La La Land's Choreographer Explains the Freeway Dance Scene

I'm Mandy Moore, choreographer of Lala Land.

We are gonna be doing a choreography scene breakdown

for Another Day of Sun.

Probably the most difficult thing I ever did

in my entire career.

First girl gets out of the car

and it was really important choreographically that

she looked like she wasn't really dancing.

One of the hardest things as

we went through the process of choreographing Lala Land was

figuring out the bridge from

normal people just doing everyday things,

everyday gestures and how does that then move to dance.

This little arms up moment is something that Damien was

very clear about.

He literally wanted this shape from the beginning.

I remember showing him this shape actually in a meeting

and I said, oh she wants to have her arms up

like she's stretching.

You know to me this becomes a really iconic shape

because it's one of the first things

you actually really see her do.

Okay so she does a little sassy step back,

there's a little ball change of Grapevine.

Now here comes the spin.

Yes.

Okay, there was actually a little cut hidden in there

so I don't know if I must say that or not.

Maybe that's secret sauce but

we knew that we needed to create movement that would

inform an edit.

That's how we were able to

kind of inform the whip of the camera was the spins.

Something that was choreographed

and something that was from the choreography department

actually informed what the camera was gonna do.

This first girl that came out

and this second guy that came out really important because

he ended up helping this girl up who was a stunt person.

She was only hired so that she could

do this back flip off his car and land on the cement.

I knew I needed somebody that a, could hit that

you know 40, 60 times in a row but also could land

in a space that was probably no bigger than this screen,

honestly.

So here comes the flip.

We're gonna do a little dippy dip dip.

Cameras gonna push through and flip.

As we're doing this I'm still yelling out things like,

okay I can see you guys or like Mike,

make sure you get up on the thing.

So I'm like over here with Damien and Leanness,

our cinematographer and we are in a kind of like,

flatbed truck that's like this.

You've got the jib on it

and that jib arm is like this right now, right

so it's shooting like this.

Going along with the idea of that we're

introducing more and more people you know.

We now have this woman who's in a red dress

which is starting to feel a little different

than like an everyday normal thing.

We have our first girl right there.

She's your first one I thought

was really important to make sure that she's always

in the shot but if you also notice

no one on this side is out yet

and that was a very conscious choice.

You know there had to be a build right.

These people right here,

I'm gonna call that a happy accident

because I basically saw the shot.

Everything's shooting basically chest level

and I realized that this whole area felt really dead to me.

You know I have this beautiful girl here,

I had a lot of foreground elements.

I basically was like, okay guys just get up

and I need for you to do these kind of arm movements

that you're gonna see in just the moments

and it actually ended up being a really kind of nice moment

because it felt

like things were building behind these people

as opposed to just being in the foreground.

♪ And someday as I sing this song ♪

♪ This small town kid will come along. ♪

We're moving in to what I guess I would consider our

biggest section so far.

As we were planning this thing

we had a lot of conversations about

how were dancers gonna hear?

You know like how does this guy

hear the same music that this guy hears.

We had speakers in these hidden places.

Where near car tires

or just places where we wouldn't be able to see them

in the shot and we would feed all the music

through all of the speakers.

So every person that's in here is hearing the same beat

you know there's no delay.

So if this person had, as we went far away was off time

he's still far in the shot.

I have to see what he's doing

and he has to be on time with everybody else.

Basically our world stopped about right here.

So all of this is fancy fun post.

I'm still building on the idea of

finding those bridge moments.

How do we now start to move into dance.

So you're gonna start seeing what I'll call windmill turns.

You're gonna see some people down this aisle

and the people down this aisle

start doing more choreography.

At the same time I created a second track of movement

that was for all the people that were on the hoods

and they do, we'll call it an arm rainbow.

[upbeat music]

Okay so this girl right here Jillian, my assistant

is gonna do something called a soda bosque

and it's basically a turn in the air.

So if you imagine like an ice skater you know they're,

they're kind of traveling and then they do

basically like a tornado move and then they land,

that's what a soda bosque is.

Well, there she is.

So again more of those are movements that are happening,

more of the arms.

I've only had 30 dancers in this

so I pretty much used all my 30 dancers.

104 degrees.

This band had basically sat in that truck

from the top of the shot

for probably a good 45 to 50 seconds.

On the day the door broke so we had a full stop down

trying to figure out how to get the door fixed

and then as soon as they did the spring came out and so

it ended up being a really heavy door

so we actually had Mike plus these like three crew guys

on the back side of the, the truck

and then we would just yell, go

and they would lift up the door

at the time that Mike had to do it.

Damian wanted these kinds of like different dance genres

to be represented in this particular part.

He thought a great way to show that

would be this kind of impromptu dance circle.

You know we have our flamenco lady

and then we've got our krumper.

Damian really loved the idea of flamenco

and he loved that the woman felt a little bit older maybe

that she wasn't as young as some of the other people

and that she was doing something

that felt very sensual and beautiful to her

and then putting that right next to a krumper

who it's all about aggression.

He does these cool hat tricks and then

she kind of interrupts him and says, oh I've got cool moves

and I do a flip.

Okay and then again there is a cut

that's hidden in this whip.

Now we're going into our third

and final phrase of movements.

I want you to notice that this is a one shot

and we've got a stunt guy coming in on a certain beat.

That's Damian's sister by the way.

Another stunt guy on a BMX following him through.

He goes up the hood, a parkour guy comes in.

Again still one shot, we've not cut.

This is all one shot.

Flips off the car finds our conductor girl.

Our Steadicam operator is getting onto a crane

and then we go from the final epic dance move.

The choreography and his stunts had to live

completely together in this,

the stunt guys were with the dancers and all the rehearsals.

I was creating the stunts and the dance kind of together.

In this particular shot and I'm under the car

because I had to count in Cameron, our skateboarder.

Cameron has to land on a specific beat.

So I basically would count down

and Cameron doesn't really count like dancers.

As dancers you know we count to eight.

Skateboarders don't count to eight

but I was counting Cameron down,

five, four, three, two, one, jump.

We were also counting in our Steadicam operator Ari.

So Ari would go off of Cameron's counts.

Another little happy accident that happened here,

we probably shot and I think it was like

47 takes or something.

On this particular shot we got this beautiful little

lens flare on her.

Then we got Danny.

So he's heading to this red car right here

which we had to make sure that we reinforced.

We definitely broke a windshield a couple times on that car

because he had to go up onto it.

This guy, our parkour guy.

I have ultimate respect for

because this man was flipping and jumping through cars

and he has a very difficult job because he's

coming through here.

Now notice, choreography wise

I still have things happening right.

You've got people moving, these arms up,

post-production help and he's gonna come through here

and he's basically gonna find himself up on this car.

The camera is following him in

and then has to flip on itself and walk back.

He does this flip, wow, every time.

Everyone's gathering up, you see our conductor,

another happy accident.

In this particular magic moment everything worked.

We got this lens flare,

we got the little wind in the dress,

little Marilyn Monroe kind of moment.

I mean I wish

when we all watched it back it was a people were like oh,

you know it was like so cool.

All right so now we're going to our big final dance scene.

The only time they're ever dancing in unison.

That was a very specific note and a thought from Damian.

Let's remember our post friends.

So our world ended right there, right behind that truck.

I'm right here under that car so all of this

is post-production.

Which is pretty cool.

So we, you know we're able to make it look like

you know hundreds of dancers were back there.

We had this way of labeling all of the cars

so that we could discuss how we were going to

talk about how to reinforce the hoods because if you notice

dancers are on like every other hood and also,

if I had everybody on hoods

then I felt like it was kind of weird

that I didn't also have people on the floor here so

we used this labeling system

where each lane was a letter

and then each car was in numbers

so that then we can then discuss okay D11, that's Patrick.

He dances on a roof so it has to be reinforced.

We know he's in a white car so he shouldn't wear white

so he's gonna be in something

that's in a green or brown color.

You know so so many departments you're dealing with.

So you're dealing with casting, transpo, an art department,

transpo in how you're getting the cars.

You're dealing with wardrobe

and then I also had to make sure that choreographically

I'm getting Patrick back to his car

because he started in this car

so it would be weird if Patrick just got in a different car

and started driving out.

To dance on a hood that's only what, four feet wide

it was really interesting to find movement that

you could do on a hood 'cause your dance space,

you know basically if someone's standing

it's like your stance is gonna be

basically what you can do so if you notice

a lot of the dance moves that they do

all kind of replace on themselves.

So this final dance section is funny enough

the very first thing I made up for Lala Land which is odd

'cause we didn't shoot it till almost last.

I love this moment when they have their feet together.

Like how many times have you

stood out in the sun and closed your eyes and just like

felt the sun in your face you know I wanted to create these

moments that felt really joyful.

So then we go into Damien's one request.

They all need to jump off, they all need to get in cars

and they all need to turn and sing towards the camera

and everyone has to shut their doors at the same time.

At the end of this entire thing

because mind you this has been one shot you know

from the kid on the skateboard

to the BMX or to the dancers getting up.

To the flipper, to the conductor,

to everyone dancing in the cars this has been one shot

and everyone had to make it important to themselves

and they had to make sure that it, that it happened

that they just got in the cars and that they,

they closed the door at the same time.

You know I definitely threatened them with their lives,

slightly but you know I'm so so proud of these dancers.

That's the choreography scene break down for

Another Day of Sun.

So when you're stuck in traffic

you know what you need to do.

Get out and dance.

♪ It's another day of sun. ♪