Lessons from Justin Timberlake's Superbowl Halftime Show

Hey, rock stars, what's going on? Reggie Daughson, host of Being On Stage. So, today I want to try something a little bit different, a little bit new. I'm not sure if this is going to work through a podcast, but typically, you know, on YouTube you see people, you know, you can watch videos of people reacting to other videos and things like that. So this is actually going to be a podcast of my reaction to Justin Timberlake's Halftime Show.

Now, I saw the show, you know, at halftime. So this is not my first time watching it. I've already seen the show. I know there's a lot of stuff out there on the internet about it. Some positive, some negative. A lot of negative things about it. And, you know what, to all the negative, all I have to say is, you know what, you get up there and do what he did. Anyways, so that's neither here nor there.

But this is my reaction to Justin Timberlake's Halftime Show at the Super Bowl. And actually, I'm going to time it so that you can actually watch. At the same time, and we can kind of watch it together. So here we go. I've officially pushed play. Jimmy Fallon is announcing Justin Timberlake's Halftime Show right now. Big old Pepsi Cola sign. I got the volume turned off because I don't want to get hit with any copyright stuff on my podcast.

But so we're shifting to some stage opens with a silhouette of Justin Timberlake. Now, first of all, this opening. This is kind of a phenomenal opening. You see all the people videotaping in the audience. That's got to be planned. Opens up on a silhouette. Keeps the curiosity there. There's all these lasers. That takes to the visual presentation of Justin Timberlake doing some popping little dance moves.

This man's timing in this show, like his timing of every movement, not just the dance move, not just the choreography. Every single movement that he makes throughout this was planned, thought out, and is done with a purpose. So, yeah, he opens up with dancing. I mean, he's Justin Timberlake. He's got boy band roots, and that's evident in a lot of his dancing. But you can definitely see the hip-hop roots there as well.

So then he comes to the crowd. Now, his, him, oh, there he is up against the woman on the wall. But anyways, so his interaction with not just the people that are there, but also the camera. Like, he's a phenomenal performer right here. Like, this is. This is all his hard work with music videos. So this is what makes him an amazing entertainer for this type of event, because it's, you know, national television, is the fact that he has the familiarity of working with cameras on him, having to put on a show to only a camera and not to a crowd.

Now, here he comes out, and there's all these screaming fans. He's coming out. He's going to do some dance moves right here with his little crew, which, very boy band-esque. Like, really. Yeah, that's a little, that's a little too boy band for 2018, but you can see, like, he's, he's got facial expressions, he's got moves, he's looking in the camera, he's looking at the crowd, he's, he just smiled at somebody, like, little things like that.

All these little things is what makes him entertaining. It's what brings the audience in. You see over there, now, like, he looked to the side, he's looking at people, he's looking at the crowd, he just looked down. He's looking at the people that are right there in front of him. Now, later in the show, it really turns epic with his audience interaction. But you see this, look at this interaction with the camera.

He's, he's playing with the camera. Now he's going up steps onto another platform. This is actually really funny how he did this here. It's coming up in a minute, but when he, in the middle of Rock Your Body, and he goes, stop, you can totally tell that that's him playing off of his, I think it was 2004 when him and Janet Jackson did it, and it was total wardrobe malfunction. Um, but no, like, here he is again, he's playing with the camera, he's singing, he's got facial expressions, he's into his music, you can tell he's having a blast, he's having fun, and that's what it's all about.

That's what gets your audience going more than anything else, is the performer having fun on stage. You can see all these people are into it, they are feeling what he's putting out there, they're connecting with him, I mean, and they're, you know, they're having a party. But you can see, like, his facial expressions, his movements, it all yells, like, I've timed this out, I've planned this, every part of this is so well executed. And now to me, I don't have the volume on, so everything's lip syncing to me.

And first of all, it's, these dance moves and being able to even come close to singing a note on key is just, it's out of this world. They're doing little dances now. He's got the whole jazz band behind us. Okay, going into another song. Now, look at, just look at the visuals here on this stage. Like, you've got people dancing, you've got people bouncing around with instruments. These screens with the video with the different shapes on it, these are going to change throughout the whole show.

But this whole platform of how they've set up this band is absolutely just, it's just pleasing to watch, this whole setup. Now, of course, this is, you know, this is a multi-million dollar setup he's got going on. And quite frankly, it's Justin Timberlake, he can afford it. But, nonetheless, like, you can, you could do something like this real cheap. I mean, I put my name on a lighted sign really cheap.

You know, I lit my name all in lights with just Christmas lights and foam board. So, you know, these types of effects that he's got going on, yes, these are multi-billion dollar, million dollar effects. But this is something that you can put on stage. You can do something along these lines. You know, this is what makes a performance is the fact that it's visually appealing. There's, you know, there's things to look at.

Everywhere you look, there's something going on in this performance right now. He's got the whole crowd bouncing with him. They're all partying. All the guys and the instruments are out there. The lighted boxes are going crazy. And this stuff's getting cheaper and cheaper. This technology to make videos like dance to music. That technology is getting cheaper and cheaper. You can almost program this.

You can program almost an entire light sequence on a cell phone nowadays. Okay, so here they do a little dance number again. And that's kind of a common theme is this. It's like it's always a dance number. And that's where his history of being in a boy band really shines through is the fact that there's always some choreographed dance at every point. You see him like his face there. He's looking at somebody like.

Yeah, he's getting into it. He's singing. He's looking at the people in the audience. He's making faces that kind of go with his music and everything. And he's genuinely having a very good time. I mean, part of this, yes, is the lights. Everyone's bouncing their hands up and down. You've got lights going everywhere like this. This is just incredible to watch. And the fact that he brings it down on the field as another little dance number.

Now, coming up, they're on the NFL sign dancing if you're watching with me. So coming up, he's about to do his tribute to Prince, I believe. And this was like this went all over the Internet. There's a lot of different viewpoints on this. My viewpoint is, you know what, the man did what he could to honor Prince. Some people may view it as selfish. Some people may view it as unnecessary.

Some people may view it as too over the top. But I view it as, you know what, he's truly honoring somebody that, well, that deserves to be honored. And, okay, I guess I have an ad in the middle of this video. So in the meantime, while this ad is playing, because he's about to do his Prince tribute, one of the things about this performance that I wanted to point out to you guys is the timing of every step, every movement.

And as you see him moving across the field and everything, especially right here as he's about to set up his Prince tribute, it's back on after the ad now. I don't know how you guys are going to get through the ad with me. Right now, all the lights rose up. You see a marching band. Drum line. Oh, no, we're not at the Prince tribute yet. I'm sorry. I think this is suit and tie. But he's got a whole marching band behind him, and he's dancing with a microphone stand.

Like, the timing of this, and first of all, that's a trick microphone stand. I don't know if you know this or not. Like, it's inside the glowing white box, there's hinges, so the microphone stand's always going to come back straight. You can see it right there. Like, he's not pushing and pulling it there. That's also something you can do. You can, you know, you can make this for yourself.

Like, you can make, you can take that microphone stand, drill a hole in it, put a hinge on it on a wooden block, and, you know, make it spring-loaded, and you have his, you know, always upright weeble wobble mic stand. So all these steps he's taken, every single step, it's timed out. It's to the music. Every step. So he's pointing at the crowd. He's showing them some love. Like, he's showing his appreciation for everything they're singing. all that they're doing he's asking you know make the place light up with your cell phones he's involving them in the show like he's making them part of look at all those cell phones like it looks like a night sky so that's that's one of the things that all these you know a lot of artists are really good at doing is involving the audience in the show somehow some way make the audience a part of the show.

He's letting it rip on a piano. Am I missing the giant? There's supposed to be a giant silhouette of Prince. Doesn't appear to be there right now. Okay, so he's just wailing on a piano. Oh, there it is. Okay, other side of him. Okay, so there is the giant silhouette of Prince. And this is, like, this is really touching. You can kind of see, like, he's down there on the piano. He's really getting into it.

I don't know if he's really playing the piano or not. Like, I'm not here to debate real or fake. All I gotta say is, look at the face. Like, he's really getting into it. Like, he's genuinely into it. He's interacting with the silhouette of Prince as if they're actually doing a duet. This was phenomenally done, how he did this with the silhouette and everything. Which, by the way, again, you can get a projector for, like, 100 bucks, 150 bucks.

You may have to wait a month while it comes from China. No offense to anyone from China. But you can order a projector online. Oh, this lighting up the whole city that they did. Can I just say, like, that was cool. This right here. That's cool. But anyways, this projector thing, you can do this. Like, you get a $150 projector, get yourself a nice white sheet. I mean, maybe even a white silk sheet.

And you can project whatever you want, whatever you can put on a computer video, a video on a computer, I should say. You can project this. You can do this right there for relatively low cost. All these things that he's doing, all his timing and his attitude and his facial expression and his dancing and his his interaction with the camera and his involving the crowd in the shows, even to the props, the silhouettes, the lights, the, you know, the microphone stand, all of this stuff.

And here, now you're going to see all these mirrors. But all this stuff that he's doing, you can do this. Like, you can figure out a way to make something so simple into something amazing. Like, this is a bunch of boxes with a TV screen on it. This is a bunch of people carrying mirrors around. And in a minute, they're going to start shaking them. But this is a bunch But the fact is, like, you can and I've done this.

You can take mirrors and put glue them on a shirt and you have a sparkly outfit or whatever. But you have something that's, you know, stage ready. Look at his outfit. Like, yes, I know there's the Internet's all raging about his outfit and what the heck was wrong with it. But like, just just think about his outfit like that was planned. It was a performance. But like, all these mirrors and everything.

This is phenomenally to watch. This is awesome to watch. Could you imagine being in the stands watching this? Like looking down on this for real? I just think this is a phenomenal, like, just fabulously put together show. Justin Timberlake truly is a performer. He sings amazingly. He dances amazing. Not a lot of people can sing and dance. At the same time, I think he does an amazing job at that as well.

But he's truly a performer. Like, he's not just singing. He's not just dancing. Every step time. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Every step timed out perfectly in rhythm to the music. That's what you have to do. That's how you make the show flow. You got to time out your movements. It's not called dancing. I call it timing that this this is dancing what he's doing right now where everyone's doing the whole little like arm pump and legs swinging thing.

That's dancing. But this whole he's just walking. He's walking. He's taking a step. He's just taking a step in rhythm. Now, here's where it really gets crazy, right? So this isn't this isn't hired people like these are the actual people that paid their thousands of dollars to be at the Super Bowl. Like these aren't these aren't planted people. These are real, you know, real people in this craft.

That he has just put himself in the middle of and this selfie went absolutely crazy. They're going to take a selfie here in a minute, but it went absolutely crazy. But like this is what performing is all about. Like he's truly he's involved his audience. Now here he's telling him to take a picture. That's going to go viral. That's going to put him like even more on the map. This is an amazing interaction with this crowd.

He's got everybody involved. Even if you're on the opposite side of the field on the stands. The fact that you're watching this even at home watching him be in that crowd. You got to you got to feel something about that because there's not a lot of entertainers that will do that. And just the way he finishes up and everything. This phenomenal show at the Super Bowl halftime show by Justin Timberlake.

I think that a lot of people can learn a lot from this show. I mean, all the negative criticism aside, forget about the outfit. Forget about, you know, maybe he did lip sync a little bit here and there. Maybe he didn't really play the piano. Maybe it was selfish not to have other artists there. Forget about all that. And just think for a minute about the performance itself. There's a lot that people can learn from this.

You can learn timing. You can learn visual effects. You can learn, you know, audience interaction. You can learn camera interaction. You can learn the importance of, you know, involving other people in your show. And I mean, yeah, you can learn the importance of choreography and everything. But there were so many visuals in this performance and there were so many variables. You know, there was so much interaction with the camera, with the audience.

Like you felt part of it. You felt part of the show, even on the couch in your living room. And that's saying something. So I hope this was fun and interesting for you. If it was, great. Let me know. Maybe we can do more reactions to other performances. If it sucked and you really didn't get anything out of it, let me know because then I'll never do it again. I did fix my website. Now if you go to beingonstage.com, you can actually go directly to the website and put in your email address.

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And keep on shining.