Facing off against the Mind Flayer and Vecna. An excerpt from issue #51 of befores & afters magazine on Stranger Things 5
In an effort to defeat Vecna, the characters stock up on weapons and enter the vast wasteland of the Abyss. Here, they encounter the Mind Flayer creature, which initially appears as the Pain Tree and then transforms into a giant kaiju, before Eleven and Will duel with Vecna. Joyce (Winona Ryder) eventually decapitates Vecna.
This is the action that occurs in the final episode of Stranger Things, which is covered in the latest issue of the magazine.
Earlier, the Pain Tree is shown to be Vecna’s lair where he imprisons a number of the children, including Holly. “A very large practical set was built for the Pain Tree interior,” advises production visual effects supervisor Betsy Paterson. “The inner ring of columns were practical up to about 20ft. There were hollows built into each column for the kids. They were able to climb in through an entrance in the back. The membranes over them were practical builds except for the shots where they form. We devised a rig based on a snorkel mouthpiece for their mouths. Those were covered with CG vines. Originally, the thought was to see out into the Abyss through the columns, but we realized that would have been too distracting and too bright. So we added an outer ring of CG columns, and lots of stringy membrane in between. That gave us additional elements to add motion to once the creature is moving around. There was also a CG sand layer that bounced with the creature’s steps.”
For shots of Vecna strung up in the Paint Tree and then descending via the use of his vines, production was able to accomplish the plates practically. “Those shots were completely based on the actor’s performance,” says Paterson. “He had a wire lowering him down, and some additional stabilizing lines. We used one of the shots as a real hero moment for the way the vines detach from his spine. That’s really the only time you see it, but we spent a lot of time designing how it worked.”
Before the battles against the Mind Flayer and Vecna commence, the characters are shown trudging through the Abyss landscape. A real-world location in New Mexico called Plaza Blanca served as the reference for the Abyss. However, the area was protected and no shooting at the location could occur. “However, we were able to scan and collect texture photography,” notes Paterson. “The DP was also concerned about shooting outdoors with changing light. The canyon walls led to less than ideal changing shadows. For a while we discussed shooting in a volume, and even started heading down that road. It would have solved the lighting issues, but it meant finishing the virtual environment much earlier than we would like.”
“The Duffers also felt that the shooting style would feel unnatural with such a short runway for them to walk on,” adds Paterson. “In the end, we chose to shoot outdoors in a quarry with a wall of bluescreen. The art department dressed the ground in a very long area for the walk, and we had the actors walk in the opposite direction after lunch when the light direction changed sides. That ground plane and set-dressed rocks were scanned and Weta was able to combine that with the scans from New Mexico to create a much larger area for our scenes to take place. We still had quite a bit of tweaking to do to get all the lighting to match up. Wētā FX created a fully adjustable cloud lighting rig so that we could easily tweak the CG sky and environment lighting to feel consistent with the foreground plates.”
The Pain Tree/Mind Flayer was designed as a single model with two modes, sets out Paterson. “It was important to the story that we believe it is a stationary structure at the start, but since we needed to see it come to life, its limbs and body needed to be consistent from one state to the next. Michael Maher handled the initial designs and concepts. The design continued changing and growing during the build phase with Wētā FX, as we saw what worked with the unfurling action. A layer of vines over the dormant phase helped it to feel as though it had been planted in the ground for a long time. That also gave us fun elements to rip and sway as it came to life. Another important aspect was that we had to believe that its body was large enough to have Vecna’s chamber inside of it.”
To help visualize the creature on set, production utilized Wētā FX’s augmented reality viewer. This allowed for viewing of a low-resolution version of the creature on an iPad. “That was extremely helpful on the day,” states Paterson. “We also had a lightweight column built that could easily be moved round on set to approximate a leg. This gave the actors an idea of what they needed to dodge around during the chase. Constant viewing of the previs also helped!”
A few key moments of the fight against the Mind Flayer involved special effects work, including where the giant creature’s legs slammed to the ground. “Special effects had dust mortars set in the ground for the actors to dodge around,” notes Paterson. “Wētā FX added quite a bit of VFX dirt and ground interaction as well so that we really felt the ground displacement. Special effects also created an overhead array of balloons filled with slime for the guys to stab so that the slime that landed on them could be practical. Meanwhile, none of the flamethrower elements in the final battle are practical, but we shot a great deal of practical reference and a few fully practical flamethrower shots for the Mac-Z battle in episode 4.”
For scenes of Eleven fighting Vecna, these were largely orchestrated by the stunt team. A few face replacements and speed manipulations were required, but Paterson notes that most of the imagery was practical—“There are some CG body patches to replace the complex rigs that were needed for some of those moves though!,” she says.
Eventually, both the Mind Flayer and Vecna are defeated. Joyce’s decapitation of Vecna is the final blow. The scene was filmed in a couple of passes, as Paterson describes. “The most important layer was Jamie rigged into position against a cut-off spike, so we could get the emotional intensity of the scene, with Winona just starting to lift the axe, and Jamie giving us his facial performance for the death. Then Jamie stepped out and special effects gave us a block that could be chopped into with full force, going deeper with each hit. Wētā FX was able to map Jamie’s performance onto our CG Vecna, so that the CG body could react to the practical axe.”
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