Matt Steinbrenner, Production Designer for the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards, shared some insights on the interesting visual twist to MTV’s iconic Moon Person helmet on stage at Prudential Center in Newark, NJ on Sept. 12, and as it turns out, the core idea wasn’t as much about sight as it was about sound. “The idea that I came up with was, ‘Okay, let’s take this helmet and imagine that sound waves could be so intense that they would etch into and carve out a new image on the surfaces of the Moon Person.’ That’s what really brought about all the horizontal striations that wrapped around the form and sliced through it in a kind of interesting way. Then that gave us the chance on the visor, which was all mirrored in chrome, to create banding that had open space in between,” Steinbrenner said.
“It was formed in such a way that it looked like equalizer bars, kind of harkening back to the idea of the audio waves whipping through the space,” Steinbrenner continued. “So, by just crafting those audio waves in a unique way, we were able to create a portal for all the presenters to walk out through. We backed that entire element by a very tall, inclusive LED wall in the back, which let us have imagery show through the open spaces of the visor. It was a nice way to give a bit of mystery as to ‘what is the Moon Person? What’s inside of that head?’ And it gave us a way to incorporate graphics with this interesting audio texture in front of it. That was, I think, my favorite piece in the set.”
From “Broadcast Design” by Michael S. Eddy, PLSN, Oct. 2023, page 40
