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“My Extra Special Aunty” is published

Edited
Buy The Book

I'm super excited to be launching my first children's book "My Extra Special Aunty" into the world!  I've loved every moment of working with the incredible team of women who came together to make this project a reality!

I was first introduced to the artists of Guhit Kulay back in 2018 and this group of Filipino artists - especially Cristina Cayat and Noemi Manguerra  - blew me away with their incredible talent and creativity. I was also interested to learn that they were (at the time) all here in Hong Kong working as migrant domestic workers. We decided we wanted to collaborate on a book project - so in consultation with the artists I wrote the story and they created the illustrations!

Here's why we're so excited about this project:

1) It's Hong Kong's first children's book illustrated by migrant domestic workers

2) This is a local story, told in English and Traditional Chinese

3) All proceeds for book sales and events go to Enrich HK and PathFinders Hong Kong 融幼社 to support more Extra-Special Aunties!

This project has been in the works for a long time and wouldn't have seen the light of day if it wasn't for the support of Joanna Hotung, as well as the incredible teams at PathFinders Hong Kong 融幼社 and Enrich HK led by the wonderful Catherine Gurtin and Lucinda Pike with all of us organized by my fab campaign manager Zamira Monteiro.

Big thanks to my design team Vickie Chan, Lauren Swintek and Penelope Zhou too.

You can buy the book in Hong Kong at Lion Rock Press and Bookazine

We're also in the process of launching our schools and corporates program - so check out our website  https://www.myextraspecialaunty.com/

Author Joanna Bowers with illustrator Cristina Cayat

“The Helper” screening at Film at Lincoln Center as part of Lulu Wang’s Road To Expats screening series

Ticket for The Helper screening at Lincoln Center
Director Joanna Bowers with Madeline Whittle

Images courtesy of Film at Lincoln Center. Photo: Arin Sang-urai, 2024

Podcast launch!

Key art for new podcast series Green Queen In Conversation

When I first met Sonalie Figueiras, founder of Green Queen Media, her passion and vast knowledge of all things sustainable wowed me, and I knew we needed to find a project to collaborate on. Fast forward a couple years, and we’re now launching this limited series podcast we’ve produced together, in which Sonalie talks to six founders of cultivated meat companies!

In developing this show, we were conscious that we were coming at the subject matter from two quite different perspectives; Sonalie is a vegan and an true expert in the rapidly developing alternative protein field. I’m a more of an omnivore, but consciously reducing the amount of meat my family consumes in an attempt to reduce our contribution to the climate emergency.  That’s why this subject matter was so compelling to me, it’s a unique opportunity to learn a whole lot more about the new alternatives to traditional meat and share that knowledge at scale.

While I know this subject matter will resonate with listeners already focused on sustainability, I’m also really keen to reach a less specialized audience too, especially those who might be skeptical of these new products and the science behind them. My hopes is that this series will answer a lot of questions, as well as giving some inspiring insights into these passionate founders very individual journeys and motivations.

I hope you enjoy listening, and really look forwards to your comments and thoughts!

Ready to listen?

You can find the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts

Click To Listen

Luminaria – a fine art collaboration with Gisèle Tchitchiama

Gisele_Luminaria_Key+Visual

 

Several months ago, I was very flattered to be approached by the French painter and collage artist Gisèle Tchitchiama with the idea of collaborating with her to create a video piece for her upcoming art show at HART HK as a part of Le French May exhibition running from May 5-17 2023. Not having worked in this format before, I was a little nervous, but immediately intrigued by her vision for the project.

The show’s direction was inspired by a photograph Gisèle had taken whilst traveling in Dover, UK, looking out at the ocean through a blurry window pane set off a creative chain reaction. The title “Luminaria” frames a quest for illumination through encounters with light, fragility and the ephemeral.

Gisèle’s creative process was a wonder to be a part of! As I watched her working in various mediums, her initial seed of an idea blossomed into a delicate emotional landscape of work that in turn inspired me to begin to capturing this ephemeral light in many different environments,  motivated by her approach and perspective.  I was incredibly moved when she  played me the beautiful song she was compelled to write to accompany the film, and when Lauren Perrin, cellist with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta  added his cello accompaniment to the piece, it felt like another perfect addition.

The completed film is a departure from my usual narrative style, but has been such a fulfilling explorative journey with a fellow female artist.

You can view the completed film here

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Creating award winning work for HKJC

I’ve recently become fascinated with different people’s creative process and been finding a lot of inspiration from podcasts including Song Exploder and Spark and Fire which leads me to sharing some of some recent work that I was incredibly proud to have created alongside my team at Brunswick Creative for The Hong Kong Jockey Club.

The brief was to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the reunification of Hong Kong, which on all fronts was potentially a complicated political and social minefield. We felt that the majority of Hong Kong brands would head for a generic “celebration film” and so we intentionally headed in a very different direction, looking back over the last 25 years of the club’s contact points with the average Hong Konger and wondering how we might draw on nostalgia to represent that extensive heritage on screen.

I came up with the idea of connecting these moments together through the narrative perspective of one individual, and decided it should be a female to come at the memories of the club from a different perspective to the stereotypical male racing fan. The club shared with us a list of significant moments from their history and I set to work crafting a story to link them all together.

Once we had a narrative and I had some key scenes in mind, with the help of my amazing editor/motion designer/animator/storyboard artists Joey Kan, we started to put them down on paper and figure out how we would transition between the moments.

A page from the storyboards

From the storyboards, we then moved on to creating an animatic to help us with camera moves and transitions so we could plan shots, as well as figuring out timing to help with sound design, music and voiceover.

Animatic video from the storyboards

The filming of this campaign took place over three days and was definitely one of the most challenging yet rewarding shoots of my career! I may have been slightly over optimistic imagining that horses, babies and Hong Kong weather would all perform perfectly on cue, but the resulting footage was a testament to all our hard pre-production preparation work that no doubt enabled us to execute on a solid plan, as the storyboards and animatic are finally brought to life on screen.

The longer cut

I’m proud to say that the resulting campaign took home two Golds at the Transform Asia Awards!

Showcasing some of my favourite NGOS as part of a creative campaign

Brunswick Creative client The Hong Kong Jockey Club came to us with the challenge of wanting to share more about the vast range of charitable work their organisation supports, but needing to do so with a humble and authentic tone. This brief was exactly in my wheelhouse and sparked my creative vision as an opportunity to shine the spotlight on some of the incredible NGOs in the city and the heroic work they do! Since making “The Helper” documentary I’ve stayed close to a lot of the amazing people working in non-profits and I was thrilled to find several of them on the list of HKJC beneficiaries including Impact HK, Splash and more…

As I researched the different charity sectors to be included and understood the work they do, images began popping into my head, that I started to pull into a sequence of vignettes that we could stitch together using dynamic camera moves and clever transitions. It was going to be challenging to feature so many different organisations and convey their focus to an audience member in just a few seconds – but my team and I were excited to rise to the occasion and tell what we felt would be a very impactful story.

Filming with the fan dancing ladies from the Healthy Ageing program at HKU
Filming children with special needs learning to swim with Splash!
Filming at the Mai Po Wetlands Nature Reserve
Joanna working with blind HKJC Scholarship recipient Michelle Liu

Filming saw us traversing Hong Kong from the Mai Po Wetlands to the cage homes of Sham Shui Po and many varied locations in between with our fantastic crew. We met and filmed with a huge array of people ranging from young to old including people of all abilities and we were truly amazed by the reach and impact of the projects that HKJC supports.

Our resulting TV commercial campaign brings all that impact to life in an energetic and emotional series of spots that I’m very proud of.

© Copyright 2024 Joanna Bowers – writer/director