Chris Trujillo is a New York-based production designer with a background in fine arts. He cut his art-department teeth in the world of TV commercials and music videos before transitioning into feature film as an art director and set decorator on several critically acclaimed independent projects including Ti West’s House of the Devil and Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture. He spent his first few years as a production designer making films in New York City and on location all over the country. For the better part of the last decade, he was back and forth from Atlanta designing the award-winning Netflix series Stranger Things with Matt and Ross Duffer for which he received multiple ADG and Emmy award nominations. He spent his time between seasons of ST designing projects for the likes of M Night Shyamalan, Eddie Huang and Marvel. Most recently, Chris is back in Brooklyn and back on the grind having recently wrapped on Furious, a forthcoming thriller series for Hulu.
For the third episode of the Apotheosis podcast sub-series, Notes From the Field, PDC member Chris Trujillo chats with podcast host and board member Alexander Whittenberg about what it means to collaboratively build a world over time with deep emotional intention.
They trace Trujillo’s decade-long journey designing all five season of Stranger Things from a scrappy, almost-impossible idea into a fully realized cultural mythos. Their conversation moves fluidly between philosophy and process as Trujillo reflects on creativity as an act of observation and refraction, how the boot camp that is indie-filmmaking shaped his instincts and the unlikely early days of bringing Hawkins, Indiana to vivid life on the screen.
Trujillo also discusses the lived-in realism of the series’ domestic spaces, the evolution of homes like the Byers’ and Hopper’s cabin and the challenge of grounding supernatural spectacle in believable human environments.
Beyond the domestic sphere of Stranger Things, Trujillo and Whittenberg also unpack the practical magic behind Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown) stark black void; the labor-intensive process of “netherizing” sets for the Upside Down; the meaty, biological architecture of Vecna’s lair and the nostalgic joy of revisiting his own past to build Starcourt Mall.
The episode celebrates how a consistent creative family, a commitment to realism and empathy for character can turn genre storytelling into something deeply human and enduring.
Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) communicates with Will (Noah Schnapp) through Christmas lights in season one of Stranger Things.
“I definitely got to appease my inner child and create the space I would have dreamed of hanging out in as a kid.”
Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown) inner world, the Void, as seen in season three of Stranger Things.
The Demogorgons take over downtown Hawkins in season five of Stranger Things.
“We are all sensitive people.”
In season five of Stranger Things, the adventure concludes in the basement of the Wheeler house.
