Stranger Things 4 VFX Shot Took Two Years to Create

The gap between Stranger Things 3 and Stranger Things 4 was nearly three years, leaving fans without their favorite series for quite a while. The biggest reason for the delay was obviously the pandemic, but the extra time actually helped out with the post-production aspects of the series. There was plenty of time to work on some of the most difficult shots, including one that took the better part of two-and-a-half years to complete.

Julien Hery, the VFX supervisor for Stranger Things, recently sat down with Collider to talk about the penultimate season of the beloved Netflix series. Hery opened up about a shot set in the Upside Down that took an incredible amount of time to put together.

“Actually, there’s a fun fact, we started before the pandemic on this show, we started to work on it more than two years ago,” Hery explained. “We actually started to develop a few looks, started to work on the assets before the pandemic. And when it stopped, we kept working on one or two shots. One is a flyover of Hawkins – to follow the bats over Hawkins, and then you land onto the Creel House. And this shot took us almost a year and half or two years of making it happen, changing the animation, and there was plenty of time, so we took like such a long time to develop that shot. So it was pretty cool.”

After waiting three years to see Stranger Things 4, fans are already starting to wonder when the fifth and final installment of the series might arrive.

“It depends who you ask,” co-creator Matt Duffer told  when asked about a release date. “That’s what we’re still figuring out. If you ask our AD, and our line producer, they want more time for production. Our post-production supervisor wants more time for post-production. So it’s going to be a big discussion. How long does everybody get? Here’s the thing, the more you shorten production, the more you shorten post-production, the more things get compromised.”

“It’s just the balance of, ‘Okay, how much are we willing to compromise to get the show out sooner? Is it more important to give everybody the time that they need to get this right, without being indulgent?’ I’m sure we’ll figure out what that line is, but my whole thing was I was never super worried,” he added.

What did you think of Stranger Things 4? Let us know in the comments!