Main Titles

Helstrom

Hulu

Client: Hulu
Year: 2021
What we did: Concept
Illustration
2D animation

Hulu’s Helstrom needed a title sequence that would capture the darker side of Marvel Comics. We created an illustrated backstory to a psychological thriller about two children with an unsettling upbringing.

Building an origin story

The TV series follows Daimon and Ana Helstrom, the children of a serial killer. While the characters appear as adults in the show itself, where exactly did their story begin?

Through a child's eyes

Working with showrunner Paul Zbyszewski, we recreated Daimon and Ana's childhood drawings to develop a title sequence that not only mirrors the eerie tone of the show, but also creates a narrative that enriches the protagonists' backstory.

We married the visuals with a lighter, upbeat track, pulling inspiration from 50's pop standards to create palpable and unsettling sense of irony.

Hand-drawn sketches

We brought the drawings to life using traditional cel animation, as if the memories are playing back within our characters’ imagination. Thousands of individual frames were sketched and assembled into a sequence by hand.