Director Shawn Levy Peels Back The Curtain On Stranger Things 4's Big Shootout Scene
The following article contains spoilers for "Stranger Things" Season 4.
"Stranger Things" Season 4 is an ambitious piece of television. Viewers can glean this right from the start based on the runtimes of each episode, which are over one hour in length. Given the fact the Season 4 finale is set to have a runtime in excess of two hours, they're not pulling any punches going into the final batch of episodes.
On top of that, there are four intersecting plotlines involving all of the main cast, which sees some battle the otherwordly Vecna while others are tasked with protecting their classmate Eddie (Joe Quinn) from the ire of the townspeople. Of course, when talking about ambition for the most recent season of "Stranger Things," fans have to give props to the incredible set piece featured in Season 4, Episode 4, where there's a shootout in the Byers household, all done in one take.
Known in the industry as a "oner," it's an incredibly intricate sequence requiring many moving parts. As part of Netflix Geeked Week, the cast and crew of "Stranger Things" sat down to discuss Season 4, and even though he couldn't be there in person, director Shawn Levy broke down what had to go into filming such a complex work of art.
Shawn Levy had the idea to make the sequence a oner
Shawn Levy stayed busy between Seasons 3 and 4 of "Stranger Things" as he directed two major motion pictures — "Free Guy" and "The Adam Project." But he's back with "Stranger Things," and he was tasked with directing Season 4, Episode 4, which is mostly known for being the episode that features the sequence of Max (Sadie Sink) running away from Vecna while "Running Up That Hill (Deal With God)" by Kate Bush plays. But that episode also includes an epic action oner where soldiers come guns blazing into the Byers's house.
It's an intense sequence, made all the more serious given the fact it's all done in one take. It's an impressive piece of filmmaking, and as Shawn Levy told Geeked Week, it wasn't envisioned as one take in the original script. He just thought the sequence was so kinetic that it warranted that kind of filmmaking, which the Duffer Brothers were more than happy with. However, there are many moving parts to pulling off a oner, and Levy detailed the complexities of such a process. Levy explained the uphill battle, "On a movie, you take months. You literally take months of computer pre-visualizations and storyboarding and rehearsals and re-choreography ... We're a huge TV show, but we're a TV series. So there was no time for previs, no time for storyboards."
Levy even mentioned how he would act out the scene as every actor involved to show them what they were supposed to do and what it was supposed to look like. He goes on to elaborate, "The whole challenge with a oner is it requires perfect synchronicity between actor action, stunt action, and camera action, so every pan, every tilt, every move of the actor, it needs to be in unison." And, of course, if someone messed up, they'd have to go back to the very beginning. It was no doubt challenging, but the work speaks for itself on the screen.