UNDER MY SKIN

HOW BARRIE GOWER AND HIS TEAM BROUGHT VECNA TO LIFE IN STRANGER THINGS

- DARREN SCOTT

The award-winning UK effects house BGFX – headed up by Barrie Gower (left) – came to the attention of the Duffer Brothers for their work on Game Of Thrones and Chernobyl. Three years later their effects for Stranger Things season four villain Vecna have been nominated for an Emmy. Barrie Gower opened up his archives and sat down with SFX to talk about creating an iconic monster.

CONCEPT TO CREATION

The Duffer Brothers already had a blueprint for Vecna; they had the outline of the series written. They had some art already drawn up by an incredible concept artist called Michael Mayer, who is also the VFX supervisor. It was always going to be this humanoid character – they were very keen from the get-go to have somebody who had almost fully practical presence. They wanted somebody in prosthetics.

The storyline and tone of season four was starting to become a little bit more mature; there are more nods towards the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise. Their idea really was, in the latter few seasons, to have their own iconic villain.

There are a few nuances, a few adjustments we had to make along the way to fit it over the human form. But it’s pretty close to those original concept images.

SIZE MATTERS