Why Stranger Things Season 5’s First Scene Took Months To Complete

After five seasons, the Stranger Things kids are all grown up. Well, at least the actors. In the world of the show, they’re still just guys trying to save Hawkins, Indiana, from being swallowed up by the Upside Down. As the fifth and final season approaches, we’ll soon see if they’re successful in this regard. However, before the show ends, the new season begins with a flashback sequence that required a significant amount of visual effects in order to de-age Noah Schnapp’s Will Byers.

When Stranger Things debuted in 2016, Schnapp and his fellow Stranger Things cast members were just middle school students doing battle with Eldritch monsters from an alternate dimension that existed behind Hawkins’ veil. However, Schnapp is now 21 years old, which has made things a bit difficult for the Duffer Brothers and their crew when crafting the opening moments of the new season. Fortunately, Season 5 of Stranger Things had one of the highest budgets ever for a television series, meaning the Duffers were able to pay their visual effects team for months of work spent solely on recreating the time period in which the season opener began.

The flashback takes place in 1983, when Will first disappeared in the Upside Down and the events of Stranger Things began. As such, the visual effects crew had to reduce the age of 21-year-old Schnapp to his early teens. In the December 2025 issue of SFX Magazine, actor Will Byers explained how the sequence was created using a younger stand-in and scans of his face, which were eventually stitched together to create a digital reincarnation of young Will. Unsurprisingly, this process was not easy.

Stranger Things influenced the young actors positively, with most of them coming out having learned valuable lessons from the hugely popular Netflix series. However, in the world of the show, the “Stranger Things” kids have been going through hell trying to suppress Vecna ​​- whose power will be even deadlier in Season 5. Now, it looks like the visual effects artists have gone through hell trying to create the opening sequence for the new season.

During his interview with SFX, Noah Schnapp explained how he worked with young actor Will Byers, which he said was “really cool” and a “full circle moment.” “I felt like, ‘Oh, wow, now I’m an adult telling this kid what to do, and I’m no longer that little kid being told where to stand,'” he continued. “It helped me think about all the years that have passed.”

According to Schnapp, he and his younger counterpart worked together for a few days “to get his physique, running and breathing the same way.” He continued: “Then they put me in a tent and made me make all these different expressions and faces, like fear and running and all these things. It was very strange.” The visual effects team then composited the final shots using scans of Schnapp’s face and the surrogate’s real performance. According to the actor, some visual effects artists said they had been watching videos of him when he was 11 years old for six months in order to produce the final scene. “They imprinted it on this little kid, and we got this great little flashback scene,” added Schnapp, whose character is on /Film’s list of “Stranger Things” characters most likely to die in Season 5 (although we hope they don’t).