Cultural Research X Authentic Fabrication for Folk Horror Film
For the 2025 folk-horror film, [NDA Protected], I was tasked with creating multiple hero items, instructed to make the items as “culturally-accurate as possible” while still including the specific story elements and evoking a sense of creepy unease.
This included two identical, hand-made, cross-generational “sacred natural elixir tomes.”
All materials used in this tome were to be strictly “naturally occurring” and local to the region in which the film was supposed to take place, Sea Island, Georgia. (ie: indigo die, sea grass, animal hide)
As well as a coveted multi-generational, photo album, intended to be revealed at the climax of the film as connective narrative tissue to inform the main character of the area’s history
The film puts a large emphasis on often misunderstood matriarchal holistic practices, and the photo album needed to easily communicate this to both the main character and the audience.
