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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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MATT DUFFER: We're from
Durham, North Carolina.

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Growing up we were
just nerdy kids

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playing Dungeons and
Dragons with our friends.

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ROSS DUFFER: We
always loved films

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and we wanted to do
that for a living,

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but we had no idea how
to make that possible.

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How do you get from the
suburbs of North Carolina

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to where we are now
in Hollywood, making

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a show for Netflix?

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MATT DUFFER: So
around third grade,

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our parents for Christmas
gave us a Hi8 video camera.

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We were really
excited about this.

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Starting in the summer
of the fourth grade,

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that's kind of when
everything changed.

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We made our first
full length movie.

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We will fight honorably.

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And one more thing,
onward to battle!

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ROSS DUFFER: Then when we
moved in to high school,

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we said, is there a way to
make these movies even better?

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So what we would
do is every summer

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we would actually start
to write some scripts down

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and this was our first
instance of us writing scripts.

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I made it.

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MATT DUFFER: And that continued
all the way into college.

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We went to Film School
at Chapman University.

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We were still mostly
focused on directing.

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We realized at a certain
point that no one

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was going to let us
direct anything if we

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didn't have a script that we
could attach ourselves to.

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Forget about it.

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MATT DUFFER: So we took
some screenwriting classes,

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we learned the basics
of screenwriting.

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Structure, inciting incident.

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We started to learn
some big ideas about how

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to write a screenplay.

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But father, you're
a man of science.

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And a man of reason.

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MATT DUFFER: So there was
a big turning point for us

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and that was after
we had struggled

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for a while in a
couple of scripts,

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we weren't getting
anywhere with them.

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And a lot of this was because
we were focused on what

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we thought the industry wanted.

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What was selling in the moment,
what people were excited about.

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We just cut out all
the noise and we just

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wrote something that was
really personal to us.

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The story was called
"Hidden," and it

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was about a family that was
hiding in a bomb shelter

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from some mysterious
threat above the surface.

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And we did something
which we hadn't really

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been doing, which because
of the time crunch,

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because of the financial
pressures, we just sat down

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and we're like, we better
figure out this story before we

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go into writing it.

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And we outlined it.

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And when we outlined it,
the outline worked and then

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we wrote the script
incredibly fast.

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It just fell into place
and "Hidden," was born.

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It sold in a bidding
war to Warner Brothers

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and we were suddenly
back on our feet

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and feeling confident again.

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ROSS DUFFER: There are many
ups and downs over that,

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but that was a huge hurdle.

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We didn't even know how to write
a screenplay to suddenly we

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had sold a screenplay
and we had made money

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with just words that we
have written on paper.

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That night we went
to get a meal and I

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remember it was such
a big moment for us

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that we were able to
order soda with our meals,

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because prior to that we
could only afford really

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water with any of our meals.

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To me it was Thai iced tea
at the local Thai restaurant,

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that we were able to do that.

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Like, Thai iced tea, please.

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Also I felt a little bit
like sheepish about it,

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but it was like, oh man, this
is a really good Thai iced tea.

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It was a huge moment,
we're like OK, this is it.

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We've made it.

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But the big take away from
us was write something

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that you're passionate about.

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Write something that you
truly love, not something

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that you think other
people are going to love.

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And outline, outline, outline,
outline, plan, plan, plan.

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But there was a shift in
the industry around the time

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and there were a
lot of producers

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that kept going, hey, well,
that's an OK movie idea,

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but do you have a TV idea?

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And so there was really
a move towards television

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becoming more cinematic and
that started to get us excited.

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And so we started to
go, well, you know what?

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Maybe this is a
type of storytelling

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that we could get
into and that's

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what led us to eventually
develop "Montauk," which

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is the pilot script
that would eventually

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become "Stranger Things."

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MATT DUFFER: It ended
up selling to Netflix,

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and that moment, receiving
that call that Netflix was not

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only buying our script, but
was greenlighting it to series,

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and that they were comfortable
with Ross and I directing it,

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was probably the best
moment of my life.

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This class is really for anyone
who dreams of telling stories

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for a living.

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It's for the person who has 20
scripts in their drawer, none

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of which have sold.

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It's for the person who has only
written 20 pages of a script

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and hasn't been able to
get past the 20 pages.

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Or is just staring
at a blank screen

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and they can't
write a single word.

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You've got the idea, but you
don't know what to do with it.

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It's also for people
who, like us, don't

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know a single soul
in Hollywood and want

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to see how this works and
see if this is something

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that maybe you could actually
do and you can make a reality.

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MATT DUFFER: This class
is also for people

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who just love "Stranger
Things," and want

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to see how we created the show,
how we built it from an idea

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all the way through the script.

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To show you how
it works, we're

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going to go into documents
and things we wrote.

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Netflix has never seen it.

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Our actors have never seen it.

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So we're going to be showing
you those top secret "Stranger

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Things" documents
for the first time.

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ROSS DUFFER: We'll use examples
from "Stranger Things,"

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from the pilot all the way
through stuff from season 4.

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Bitching, right?

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Yeah, yeah, bitching.

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MATT DUFFER: So
something else we're

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going to do to show you
how this process works is

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we're going to create our own
fake Dustin and Steve "Stranger

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Things" spin-off series.

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This is imaginary, it's
just for this class,

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but we're going to generate
the idea in real time

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for you and we're going
to write the opening hook

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and under extreme
time constraints,

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and hopefully it's
going to be some fun.

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This is not a real
thing, Netflix.

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ROSS DUFFER: We love
writing, it is a fun process.

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Yes, it is frustrating at
times, it gets scary at times,

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you get stuck.

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It doesn't feel like you're ever
going to get unstuck sometimes,

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but what we try to do with
this class is show you

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our process because
this is what we found

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has made writing as smooth
as possible and as fun as

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possible.

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I'm going to be a
little dramatic here.

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Right here we cut to black.

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Hey, I'm Ross.

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I'm Matt.

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Together, we're the
Duffer brothers.

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And this is "MasterClass."