Creative Spotlight goes behind the scenes to some of the awesome campaigns and projects made by Cebu-based design studios and agencies that don't get the hype they deserve. This week, we're highlighting the work of Wolfpack PH, a young and dynamic team dedicated to digital marketing, branding and community management.
"In My Mother's Skin" is a horror film by Cebuano writer-director Kenneth Dagatan, a BFA-Cinema Alum from the University of San Carlos School of Architecture, Fine Arts and Design. The movie premiered at Sundance Film Festival, being the only non-English film to be a part of the festival’s “Midnight” section. It has been listed by several publications as one of the top horror films of 2023 and was even reviewed by the NY Times.
Before the movie gained green light and started production, Kenneth approached Wolfpack PH Founder Bon Louie "Bonito" Gimarino to help with the initial key visual art and storyboard. According to Bonito, from the start the brief already mentioned the general story where a mother was acting strange after a mysterious insect emerged from her back and started devouring anything with life near her. Her children, who lives with her in an old mansion during the Japanese invasion in the Philippines, are now scared for their lives as they have no one to ask for help.
Since "In My Mother's Skin" was first introduced as an idea, there were no references or inspiration available for Wolfpack to base the design on. The team found it truly challenging to tell the story visually to a foreign audience and how to explain the concept to these type of crowds who are not familiar with Filipino culture.
Execution and Rationale
BONITO: We decided to go for an illustration type of execution to tell the story better. To align with the movie title, it had to play around the skin to give the dominance of what element was being used to tell the story. From there, we played around how everything connects, like the children running away from home, the mysterious bloodlust of the mother, and the creepiness of being lost in the forest.
We were then given the additional tasks to do a few storyboard scenes that could further impact how the movie would possibly look visually.
Creative Process
BONITO: As the head of the design team, I took great inspiration from the artist "Godmachine" to create the piece. Although not with style, but with how to maximize the negative space to your own advantage. It's always a fun challenge to look at the artwork not just as an image but the totality of its whole poster and what it should communicate.
From there it was just a puzzle of solving how to transition the elements and connect all the dots to understand how we could transition it to the storyboard.
Although this was not the official poster of the film, it was the bridge that welcomed the film to the international film industry and paved way for its success and being available at Amazon Prime Video and making it to national news.
Creating horror movie posters is actually more challenging than expected. We had to find the right balance of telling the story but not spilling too much to give it away. The funny part is, we didn’t know where the poster will be presented until we knew the film won an award from Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Korea).
Project Team Members:
Bon Louie "Bonito" Gimarino
Kenneth Dagatan
Trinna Casal
Wolfpack Design Team
"In My Mother's Skin" is the first co-production between the Philippines (Epicmedia), Singapore (Zhao Wei Films and Clover Films), and Taiwan (Volos Films). The movie was screened in numerous film festivals all around the world including Fantasia International Film Festival, Far East Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam - IFFR, BIFFF - Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival and 부천국제판타스틱영화제 Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival among many. "In My Mother's Skin" is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Check more of Wolfpack PH's works on their website https://wolfpack.ph/Instagram , Instagram Page @wolfpack.ph and FB Page https://www.facebook.com/wolfpackcreativePH
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