Super Bowl Set Designer Reveals Sketches, Inspiration Behind Historic Halftime Show

Es Devlin is an artist and designer, talents that can be distributed across many disciplines, and her website lists dozens of credits that show how far she has stretched. Known for large-scale performative sculptures and set pieces, Devlin has worked with superstars like Beyoncé, Adele, Kanye West and The Weeknd on arena tours, collaborated with luxury houses Chanel and Louis Vuitton on installations and fashion shows, respectively, and has designed both the opening (Rio) and closing (London) ceremonies of the Olympics.

But it was a large-scale work titled Memory Palace that caught the eye of Dr. Dre during their first meeting to discuss this year’s Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show. The piece, a reimagined model city map of the world that was on view at Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery in London’s Ealing neighborhood, plots the location of 73 millennia in significant shifts in human perspective. “Dre was immediately interested in the idea of ‘placeness,'” Devlin shares with The Hollywood Reporter. “He sensed that Compton would be another protagonist in the work and that we could etch a map of Compton on the global Super Bowl stage.”

That’s what they did. Devlin collaborated with production designer Bruce Rodgers to re-create buildings, businesses and vibes unique to Compton. The brightness of it all, they hoped, would translate well to a Hamish Hamilton-directed Super Bowl spectacle inside SoFi Stadium while the sun was still shining on headliners Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar and Mary J. Blige, with surprise appearances from 50 Cent and Anderson.Paak, not to mention legions of dancers, a parade of lowriders and an overlay of the field that featured the full network of Compton streets.

Below, Devlin shares sketches and images with THR while detailing the creative process behind this year’s halftime show, seen by 112 million people and counting. Highlights include why it was so important to feature landmarks like Tam’s Burgers, Eve After Dark and the Compton Courthouse, the significance of ‘Dre Day’ cardboard boxes, and the reason the show opened with Dre in the studio: “The recording studio is Dre’s link and meeting point with all the other artists.”

GLOBAL SPECTACLE AS ART INSTALLATION

“During our first Zoom meeting, we showed Dre a number of projects as examples of directions we could choose to take. Both Dre and Jimmy Iovine were drawn more to studio art installations than previous shows. Dre has just had his portrait painted by Kehinde Wiley for the Artists Inspired by Music: Interscope Reimagined exhibition at LACMA, and he was interested in approaching the Super Bowl as a narrative art installation as well as celebratory performance. We knew the halftime would be taking place in daylight, which might suit sculpture or parade more than a light show.”

“The installation Dre was drawn to in that first meeting was a 2017 artwork called Memory Palace. It is a reimagined model city map of the world at Pitzhanger Gallery in Ealing, London, and it plots the location of 73 millennia of significant shifts in human perspective. Dre was immediately interested in the idea of placeness. He sensed that Compton would be another protagonist in the work and that we could etch a map of Compton on the global Super Bowl stage.”

“Once it’s paid Pepsi dues, the Halftime Show intro film zooms in on planet Earth, into the night-lit streets of L.A. and into Compton, as a reference to Charles and Ray Eames’ famous Powers of Ten film. The map of Compton courses through the record producer’s hand as it hovers over the dials and switches on the 48-track recording desk, which rises with Dre into the new SoFi Stadium. The rows of lights within the audience echo the rows of dials and sliders on the recording desk. Dre plays the stadium like he plays his recording desk — transposing lived experience from a very specific place, into music, which reaches and touches a global audience.”

COMPTON TAKES STADIUM SPOTLIGHT

“Anyone who has watched Straight Outta Compton or listened to Kendrick’s story can begin to understand what it took for these artists to survive the streets of Compton in the ’80s, ’90s and 2000s. Music was a refuge, and the recording studio was the place where painful experiences could be forged into music, poetry and a future. The recording studio is Dre’s link and meeting point with all the other artists. Much of the lived experience which informs the music heard during the show has passed through Dre’s desk and hands.”

“The stadium floor cloth is printed from high-resolution aerial photographs of Compton, supplied by Google Earth, with more detailed photographs taken by a local helicopter pilot. We cast each of the buildings as characters in the narrative. The buildings are placed within the map along Rosecrans Avenue, although we used artistic license by introducing a replica of the Audio Achievements Recording Studio at 1327 Cabrillo Ave. in Torrance. That building was featured in the 1988 movie Straight Outta Compton. The gut-wrenching scene of Dre and the other N.W.A. band members’ humiliation under the foot of a police officer outside this studio building motivated much of the music they went on to make inside.”

INSIDE THE PERFORMANCES

“The choreography and stage direction is by the legendary choreographer and director Fatima Robinson. Many of the central ideas of the show were co-conceived with Dave Free, Kendrick’s close creative collaborator. Bruce Rodgers is the veteran Super Bowl production designer who masterminded the design to be able to appear within eight minutes and disappear within six minutes, an immense challenge requiring military precision and crew choreography. The setup is, in fact, a show in its own right. We noticed very few of the audience leaving their seats as all stayed to watch the intricately staged crew performance. The work is filmed by the world’s leading live cinematographer, Hamish Hamilton, and lit by Al Gurdon. The costume designer is Lila Nikole. The producer is Jesse Collins and his co-producer Dionne Harmon along with Desiree Perez, CEO of Roc Nation.”

“Detroit poet and rapper Eminem starts his performance of ‘Forgot About Dre’ hidden within the courthouse, or jail, as Dre listens from his recording studio. Eminem busts out of the building, sending pieces flying, and makes his way over the recording studio to join Dre, Anderson.Paak and the rest of the band to perform ‘Lose Yourself.’ It was the first hip-hop track to win an Academy Award for best original song. He performs as a cast of Compton school kids leap to their feet and flood the field. The field cast is drawn from local Compton and South L.A. dance and performance groups. The Compton Courthouse, including its jail, was designed by Harold Williams. It is the tallest building in Compton — the city’s only skyscraper — and is visible for miles. It is also featured in Straight Outta Compton as the place where Compton rapper Eazy-E bails a young Dr. Dre out of jail.”

“Eve After Dark [seen in signage above], which was once located on South Avalon Boulevard, was the center of the Compton street composite we created. The club opened in 1979 and, at the time, it was able to stay open until 5 a.m. because it was within the unincorporated area of Los Angeles County, therefore outside the laws that governed the city. As recounted in Straight Outta Compton, Dr. Dre spun records there for the local and legendary World Class Wreckin’ Cru. In the club’s back room, Dre recorded Eazy-E rapping N.W.A.’s ‘Boyz-N-the-Hood.’ It’s been described as ‘an anthem for the fatherless, brotherless, state-assaulted, heavily armed West Coast urban youth.’ Snoop Dogg starts the performance of ‘Next Episode’ on the roof of a Compton house based on his and Dre’s ‘Nuthin’ but a G Thang’ video from 1992. He makes his way downstairs through a living room featuring walls lined with his family photos.”

“By the time the camera leads us back up to the roof, the entire West Coast street has been taken over by Mary J. Blige and her rooftop dancers. Arguably, one of the most moving moments in the show is Mary J’s performance of ‘No More Drama.’ You get the sense here that all of the performers, many of them Compton residents, join her in a plea for ‘no more pain.’ And many may feel the same exasperation that she manifests by falling to the ground at the end of her performance.”

“The familiar L.A. sound of a helicopter overhead leads us from fallen a Mary J. to an army of men who are bent low in a grid of cardboard boxes. Cardboard architecture on the street is an apt evocation of L.A. in 2022, however, the tone here is also celebratory. The boxes are branded, along with their inhabitants’ costume sashes, with ‘Dre Day.’ In this segment, Lamar, who is a contemporary artist, is paying tribute to the generation that precedes him.

SPOTLIGHTING COMPTON CULTURE

“Lowriders are a central part of Compton culture. The weekly Sunday Funday that, until recently, took place at Rosecrans Avenue and Compton Boulevard was a community celebration. It featured families out with grandparents and grandchildren, ordering food from local food trucks and drivers showing off in a rainbow parade of switching, dancing vehicles that they pour their life and soul into painting and adapting for the road. As one OG rider once said, ‘No matter what is going on in the streets the other six days, for some reason on Sunday Funday, all of that was put aside. We just ride.’ The Halftime Show aimed to achieve this cohesive celebratory West Side Story spirit during the performance of ‘California Love.'”

“The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial  — pictured here and re-created to be seen at the south end of the stadium ‘street’ on the field — was completed in 1977. It was conceived by trailblazing architect Harold Williams, who was the only Black student in his Ohio architecture course and in 1958 only the ninth African American architect to be licensed in California. He worked on it in collaboration with Canadian sculptor Gerald Gladstone, who was trained at the Royal College of Art under British sculptor Henry Moore. The planes of the memorial emulate the form of a mountain to reflect King’s statement that he had been to the mountaintop. A quote from King is inscribed at the site: ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'”

“Tam’s Burger #21, located at 1904 West Rosecrans Ave., is cited in Kendrick Lamar’s song ‘Element.’ The lyrics are: ‘I be hanging out at Tam’s / I be on Stockton / I don’t do it for the ‘Gram / I do it for Compton.’ He also filmed his Reebok commercial while standing on Tam’s roof. Another incident of pain being crafted into art was how the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and rapper recalled witnessing his second murder at Tam’s Burger when he was 8 years old. As he told Rolling Stone: ‘Eight years old, walking home from McNair Elementary. Dude was in the drive-thru ordering his food, and homey ran up, boom boom — smoked him.’ If you look closely at Snoop Dogg walking past the dancing waitresses in Tam’s Burger during ‘Next Episode,’ you will see a Compton Cowboy proudly riding a horse past the window. The Compton Cowboys motto is, ‘The streets raised us, the horses saved us.’ They have been riding horses, often bareback, in the agricultural Richland farms area of Compton since the 1980s. Finding the connection to animals is a positive influence on youth within the community and there’s a rich tradition of African American cowboys that they say is vastly underrepresented.”