Digital Kitchen has again collaborated with showrunner Chris Brancato–this time to produce the main title sequence for MGM+’s new crime thriller series, Hotel Cocaine. Digital Kitchen earlier teamed on Emmy-winning (2020) and Emmy-nominated (2016) main title design sequences for Brancato-produced series Godfather of Harlem (Epix) and Narcos (Netflix), respectively.
Set against the pulsating backdrop of Miami’s cocaine boom in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, Hotel Cocaine tells the compelling story of Roman Compte (Danny Pino), a Cuban exile and the general manager of the Mutiny Hotel. This establishment was not merely a hotel but the epicenter of Miami’s cocaine trade, attracting a diverse crowd from Florida’s elite businessmen and politicians to international narco traffickers and figures from the CIA and FBI. Rounding out the cast is an ensemble featuring Michael Chiklis, Mark Feuerstein, Yul Vazquez, and more.
Digital Kitchen’s main title sequence, setting the introduction of Hotel Cocaine to audiences, is a visual and auditory journey that evokes the evolving landscape of late ‘70s Miami, a city on the cusp of a seismic shift in culture, fortune, and crime. The design studio’s creative team aimed to encapsulate a historical juncture between Cuba and the USA, employing archival images from key moments preceding 1978. This artful juxtaposition serves to capture the divergent realities and immerse the audience in the era’s ambiance, characterized by an amalgamation of drugs, greed, politics, crime, luxury, money, death, and perpetual partying.
“Our creative goal with the title sequence was to transition from the whimsical and innocent to an unstoppable crescendo, mirroring the cocaine experience,” explained Mason Nicoll, executive creative director at Digital Kitchen. “The typographic treatment, reminiscent of the era, is infused with the edit’s frenzy, incorporating repetition and a sense of unbridled chaos to harmonize with the overarching emotional tone, all brought together with a vibrant theme created by Swizz Beatz.”
The Digital Kitchen team sought to evoke the feel of a Florida tourism advertisement from the late ‘70s while delivering on the central premise that “every pleasure has a price.” This involved leaning into the “hardboiled” aesthetic of the American New Wave in filmmaking, coupled with the excess and lifestyle of the “Me Decade.” A significant challenge was sourcing the right footage, requiring countless hours of trawling through stock and old news footage to find perfect clips to craft a 90-second sequence.
The technical challenges were also considerable. The Digital Kitchen team created a digital pipeline to enhance and correct the stock footage, much of which was only available at SD resolution. This necessitated extensive upscaling and degradation to ensure a consistent look across 40+ shots.
