Two Minds are More Creative than One: The Story of the Duffer Brothers

Anybody who has a Netflix account or any sort of social media presences has no doubt heard about Stranger Things. For those of you have escaped the hype of the show, the first season of this Netflix original series follows a group of middle to high school students who are trying to find their friend who has gone missing and end up uncovering government experiments and secrets about another dimension. The show had such a boom of success after the first season, prompting the creation and recent release of the second season, Stranger Things 2. While the show and cast have become incredibly well known, the creative minds behind the show have somewhat less fame.

The Duffer brothers, twins Matt and Ross, are the creative minds behind the concept and creation of this hit series, although their journey wasn’t always this successful. After graduating from Chapman University in North Carolina, the brothers wrote a screenplay that was later bought by Warner Bros. They thought their fate in Hollywood was sealed, until the movie was put on the back burner by everybody but themselves and nothing came of the movie. They tried again by pitching a show inspired by M. Night Shyamalan to Shyamalan himself, who liked it enough to take it one and let the brothers continue writing for the show. But after season one, the brother decided they wanted to created something that was original and truly something they wanted to do. So comes the creation of Stranger Things.

Motivated to create a show that was true to themselves and their style, the Duffer brothers used the nostalgia of their childhood to create a show straight out of the 1980s but adapted to the modern world. They didn’t want to create a show that was reminiscent of the 80s but instead a show that was a reimagination of that era. The finished product of Stranger Things is a unique cultural experience that pulls iconic sound, visual, and image references from the 80s to combine them with the modern age of internet. The Duffer brother understand that internet and TV are becoming the new cinema and worked to create a show that is cinematic in its own right. The result is a show that draws from a multitude of inspirations and genres and intermingles multiple generations to set a new precedent for horror/sci-fi TV series.

As the Lehrer articles discusses, there is a way to learn from failure, and that’s just what the Duffer brothers did. They thought they had made it in Hollywood, and then they didn’t. They continued to write until they made connections. The beginning of their career was extrinsically motivated until they decided they wanted to created something that exemplified their style, and was truly for themselves. Little did they know their intrinsically motivated creation would become the most successful of their works.

Source: http://www.vulture.com/2017/08/the-duffer-brothers-upside-down-journey-to-stranger-things.html