocked down, it doesn't matter. Hurts every time, right? And you have to just go, 'Okay, what can I learn from this?' And you just keep building yourself back up, and you get up, and you do it again, and it's hard, but you do it."
These days, projects get shelved for tax write-offs. Shows get cancelled after one season despite critical acclaim. Entire departments get eliminated in corporate mergers. You might create something great and still face rejection that has nothing to do with the quality of your work.
Understanding how to handle rejection as a filmmaker is very important to long-term survival in this industry.
People Want Content (But It's Complicated)
The streaming era has fundamentally changed the landscape, as the Duffers well know—though that landscape looks different now than it did in 2017 when they gave this talk.
"What's exciting about that is it gives an opportunity for new voices that maybe didn't have a chance before," Ross Duffer said.
The streaming boom they described has since cooled. There's been consolidation, cancellations, and tightened budgets across the industry. But the fundamental advice still holds. Barriers to distribution have lowered. You can make independent content and find audiences through platforms that didn't exist a generation ago.
So there is space for filmmakers willing to take risks on their own vision.
"All you do need to know is that there's such a need for content out there, and people need it when in their new app in places like Netflix, or Hulu, or now Apple. Every day, it's like someone else is getting into this business, and they all need stuff," he said.
He said they didn't have massive marketing support when Stranger Things launched, and in their case, it relieved some of the pressure of having to recoup that for the studio.
"We didn't have a $50 million marketing budget when Stranger Things Season 1 came out. They just kind of went out, and they're like, 'I think people will find this.' We're like, 'I hope so!' But you don't know. You don't know. It's scary, but still was like, we had the story we wanted to tell, they let us tell it, and then they're like, 'We think it'll find an audience.'"
The opportunity still exists, even if the path looks different from what it did during peak streaming expansion. What matters is having a story you want to tell and finding a way to tell it well.
