SERIELAND COULISSE - When the first season was released in 2016, the fantastic and terrifying series "Stranger Things" was a huge success.

The spectators take a liking to these kids played by actors of the same age.

For the creators, it was a real challenge to shoot with pre-teens. 

PODCAST

Mischievous kids, terrifying monsters and references to cult films of the 1980s ... This week, in SERIELAND, Clémence Olivier takes you behind the scenes of the series "Stranger Things", the story of a group of children who will do everything to find their friend who has mysteriously disappeared.

When the filming of season 1 of

Stranger Things

 begins in 2015, the main actors are between 11 and 13 years old.

At this age, bodies change rapidly, faces are refined, and boys' voices are transformed.

In life this is not a problem, but when you produce a series it immediately becomes a little more complicated.

Because after filming, which lasts several months, the teams continue with post-production.

This is where we add music, special effects, sounds.

And this is also where the actors re-record some of their lines by dubbing themselves.

Gaten Matarazzo voiced by a woman in the first two seasons

Except that between the shooting of season 1 in the summer of 2015 and the post-production in the spring of 2016, the voices of the actors have changed! And in particular that of Gaten Matarazzo, the actor who plays Dustin, the funny one, the one with his round cheeks, his cap screwed on his head and his hair on his tongue. He began to moult and his voice became a little deeper ... In this excerpt, the American presenter Jimmy Kimmel has fun ...

What complicated things for the creators, the Duffer brothers. It was impossible for them to make him re-record certain dialogues of season 1. It would have been really too weird to hear him speak in different ways in several places of the season. . So they had to make do with the initial sound recording. For the little anecdote, know that in the French version it is a woman, an actress, who doubles Gaten Matarazzo in the first two seasons. On the other hand, from season 3, it is a man who ensures the dubbing in French.

But it was not just the voices of the actors that posed a problem for the creators.

They also had to adapt to the fact that the actors are growing up.

Between two shoots, more than a year has passed.

And when you're 13 and growing, one year can change a lot of things!

So that the physique of the actors fits perfectly with the narration, and to avoid having to shoot at full speed, the Duffer brothers have therefore chosen to start the plot of season 2 a year after the events of season 1. As that, the actors grow at the same time as their characters ...

Evolve the characters of the characters

The creators of the series will do the same for Season 3. With a one-year time jump once again. And on the screen it works well. These ellipses allow the plot to be renewed and the characters' characters to evolve. In season 3, for example, Dustin falls in love, Mike gains independence. Will, he has trouble growing up, he would like to continue playing

Dungeons and Dragons

with his friends. In short, it allows other issues to be integrated into the story ...

Moreover for Matt Duffer, one of the creators, the constraint has even turned into an asset.

Watching the actors and their characters grow in near real time is a way for the audience to become attached to it.

And when we see the audiences for season 3, watched by more than 40 million spectators in one week, we say to ourselves that the strategy has worked rather well;) 

Stranger Things

It's 3 seasons (soon 4), 25 episodes

They are all available on Netflix