The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies

Posted: 08 Nov 2012 02:43 AM PST

Musical comedy Pitch Perfect tells the story of a group of college students taking part in an a cappella competition.

There is a reason why television is currently saturated with singing shows – people just can't get enough of it.

The film Pitch Perfect offers a story about misfits and underdogs with great talent coming together for a singing competition. Starring Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wislon, Anna Camp, Skylar Astin and Brittany Snow, the film explores the world of college a cappella competitions (which are real events in the United States), focusing on an all-female vocal group as it tries to survive the cut-throat contest world.

Pitch Perfect kicks off its story with Kendrick's character, Beca, arriving at Barden University where she reluctantly ends up as a member of The Bellas. This particular group has just had a bad year at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCAs) and is in dire need of new recruits to give it a breath of fresh air. As it turns, Beca is the key.

In an interview transcript provided by the film distributor UIP Malaysia, Kendrick said: "Beca arrives at college and kind of thinks she is too cool for it. When she is asked to join this singing group, she initially doesn't want to be involved because she sees them as dorky. She thinks she's kind of a bad***, but she really isn't."

Kendrick, who received an Oscar nomination for her role in Up In The Air, found the process of singing and dancing in the movie quite scary yet fun. Although she has done theatre from a young age and was in a choir group during high school – which led to her going for vocal lessons – she felt that was enough. To prepare for the role, though, she and the other cast members had a month-long rehearsal period in an a cappella "boot camp" where they sang and danced for 10 hours a day to ensure they achieved a harmonious musical sound.

As it turns out, Kendrick knows a thing or two about these heated singing competitions as she got dragged to them by a friend when she first moved to Los Angeles.

She shared: "I assumed it was going to be really painful, but by the end of the evening, I was on my feet and really invested in it. That's when I understood that something can seem dorky and underground, like college a cappella competitions, but which could actually be infectious and make you feel the stakes are really high. I think (scriptwriter) Kay Cannon really captured that in the script."

According to director Jason Moore, he met Kendrick almost a year before shooting began for the movie , and thought that the 27-year-old actress would be perfect to play a grounded character like Beca. He said: "Anna Kendrick has wit, warmth, a fantastic singing voice and she is a great dancer as well. She was the right centre for the movie and helped attract other good actors to complete the cast."

Moore is also quoted in the production notes as saying: "When we were casting the movie, I knew that I wanted the actors to all do their own singing. The story is about everyone bringing their own special voice, the way that they sound and the way they perform, into the movie, so I needed genuine performances. What's interesting about this genre is that there are no drums and there's no piano to cover up the mistakes, so everybody has to be able to carry the musical tune and do what it takes to make the overall sound work."

Nonetheless, Moore faced the challenge of choosing the right songs and getting them translated into a cappella numbers. Some of the more popular ones in The Bellas' songlist are The Sign (Ace Of Base), Turn The Beat Around (Gloria Estefan), S&M (Rihanna), No Diggity (Blackstreet) and Party In The USA (Miley Cyrus), and mash-ups of Just the Way You Are (Bruno Mars) and Just A Dream (Nelly).

When asked what she took away from the whole experience of Pitch Perfect, Kendrick answered: "I just had such a nice experience getting to know these girls. To be honest, the unsung heroes of this film are all the people that didn't have lines and are in these singing groups. Their energy, work ethic and excitement were so contagious that whenever I felt like throwing in the towel, all I had to do was look at them to be inspired." – By Mumtaj Begum

> Pitch Perfect opens in cinemas nationwide on Nov 15.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Khamis, 8 November 2012

The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies

The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies

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