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.
CreditsProduction/Creative/Design Digital Kitchen Mason Nicoll, executive creative director, editor; Peter Pak, art director; Ana Criado, designer; Rachel Brickel, designer/photographer; Jodi Tripi, stock researcher; Matthew Lynch, sr. producer; Ally Malloy, head of experiences. Main Title Theme Music Swizz Beatz
Director Gia Coppola Teams With Mejuri For “A New York Minute”; 1st Episode Takes Us To The Grocery Store
Mejuri, known for turning fine jewelry into an everyday luxury, has partnered with director Gia Coppola (The Last Show Girl, Palo Alto) and The Directors Bureau in Los Angeles, for the first time reimagining the brandโs story as episodic content. In a series of microfilms, co-created by Coppola and premiering following New York Fashion Week, Mejuri eschewed a typical celebrity campaign and cast us as voyeurs to a group of aspiring young women--real people, not actors--at the crossroads of their adult lives against the backdrop of New York City.
Titled โA New York Minute,โ the series features five real-life friends, who include one perfectly imperfect heroine named Emma. The women celebrate ordinary moments and interactions which reveal, sometimes retrospectively, the extraordinary within the mundane. Adjacent to the brandโs own community, the 30-something year old cast includes Laura Love (Emma), Rebecca Ressler, Natalie Vall-Freed and Rozzi Crane. Mejuriโs jewelry makes an appearance as the best supporting actor.
โWhen I met with Gia and The Directors Bureau team, there was instant creative and personal chemistry and a natural alignment on the desire to push and blur the lines between marketing, storytelling, and the construct of what a โcampaignโ could be,โ said Jacob Jordan, chief brand officer, Mejuri. โGia was able to push that idea into something that truly feels new and artful, with a realism and relatability that almost feels jarring. Gia was such a perfect collaborator and partner, someone I had complete trust in to be a catalyst for Mejuriโs values of celebrating women as their truest selves. I canโt wait for us to continue to tell the next chapters of this story.โ
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