Stranger Things

 tribute to the 80s

4 boys - Mike Wheeler - leader - dungeon master - rich

Will Byers - outcast - gay - poor - disappears - lives in the woods - dad left

Dustin Henderson - loud - cowardly - disability 

Lucas Sinclair - black American - picked on for his race

Eleven - Given  a number - sci-fi - mistaken for a boy - shaved head - lab experiment - lacks identity - telekinesis

Johnathan Byers - outcast

Nancy Wheeler - 'good girl' - studious - good grades - corrupted by Steve

Steve Harrington - reputation as a slag

Joyce Byers - overworked - frantic - single mother

Barb - friends with the pretty girl

Hopper - drunk - disgrace of a police chief - dead daughter

Principle - black - in charge in the 80s

Mr Clark - friend of the boys - science teacher

Benny - owns a diner - helps eleven - dies for being caring

Hopper intro scene - 

• follows Wills disappearance
• Starts with a closeup of his dead daughters picture - sellotaped to the wallpaper - precious and old
• He wears his daughters hair bobble
• Camera panned across the house - smoothly panned - alcohol - pills- unfinished food - books (Ernest Hemmingway) - half opened box - keys not hung up - poker chips - bullet - ash tray - tv left on overnight and when he left - sleeping in day clothes on the sofa - woken up by a dog barking (dog also barked at the Demogorgon) - New shot - outside - serene seeming - smokes first thing in the morning to smoke - appreciates natures beauty - showering montage with jump cuts - taller than the shower - inserts tabs, pills and beer into his morning routine - jump cut to find he's in the police (later revealed as the chief) - leaves home leaving the TV on - doesn't tidy or lock door

Plot-

1. something went wrong in Hawkins lab
2. Will Byers is taken by the Demogorgon 
3. Nancy has a nerdy friend but is getting with the popular guy Steve Harrington
4. the 4 boys are bullied
5. diner owner Benny discovers eleven and feeds her but is later killed and she escapes
6. search party assembled to find Will
7. Boys meet eleven in the rain
8. revealed Hoppers daughter (Sarah) died
9. police team are all shown to be essentially useless
10. Joyce gets a phone call of Wills breathing

o-Will and his friends

o-eleven plotline

o-older teens

o-Hopper/police

o-Hawkins events

Stranger Things industry and context

• First aired on july 15th 2016
• 8eps written and directed by Duffer brothers
• Brothers born in 1984 and loved filmmaking from third grade using a h18 video camera
• Wrote and directed many films short and long - all had a horor aspect
• Director M. Night Shyamalan hired them for a series called wayward pines
• Hidden - 2015 first Duffer feature length film - horror - about hiding - similarities about the unknown
• The Idea - came from an interest in experiments and mind control - Project MKUltra - during the cold war a mind control experiment by the CIA - wanted to ground the supernatural to be grounded in science

Lots of merch!!

Fans act as ‘textual poachers’ – taking elements from media texts to create their own culture. The development of the ‘new’ media has accelerated ‘participatory culture’, in which audiences are active and creative participants rather than passive consumers. They create online communities, produce new creative forms, collaborate to solve problems, and shape the flow of media. This generates ‘collective intelligence’ - evident in all the stranger things communities - fandom wear merch and post online about it.

Todorov for stranger things - 

Equilibrium - Kids being kids - playying games

Disruption - demogorgon escaping

New equilibrium in ep 1 - find el - still 4 kids though