Bobby Brown’s Giant Head

A SURREAL Event Space and DIGITAL EXPERIENCE for

BET’s The Bobby Brown StorY

Creative Director: Benjamin Vendramin

Art Director: Morgan Owen (a.k.a. "me") Copywriter: Benjamin Petrisor

BET is launching a new TV special that focuses on the life of Bobby Brown after he left The New Edition and struck out on his own. It is a journey into his experiences, his perspective, and ultimately, a glimpse into his mind. So when BET said they wanted to engage Bobby's fans directly with a cool experiential activation, we knew we would really have to go big since nothing could be too over-the-top when discussing a larger-than-life personality like Bobby Brown. The solve came from the simplest insight: The show puts viewers into Bobby Brown's mind.

So we decided to build a 28-foot tall version of Bobby Brown's head, like he was rising out of the earth, a giant version of himself in his prime, his Gumby haircut-and-all. Then we let people at NYC’s Harlem Week and Atlanta’s Taste of Soul literally enter his mind, right through the back of his head, and get an ephemeral glimpse at his thoughts. We used a fog-screen production and an artfully surreal video that showed glimpses into his past with clips from the upcoming TV special, as well as persistent image tech that give the impression of 3D rendered objects from his life floating in the air.

The head was an Instagram celebrity in no time and was even visited by Bobby Brown himself, creating a real Being John Malkovich moment when he went into his own mind.