If this year’s Super Bowl bumpers had you thinking it was late on a Saturday night, it’s for a good reason.
Mary Ellen Matthews, who has been Saturday Night Live’s resident photographer since 1993, was recruited by NBC Sports to snap portraits of players from both Super Bowl teams to be used as “bumpers” for this year’s big game.
At least based on their first usage midway through the first quarter, the bumpers served as an anchor for brand sponsor logos.
As reported by Sports Business Journal, Matthews took the portraits of Patriots QB Drake Maye and other New England and Seattle players, along with both teams’ head coaches, during a special photo session at the San Jose Convention Center (where this year’s Super Bowl Opening Night was held). NBC Sports director Charlie Vanacore worked with Matthews on the shoot.
Mathews since 1999 has photographed SNL‘s iconic “bumper” photos, aka those eccentric portraits of hosts and musical guests that appear before and after commercial breaks.
Last March, Matthews released The Art of the SNL Portrait, the first-ever printed collection of her bumper photos. It features more than 200 color portraits and behind-the-scenes photos, including Andy Samberg in a giant martini glass, Billie Eilish peeking out of a pile of snow, Kevin Hart writing his own cue cards, Paul Rudd as Paul McCartney, Sarah Silverman dusting the NBC marquee, Alec Baldwin as the Godfather, and many more.
The collection, co-written by Matthews and Alison Castle (who was the editor of Saturday Night Live: The Book) and designed by Emily Oberman, arrived two weeks after the iconic NBC sketch comedy series’ three-hour 50th anniversary special. Fittingly, it includes a forward by SNL boss Lorne Michaels.
“Shooting for SNL is the most fun job in the world,” Matthews said of The Art of the SNL Portrait‘s release. “This book is an homage [to] the incredible hosts and musical guests as well as the whole team I have the honor of working with at the show.”
