Titles Inspired by Art Deco Style Sophia Kyriacou on how she used C4D, Red Giant’s Magic Bullet and other tools to create the titles for the 2020 BBC Oscars Results Special.

Sophia Kyriacou is an award-winning motion designer and creative director, as well as a longtime creative veteran of the BBC. So it was no surprise she was tapped to create the opening titles for the Oscars Results Special, which was broadcast on the BBC World Channel.

Inspired by the style of Art Deco, the titles were created using Cinema 4D, Substance Painter, Arnold and Red Giant’s Magic Bullet. We talked with Kyriacou about the title sequence, which is a finalist at the New York Festival’s Television and Film Awards.

Kyriacou: I’ve been at the BBC for more than 23 years and, before the start of the new year, I decided to step back and focus on my freelance creative career and my animated film projects. I feel now is the right time, and I think it’s a positive thing to have other creative interests that lead you to different exciting projects.

Kyriacou: I was very lucky to get a pretty open brief. My producer wanted me to create a brand to run predominantly on the BBC World News channel as part of the results program, but also across all networks, including language services. So it was important that, whatever I created, had to have that universal understanding.

Kyriacou: I have always loved Art Deco style. I love the way gold and marble work together as a visual aesthetic. The lobby of the Chrysler building is beautiful with its gold accents shimmering on the elevator doors. I love The Great Gatsby and the way F.Scott Fitzgerald captured the style perfectly.

I was also inspired by the Art Deco elevator at the BBC Broadcasting House. I was going up to the office in the elevator one morning last year before lockdown, when I suddenly had an idea of an Art Deco elevator that takes you to great heights where you are greeted by a giant Oscar figurine.

I liked the concept as an abstract form, playing on scale and time. But it was the fact that the actual Oscar statuette has an Art Deco design that really influenced everything else. I let the Oscar drive the entire piece as the leader.

Kyriacou: In the summer of 2019, I started working on a film called FACE. It is a semi-autobiographical piece, but it was not created purely for promotion. Filmmaking is an area that I want to focus on, and animation has always been my passion so I will be focusing far more on it. I am also planning to start an animated short film after I have finish my current film project.

I don’t enjoy the pressure of having to create yearly reels, and I’m never a fan of recutting the same old work over and over with a few additions to show clients. I also don’t believe that reels actually demonstrate your skills as a creative because that depends on the clients you have in a given year.

Putting together a film of just over 2 minutes in length allows me to show clients what I can do while also giving me the chance to be the storyteller. If a client is interested in seeing more title and content related work, they can take a look at my reel or full title sequences on my various social media networks and website.

Kyriacou: I’ve been using Cinema 4D for more than 21 years. It is my go-to application, and I have always enjoyed using it because of its user friendly-nature. C4D allows me to focus on creating while speeding up my workflow.

For this project, I worked closely with the composer, David Lowe. We went through the storyboard, and I briefed David on the look and feel I wanted. Once I had a track, I created a hardware render of an animatic for timing purposes. Hardware renders are so quick, and they can be as detailed or as basic as you want. They are hugely important and I really enjoy the process.

I modeled, prepared all my UVs, animated and rendered everything out in Cinema 4D. After all the UVs were prepared, I moved into Substance Painter where I focused on my materials. Once I was happy with my textures, I exported them back out and prepared all of my textures in Arnold. After all the shots were rendered, I set up an After Effects project where I started grading each shot.

It’s amazing how much a render can be brought to life with Magic Bullet. I think the presets are a great place to start, and I always change them to get the desired look the project needs. I think it is a hugely powerful grading application, and it’s a very important tool in my pipeline.

Kyriacou: I always want to create something that is unique, and I often find myself inspired by architecture or an art and design movement in some way. I researched the Art Deco movement and looked at various styles, which inspired the Oscars lobby interior I created. I also researched lighting of the time and how it was used. Everything had a warm, dim glow, and I wanted to take the viewer back to that era.

Kyriacou: I created all my materials in Substance Painter. Substance has a huge library of materials and works in a similar way to Photoshop, but in 3D. You can stack several layers of materials, depending on your hardware. And Substance gives you the control to change all of the base materials to achieve the look you want. There are parameters to almost everything, which I really like because I prefer to create most of the wear and tear by hand, so it feels more real.

Kyriacou: The beauty of Magic Bullet is that you get an immediate response to everything you apply, allowing you to make creative decisions faster. I can simply start with a preset and try several styles until I have a good starting point. After that, I tweak settings for refinement, so I can change colors and add or take away tools.

Kyriacou: I’m really looking forward to completing my film, which is almost finished, and then I’ll start production on my animated short film. There is nothing like animation in its purest form in my opinion.