I worked on the set of Stranger Things for one day | Journal

My tell-all story!

In 2021, I was a senior at a small Catholic college in Southern California. I knew I wanted to make movies but I didn’t know exactly how to get in to the business. At some point it came up that my good friend Jacob’s dad, a dolly grip, was working on season 4 of Stranger Things in Atlanta, GA (you’ll remember Jacob from his two part review of Whiplash last year).

My heart soared. A personal connection to one of the biggest TV productions of all time?! I was a made man!

Jacob’s dad assured us that he could get us jobs as production assistant on a needs basis. (A production assistant, or “PA,” is the basic grunt on set. The guy who gets coffee for people and yells “quiet on the set!” right before filming starts.) Jacob and I made plans. Right after graduating in May, we drove from Southern CA to Georgia in three and a half days. We explored Atlanta and vibed hard.

So now it’s June, and Jacob receives word that he’ll begin working on ST. Congrats man! I’m sure my time will come. All’s well. June goes by. July goes by. I have a lot of free time, so I watch a lot of movies and I start writing lots of notes for a movie idea I had (an idea which I’m now writing and publishing in monthly installments.)

It’s now mid-July, and I finally get the news that I’ll be working on the show! I wish I’d saved the call sheet with my name on it. It was so cool seeing the names of the directors, writers, and cast at the top of the call sheet and then scrolling down and seeing my name too. I show up at the crack of dawn, like I’m supposed to. It was a day of shooting at Hawkins High School.

I should now back up and say that I had not seen Stranger Things at this point.

I guess I’d seen bits and pieces here and there, and I knew the cast members and characters by name, but I hadn’t sat down and watched a full episode of the show that I was now working on set for. (I had lots more free time after my first day on set, and I caught up on the show then.)

The day was chaotic. There were hundred of people milling around, and this is the first time I’ve ever been on a profession film shoot. I eventually found the key PA, who I’d be reporting to for that day. She, like everyone else I talked to, was super nonchalant about everything. “Oh, just grab some breakfast and hang out somewhere. We’ll let you know when we need you. We won’t be filming for another few hours.” I got breakfast and I hung out.

Jacob calls: “hey do you want to meet Millie Bobbie Brown?” She was super nice and gave me a hug on meeting me. Apparently she loves getting to know everyone on set, especially the PAs. I don’t even think she was filming that day, she just wanted to hang out. Also, good for her for not being freaked out by COVID; this was 2021 and everyone else in CA and Atlanta still was.

The first shot of the day was when Steve and Robin drive to school in episode 1, which you can see here at the 1:33 mark. I was in this building here. I’m pretty sure all I did was hold the door open for the group of kids walking out of the building and into the scene. I remember seeing Joe Keery chilling on his own in a corner of the building in between takes. I thought about saying something to him but I ended up leaving him alone. Again, I knew vaguely who he was but I didn’t want to out myself and say something dumb, and I also just wanted to leave him alone cause he obviously wanted space.

After that, we broke off into smaller groups for little shot and inserts. The next setup I was a part of was from Eddie’s introduction scene. Specifically just this insert shot of Mike and Dustin putting their lunch trays down on the table:

It was a pretty low-stakes setup, which I appreciated. I was at the back door of the cafeteria and my only task was to bring the very loud AC hose out of the cafeteria when camera was rolling and bring it back in when camera wasn’t rolling. I don’t even think Finn Wolfhard and Gaten Matarazzo were here during this shot, I think it was body doubles.

My memory starts to get fuzzy around here. I think we broke for lunch. In the afternoon we did a shot where Max is getting on the bus and briefly talks to Ms. Kelly, the school counselor. Being July in Atlanta, it was blazing hot, so a few of the PAs were chosen to hold umbrellas over the actresses in between takes. I was the one holding the umbrella for Regina Ting Chen (Ms. Kelly). She was really sweet and genuinely seemed interested in hearing about how my day was going.

Either there are huge gaps in my memory (very likely), or there were huge gaps between filming each scene (probably also true). The next scene I remember was some nighttime exterior stuff. Lucas is with the basketball team and Mike and Dustin are with the other D&D guys. There was a food truck on set and I took people’s orders and got them their food. The one order I remember is E’Lon getting fried green tomatoes (E’Lon is awesome, we love E’Lon).

The one person on set I really wanted to talk to was the script supervisor. At the time, I thought that the pipeline of “PA→script supervisor→writer” was a viable one for me. As it turned out, this very script supervisor wrote a script and sold it that year. I wasn’t able to get a chance to talk to her cause she was busy talking to the aforementioned Wolfhard and Matarazzo. From the little conversation I overheard, they were talking about how different season 4 was from season 1, where they didn’t have craft services (24/7 snacks on set) or a video village (a tent with monitors for immediate playback of shots for directors/producers/actors). It sounded to me like Matarazzo was playfully lamenting how big the show had gotten, but maybe that was just me.

By this point it was getting late, but we still had shots to get. So far this was only stuff from episode 1, but the last shot of the day was from much later in the season (I can’t find a clip so I don’t remember which episode). It’s when Max is in the wrecked Snowball gym and is being suspended up on the wall by Vecna. (Vecna wasn’t on set so I didn’t get to see him, unfortunately.)

And that was my first day! As the new guy, I ended up with “last set” duty, which means staying on set until all the trucks are packed up and headed out, and then confirming the fact with my superiors. I think it was around 2 AM when I finally got off for the day. My day had started at 7 AM, so that’s 17 hours. Such days were common on Stranger Things 4.

I waited to get called back for more days on set.

(I got caught up on Stranger Things.)

I waited more.

And it never happened! I got my one day on set and that was it. Honestly, I kinda knew that’s how it would go. I truly wasn’t needed that day. There were like 10 other PAs and I was the extra extra extra help.

I did meet a few more ST people in the coming weeks. I briefly chatted with Gaten Matarazzo at a screening of a movie that Ross Duffer’s wife directed. You’ll be shocked to find out that Gaten is a very funny, sweet, and chill guy. I also briefly met one of the Duffers at a restaurant. I think it was Ross but I can’t be sure.

When the production moved on location to Arizona, Jacob’s dad went with them and he brought Jacob too. I stayed in Atlanta. Fortunately, one of the contacts I made from my one day on Stranger Things was working on a little Rob Lowe Netflix movie called Dog Gone and was able to get me some days on that production. I have one or two fun stories to tell from that. Maybe I’ll do a similar post to this one in the future. Tease: Rob Lowe is a little diva.

And after the Stranger Things people came back to Atlanta, a bunch of them including Jacob started working on a Vampire Diaries spinoff show called Legacies, and so did I. So I’m not mad or bitter that I only got one day on ST. It was an unforgettable experience and it led me to all the other work I did in my brief stay in Atlanta.

I also got the T shirt and hat that the whole crew received, even for one day of work. Thanks guys!

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This is my first time sharing an extended story like this. If you want more posts like this, let me know in the comments below. Specifically if you want me to spill the tea on the Rob Lowe movie, let me know!