Pray Obey Kill (Knutby)
Ideation / Art Direction / Prop Creation / Design
Created at: AllCity Client: HBO Year: 2021
On the night of January 10, 2004, two members of a small Swedish religious community were shot dead. The shooter said she was acting on God's orders.
Our challenge was to cinematically portray a true crime documentary with a controversial subject matter, while working within various creative constraints, such as image rights and usage.
The result was an atmospheric image and teaser trailer, that focuses on a broken snowglobe and the mysterious village within, with an investigation board behind hinting at the real-life events.
How I made it
Our initial comps of the snow globe used stock images with photography of the model village used within the show. However, we wanted to ensure that our visual looked as realistic as possible and felt the best way would be to create both the snow globe and evidence board from scratch.
With the original model village of Knutby stuck in Sweden, and a near global travel ban in place, we worked with a local 3D modeler to scan the miniature house where the murder took place, and supply us with digital files to 3D-print from.
Using styrofoam as a base, and some fake modelling grass and snow, I created a miniature snowy landscape with our printed houses in the centre surrounded by miniature figures and fitted with little LED lights to bring the house and the surrounding scene to life.
Along with my recreation of the investigation pinboard and purchased snow-globes, we could use these elements to photograph and film for our artwork and AV assets.
