MAIN TITLE

What would it be like to grow up with a father who is possessed by pure evil?

Welcome to Hulu's Helstrom: a psychological family thriller about Ana and Daimon’s traumatic past. While the story focuses on their adult lives, it’s evident that their experiences are scarred by a disturbing upbringing. What if we could see into the past through their own memories, interpreting the surroundings with a child's view of the world? 

For the main title, we recreated Daimon and Ana’s childhood drawings to develop a title sequence that not only mirrors the eerie tone and mood of the show, but also creates a narrative that enriches our protagonists’ backstory. Each drawing offers a unique window into their collective and individual experiences. 

We worked with showrunner Paul Zbyszewski, to align on the exact visuals and created a range of drawings that spanned the character’s youth—as if some scenes were captured by a young child, while others were more sophisticated and interpretive, coming from a teenager’s POV. We married these visuals with a lighter upbeat track, originally pulling inspiration from 50’s pop standards, to create a strong and odd sense of irony.

As associate creative director, I concepted and designed the winning pitch frames and oversaw production of the title sequence. 

BEHIND THE SCENES

It was important to bring these drawings to life by using traditional cel animation, as if the memories are playing back within our character’s own imagination. We sketched thousands of individual frames, making sure the entire sequence was assembled by hand, and then digitally manipulated the frames to enhance the final style.