Stranger Things' Water Scenes Were An All-Encompassing Pain In The Butt
This post contains spoilers for "Stranger Things" season 4.
Season 4 of "Stranger Things" went to some wild places, especially with a new, tentacled threat looming over an already-doomed Hawkins. This particular season heightened the stakes like never before. This was the first time we saw the kids scattered across states, while adults like Jim Hopper (David Harbour) found themselves trapped in a Russian prison with no hope of escape in sight. With frequent deaths peppered across the course of nine episodes, there was a need to often change locales, which were mostly new and strange to suit the tone of the season — such as the ominous Creel house and the abandoned shack Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) hid in after being suspected of murder.
While these interior sequences were comparatively easier to film, every scene involving water proved to be a menace for the camera and cinematography department. As the position of cinematographer underwent a change with the departure of Tim Ives after season 3, new series cinematographer Caleb Heymann had to come up with fresh strategies to make the water-adjacent scenes practical and effective, while also ensuring the safety of the cast and crew (which mostly included teenage actors). When Heymann first came aboard, he had to balance the definitive, familiar visual language that Ives and the Duffer Brothers had established over the years with his own creative vision that would serve to enhance the merits of the new storyline, and this was challenging in its own right.
Heymann spoke to Filmmaker Magazine about the challenges posed due to a shift in storytelling priorities in the penultimate season, including the inherent problems that the water-work scenes presented (all while the production worked within the confines of the pandemic at the time). Here's what he had to say.
Water scenes are hard to pull off
From a cinematographer's perspective, Hawkins was now more dynamic than ever. Season 4 sees the series' heroes traversing various locations to get to the heart of the season's mystery. Meanwhile, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and the Byers shifting to Lenora Hill allowed more freedom for experimentation with new visual aesthetics and color palettes. However, per Heymann, filming the water scenes in season 4 was a culmination of "all the worst things to deal with happening at the same time," making it a nightmare from a logistical standpoint:
"That water work was like all the worst things to deal with happening at the same time — shooting around water, doing it at night, dealing with stunts and having minors. Episode 6 necessitated building a water tank for certain shots [...] The complicated thing was then matching the topside stuff — shot on two different practical locations in two different seasons around this lake — with what we were doing on stage. The look of it and the different eyelines all had to match up. We had to storyboard that stuff pretty carefully so that we didn't completely drop the ball."
The water tank scenes allowed Heymann and co. to have greater control over the management of these sequences on a micro level, but the disorientation of shooting different shots so haphazardly proved to be jarring. There are tons of underwater or water-adjacent sequences in this season apart from Eleven's sensory-deprivation tank scenes — Steve and the others dive into a lake to approach a gateway to the Upside Down, and Eddie is chased across a river by a bunch of school bullies before tragedy strikes. Thankfully, the behind-the-scenes struggles that Heymann describes do not bleed into the show. All that remains is feverish excitement for what horrors come next.