With the its simplistic design and synthesized backing track, the title sequence to Stranger Things took us right back to the Eighties with the speed of a boy on a Raleigh Street Wolf after drinking too much Panda Pop. And now you can get the lowdown on just how they were forged.
Vox has released a video showing exactly how the Netflix original show’s sequence was made by Imaginary Forces, and here are the highlights:
There's a reason it feels so familiar
Why does it seem like I know that font, you may have asked yourself.
Well, the style is set to mimic the studio R/Greenberg Associates from the Seventies and Eighties. They, if you didn't know (and you probably didn't), worked on the titles from Alien, The Dead Zone and the original Ghostbusters.
Michelle Dougherty from Imaginary Forces told Vox: "You want it to feel, original, you want it to feel like that title sequence couldn't work in front of another show."
Retro book covers played a big part
They created the titles first by choosing the font and they looked at old Eighties books and the fonts that were typical at the time.
They chose one called ITC Benguiat, which was designed in 1978 and was used for everything from children’s books to The Smiths' Strangeways, here we come album.
The words were shot by putting a torch behind the image then it was digitally placed together and animated to make the full sequence.
Even the letter shaking was on purpose
This mixture of old technology and new technology made the sequence imperfect, as there is shaking of the letters. Which was of course kept in:
"We referenced some of those inconsistencies, what you call mistakes. We wanted it to have this tactile feel and we wanted it to feel organic and of the time period," says Dougherty.
Combined with the synthesized tune that would become the theme song and this fuzzy, moving title would give it the edgy and sinister vibe that sucked so many of us into each episode.
