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Contrary to popular belief, art is not the product of an artist’s labor — it’s the process. Singers like Summer Walker are never “finished” with their craft; we, the listeners, are just blessed with the artifacts of her practice. This applies to the people who help her bring her visions to life as well. In this case, it’s the designers and directors of See You Later, the Los Angeles-based production studio currently in charge of Summer’s set on Chris Brown’s Breezy Bowl Tour (they also helped put together Doechii’s star-making Grammys set earlier this year).
Darrius Medina, the studio’s co-founder and stage designer for this tour, teamed up with Creative Director Harriet Cuddeford and Summer’s personal director, Lacey Duke, to tap into Walker’s tastes and ambitions. Together, they gave Walker’s fans a glimpse into both her artistic process and the process of finding love (even if it means leaving the planet to do so).
Inspired by a diverse array of influences, from retro-futuristic Instagram pages to cult films like Barbarella and the classic Austin Powers, See You Later shared their own creative processes with Uproxx.
How did your company get involved with Summer Walker, and what was your goal with this particular presentation?
Darrius: Yeah, we got involved with Summer Walker through her label, LVRN. They manage her and are her label as well. They reached out to us, and we worked with them.
Harriet: We talked with Summer and her team, including Lacey Duke, who is Summer’s personal director, and figured out what she’s trying to say. So, for this, it was very much about her exploring the idea of the search for love, and it was about the concept of how the search for love on Earth for some of us is really hard. Imagine if that then became intergalactic. Just this fun idea of, okay, we’re done with the men on Earth, so who else is out there in the galaxy?
It was really, really fun. Summer has such a great sense of humor and is very tongue-in-cheek, so it was that kind of theme. She really loved this Instagram called Chaos Dreamland, which is this very kitsch, cute retro-future world. Summer really wanted to inhabit that aesthetic.
Harriet, can you explain to readers what the show director is?
Harriet: Show direction and creative direction are very, very intertwined. Some people like to tease those apart, but I think really, it’s about working with the artist on the very initial conception of what this is. What are you saying? What is this about? And then building that into a show. So you’re covering everything. You probably make initial mood boards, right? You work with the artist, bringing numerous references and various directions to explore one main idea. You go back and forth, refining the aesthetic.
Then you work with designers across stage lighting and video content. You work with special effects, a choreographer, and a stylist. You, with the entire team, start from this place, build this vision with the artist, and then you take that outward and work with all those different departments to keep them really building toward one vision.
Darrius, can you please break down what people don’t know about stage design? Because I think some people think you just are out there making the promo poster or whatever in the background, and it’s like, “No, buddy, I got to keep people alive.”
Darrius: In general, our goal is to create a canvas for the artist and build this world, including production elements and props. But a big part of that is not only the stage, but also lighting, video, staging, how people get on and off stage, and how things pack up. Things are being transported on trailers and semi-trucks and need to travel across the country. We also need to worry about changeover times.
For these shows that we’ve been doing, we’ve only had about 30 minutes to get everything on stage and even less time to get everything off, so it becomes our experience in the practicality of things, like, okay, what is too much? And I think for us, the fun thing is: how much can we put on stage to really push the limit of what’s the most we can do? So that becomes a fun challenge, figuring that out.
What’s something you learned about Summer Walker in the process of putting this show together that you didn’t know before or that you think that other people would be surprised to learn?
Darrius: One thing is that she is very goofy and funny. I didn’t realize that, and she cares a lot. So that was a fun thing to find out and work on with her.
Harriet: Yeah, I think that she’s so fun. I didn’t realize that. She’s so… In England, you say “cheeky” — a bit naughty in the most fun way — and she pushes stuff. Do you know what we can talk about? We had this reference that we love, which was initially from Barbarella, but then Austin Powers did it — the spark boobs.
So we made all these visuals with Lacey, directed these beautiful visuals for her where we filmed Summer with it, and then in post, we added all the sparks, and it was a really powerful visual. She’s like 20 feet tall on the screen with these sparkling boobs. But then, when we were doing Wireless in London, Summer was like, “I want to do it for real.”
She worked with her stylist, and they designed the sparkling bra. We did all these tests. It was so much fun figuring out how to do it, but she really pushed for it. She wanted to go there. She wanted to have all the showmanship, do the most, and I really respect that. It’s so fun and exciting to work with an artist who really cares, is really engaged, and just wants to push it.
Very cool. You guys do your fair share of interviews. You may get bored hearing the same questions repeatedly. Has there ever been a question that you were like, “Ask me this, ask me this, ask me this,” and then nobody ever did? And if so, what is it?
Darrius: “Why do we do what we do?” I don’t think I’ve ever gotten that question before. Like, what inspires us to do what we do? And the answer for me is I like creating something that makes people feel something, and at least being part of it. We’re not front and center; the people in the audience don’t know who we are. Half the time, they think the show runs on its own or that it’s one person doing the whole thing, or there is a computer that’s just autoplaying visuals and stuff.
It takes someone who really loves this to put in as much time and effort as we do. Being able to create something and see people respond to these moments that we create and that we think are going to be cool? When we see it in clips online, it’s like, okay, cool. People love that moment just like we did. So being a part of that experience is very gratifying, and that’s why I love it.
Harriet, how about yourself?
Harriet: A question that pertains to how someone gets into this job or how this job even exists. I would say it’s a very weird job. Like Darrius is saying, so many people don’t even know that it’s a job, and I just feel like I would love for more people to understand that it’s a job. I was going to concerts since I was 12, and I was obsessed with it. I didn’t know, honestly, until I was, I think, in my twenties, that it was a job and that you could do that. I wish I’d known when I was 15 or much younger that this is a thing that you can do. If you also find music to be a transcendental experience and something so important, even if you don’t play or want to be an artist, you can be involved in helping to bring that to millions of people and bring millions of people joy in this way where you support an artist.
