The Typography of ‘Stranger Things’
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The show isn't bad, either, but the intro really is a perfect thing. It gives me that weird creepy feeling I got from Stephen King movies on VHS when I was a kid. I feel like the composers and the folks behind the intro should be getting higher billing in the credits. It's so integral to the success of the show.
A lot of it is worn out tropes involving child and "teenage" actors that don't make it any more interesting to watch.
The photography is pretty uninspired and makes very little interesting use of composition, color, perspective, DOF. Sure you get a bone once in a while but most of it is pretty boring.
There is a passable few episodes in there somewhere waiting to be ruthlessly edited out. But really instead of subverting expectations in it's storytelling it hews very closely to the expectations that come with the tropes and genre. That puts a hard ceiling on how good it's ever going to be given that I'm not tuning in for the acting, sets, or photography.
They really are retreading a bunch of 80s tropes; I enjoy it, but I recognize that the kids are rehashing a Spielberg-ian kidventure flick along the lines of Goonies or ET, the teenagers are stuck in a horror flick ala Friday the 13th, and the grownups are in a paranoid government conspiracy movie. Any of it would also fit comfortably into an X Files episode. I like all those things; even while I recognize they're pandering to my inner child. Then again, my girlfriend really likes it, too, and she's young enough to have not grown up on any of these things.
So, I don't know. I like it. It's not high art, but it's definitely fun pop culture, for me.
In my imagination, it starts with the data scientists identifying a gap or opportunity based on people's viewing habits - House of Cards being the prime example; a show by X staring Y in Z genre.
That provides the baseline; queue the writers raised on TV Tropes. I don't think there's an intact trope in the whole show; anything that is primarily subverted has sub-tropes done straight; anything done straight has sub-tropes subverted.
The Marvel series do this the least; the pure Netflix originals do this the most. I'd say maybe you could call it "high craft"? Like Michelangelo versus Picasso.
But, the CEO or somebody from Netflix has actually spelled out in the past that though they're taking risks in making a bunch of their own content, the risk is smaller than it has historically been. They know the taste of their audience (on a nearly individual level) better than any entertainment company in history ever has. And, they extract the value of their viewers directly and without middlemen, unlike almost every other entertainment company in history. So, for them, a successful show is one that brings in X number of new subscribers and keeps them around through multiple seasons...and that X number is smaller than it's ever needed to be.
So, you're right; they are triangulating in on very specific sub-genres and very specific audiences in ways that entertainment companies in the past couldn't afford to do. This is long-tail television production. Stranger Things, while it is a niche market, is actually one of the bigger niche markets they've tapped into, thus far. It's gotten far more buzz than a lot of the other Netflix original programming.
So, they're either getting better at the triangulation (likely) or they got lucky with this particular toss at the dart board of niche programming, or maybe it's a little of both. And, maybe the people making this show happened to be particularly passionate about it, and it shows in the attention to detail; they're having fun with it, and it makes it fun for viewers who like this sort of thing (or, are at least nostalgic about it...I don't read/watch Stephen King novels/movies very frequently as an adult, but loved them as a kid).
I find the quality of the Netflix originals to vary pretty wildly, and I don't get hooked on most of them. But, I enjoyed Stranger Things. It's a fun escapist bit of entertainment. It's no House of Cards, or even Orange is the New Black, in terms of quality, but it delivers very effectively on what it promises.
I wonder how well Stranger Things is doing among viewers who aren't old enough to have grown up surrounded by this stuff? I know many of my friends on facebook are hooked, but mostly the ones really talking about it are around my age. It's an interesting phenomenon, I think; the stuff it is paying homage to and modeled after was mostly targeted at kids and young adults, but the people most excited about it are maybe middle aged. Weird how that happens.
To be fair to the parents, a lot of stuff related to college or jobs is way more competitive hence the push for extracurriculars. They do go a bit overboard though : )
I like how you broke it down by age group vs movies/tropes, something I hadn't considered.
To add to your list, the adults' situations were mirroring much from Jaws (the iconic typewriter scene, the Chief's plodding hunt for the thing), Poltergeist (the mom talking to the room, addressing her child as "Baby"), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (the mom's obsessive behavior w/ the lights).
Though I'm not a huge fan, I thought Winona Rider's performance was incredible. She had that perfect balance of almost-over-the-top motherly worry about her son, yet cognizant and brave enough to not quite hit the level of crazy hysterics.
I really hope there's a 2nd season.
I'm trying to avoid spoiling things for those who haven't seen it, but almost every character became more multi-dimensional and the story progressed in unexpected ways. It took the worn-out tropes and flipped them over. Even your singular use of the word "genre" confuses me. Was there only one genre? It started out as a horror movie and then evolved into some sci-fi secret experiment narrative.
My complaint is not that it doesn't get better it's that it shouldn't have to get better. That's a pacing issue and when a show has enough solid material in it I theorize most pacing issues can be solved with editing and usually by removing extraneous material.
I think the impact that editing can have on how you perceive a story is profound.
Stranger Things felt to me almost entirely like a sequence of tropes borrowed from other movies. From the Freaks & Geeks cast composition, to the Spielberg Sci-Fi, bald blue-eyed psychic child, etc. Just about the only truly original thing was the design of the threat itself, and it was easily the worst part of the show. Sure, it's a "love letter" to the era, but it's just that.
you can't really A/B test your way out of a local maxima, which is why in spite of most Netflix shows being decent, none of them have actually stood out as "good" in my mind.
I'd love to see a day when Netflix premiers a show on the level of Better Call Saul or The Wire.
I don't know, it's just been disappointing even though I marathon all the episodes when they appear.
But the show itself is just meh.
The acting is uniformly bad. Given that it applies to all of the actors, I assume it says more about the directors than the cast. Everyone is too loud and too over the top, all the time, which has the effect of making everything boring. There's no dynamic range in the emotion (except for the mysterious girl, who is pretty great).
I like the story mainly because I enjoy the all the tropes it rehashes. But the dialogue is pedestrian, the pacing is semi-random, and the episodes I've seen so far feel like more of a pastiche of scenes than something tightly polished.
The cinematography is everything I hate about digital film production. It's so easy to color correct every frame that now you're obligated too and everyone does it the exact same way: Crank up the shadows so 90% of the frame is pure solid black (with none of the subtle detail that would still be just perceptible in there if it were film). Get the that's left and kill every color that isn't orange or blue [1].
Cinematographers! You can do amazing things with color today. Stop always doing the same thing!
Still, having said all that, I do enjoy watching it. I think a more experience hand could tighten it into something more spectacular, but it scratches a nostalgic itch that not many other things do.
[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=stranger+things&espv=2&biw=1...
I just really don't agree with your interpretation, but to each their own. Great show all around.
Some examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY1s9SmrQRE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpDn4-Na5co
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egAB2qtVWFQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vsf3zYppP4
But, those are pretty good. I'm aware of the genre, though not super familiar with it, most of it doesn't grab me. SURVIVE doesn't seem to fall into the nostalgia trap; wherein things have to sound exactly like the old thing it is paying homage to. A lot of retro stuff, in many genres (punk, country, rock and roll, metal, etc. it goes on and on), is just annoying and trite retreads of good stuff that happened 20+ years ago.
I'm maybe sounding way more grumpy about it than I actually am, and I'm not specifically criticizing the links you've provided; I'm checking them out now, and mostly liking them. Just rambling, in general, about how retro in the arts can be a trap, and it takes a really strong artist to escape that trap.
So, umm...after that rant: Thanks for the links! I'm checking them out as we speak.
The great thing about electronic music is that anyone can get a setup for cheap and start producing tracks. The terrible thing about electronic music is that anyone can get a setup for cheap and start producing tracks. I have some producer friends (none of them renown), and the approaches taken by those with a musical background and those without are wildly different.
The ones without the background tend to shovel out tracks, wipe their hands, and say, "Look! Easy!" They fail to realize that while their tracks do constitute as a musical piece, they have no idea about any of the composition. They claim their tracks are bangers just like everyone else's, but they're either making new arrangements or missing subtleties on why some tracks are considered great.
All of that was to say that Sturgeon's law is especially prevalent with electronic music. Everyone is just as good as that one world famous producer, and there is nothing difficult about producing electronic music. However, your 100 plays across your 25 tracks on SoundCloud beg to differ.
Their other work is quite good, and available on bandcamp. I've been listening to their stuff pretty much daily lately.
The opening is great. I marathon watched them but still enjoyed seeing opening each time. I agree with OP that it's refreshingly simple. Agree with you the music is like 70's or 80's style mixed with what I'd describe as common, background music for building suspense or interest in what's coming. Visuals for large letters and coloring were neat, too. I want to see more like it.
One of my other recent title sequence favourites is 'Halt and Catch Fire'[1], again set in the 80s, in no small part because of the nod towards Apple's advertising fonts[2].
Stranger Things is one of the best shows I've seen in a while. That 53 seconds is still the best part every time though.
TYPORNOGRAPHY
Porn is graphic, over stimulating and often without class or artistic direction.
Typography is an art. Great typography is subtle, often soothing and harmonious. It's not porn.
I get some earth-porn stuff because we in cities live so removed from nature that it's like BAM, Massive Earth In Your Face.
I don't know, it just feel gross to call good typography porn. Good typography is like an athlete in motion or a perfectly fitted outfit on a beautiful model.
Don't take the complaint personally, I get that it's "a thing".
I think the term reflects exuberant hedonism and/or complete lack of inhibition exhibited by, or in appreciating the said ___-porn activity. In my mind, it's similar to saying "unapologetic ____", but in a positive sense of the word.
He explains not only the motion blur and the film grain, but also things like how color shift when white fades out (it's about different color sensitivity curves in real film).
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/italy/comments/4te9hl/stranger_thin...?
This is my favorite detail - very subtle and authentic looking. I was hoping someone could explain it, thanks for the pointer.
There are tons of artists on Spotify/YouTube for this genre to check out too which is a good thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhO_YjAJq_w
I'm not really getting the excitement. I remember this look from the 80s and it's... a look I remember from the 80s.
The music is half Carpenter and half late 1970s Tangerine Dream with more oscillator detuning than usual - e.g. the score TD did for a William Friedkin movie called Sorcerer.
A few nice quotes about the design direction and a pair of comments at the end with illustrations of the source material with the original cut of Benguait.
Yeah, I know, first world problems.
Really cool typography (also a fantastic show). I know almost nil about the subject, but the title font also reminds me a lot of Friz Quadrata [1], the font famously used by Black Flag, which gives me another kind of 80s nostalgia.