[Chris Trujillo] Hi, guys. My name's Chris Trujillo. I'm the production designer here on Stranger Things. So this season, totally we wanted it to feel kind of… The colors are meant to be very organic, but bruised, so there's a lot of very deep purples and reds, and you feel like they're just kind of pervading gloom, you know, everywhere. The Creel house this year was the home of this character, and essentially, he is psychically responsible for this mindscape space. We see it in a 1959 version, and we see it in a present-day, dilapidated version. 

[clip] [Steve] Yeah. That's not creepy. 

[Chris] Then we spend some time there in the Upside Down. We have fragment elements of the Creel house that we're kind of twisting and distorting and breaking apart, and, in a way, directly related to the Upside Down. The Demogorgon pit is a very — it's an epic set. It serves the function of sort of this gladiatorial arena. So, our challenge was figuring out how to justify a space that has these sort of oversized dimensions. There's this exterior kind of walkway area that's all just incredibly bleak, rusted, metal, and these ancient brick and plaster walls. The door opens and reveals the Demogorgon. There's a little case that is meant to be full of makeshift gladiatorial weapons. It's cool. It's super cool. 

[clip] [[Robin] Ooh, I think I found our morning movie. Doctor Zhivago. 

[Steve] Ugh, you know I don't do double VHS.

[bell jingles]

[Chris] We spent a lot of time trying to figure out what we were gonna do with the video store. We didn't know if it was gonna become such an important plot point. The interior's pretty great. The video store is a very clear and blatant expression of everything that inspires the show, you know. We spent some time in the Wheeler house, both in the Upside Down and in the real world. It's always been a part of how we have conceived of the mythology of the Upside Down and kind of the rules and physics of the Upside Down. The moment that the Upside Down was "created" inadvertently by Eleven, the set dressing and the world of the Upside Down is frozen in that moment. So, like, when we're in Nancy's room, we'll discover in the Upside Down that Nancy's room is as it was Season 1 when we first were introduced to it.

[clip] [Eddie] What is it?

[Nancy] The last entry is November 6, 1983, the day Will went missing. The day the gate opened.

[Chris] Mike goes to California with these sort of unrealistic expectations. A sort of Midwesterner's idea of what California is all about. We wanted to have all of the textures of that sort of SoCal desert, so we can get into these really great colors that we haven't seen before and light quality we haven't seen before. I think the pizza mobile, you know, is gonna be a lot of fun. We spent a lot of time trying to figure that out. We started with this really small, bizarre van that we love and we completely decked out, only to find out it's a little bit tight for what we're trying to do inside of it. Hold on to your butts, brochachos.

[tires squeal] 

[Chris] So now we've changed it to a VW van again, which is equally as amazing and super fun in terms of the shape and the way the door opens and all that stuff. The logo is a big sign that sits on top of the van. And we'll have the option of internally lighting it. So it's essentially like a big, simplified surfboard. We've all been doing this together for so long that we've really learned each other. And each one of us can have confidence in the others' work. 

[Jess Royal] Chris and I will see things the same, so it's always been easy to collaborate and create worlds. And every year it grows, and so it's new challenges.

[Chris] I think the sets, and thereby the world of Hawkins is just looking better and better as far as the craft goes. As designers and decorators and art directors, we've all kind of facilitated each other's development, and I think it's true across the board with everybody who's been making this show for all these years.