Even those not quite sold on La La Land as an awards darling have to admit that the freeway-set one-shot opening number is pretty damn impressive. And now the filmmakers are offering a glimpse at the rehearsal process for “Another Day Of Sun.” The dance was rehearsed in an L.A. parking lot with director Damien Chazelle mapping out shots on his iPhone. The video starts with a few seconds of footage of Chazelle walking backward to shoot the rehearsal footage before it switches to his iPhone camera perspective. The video even helpfully contrasts Chazelle’s rehearsal footage with the final scene, which plays out in a box in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.
There are some small blocking and casting differences and the rehearsal is pared down in scope, but for the most part Chazelle really manages to capture his vision even in iPhone form. It’s fun to see the game ensemble mime things like riding a bike, skateboarding, and doing parkour off of cars, which are all part of the final product but just loosely suggested here. Though not as elaborate as the “Another Day Of Sun” video, Lionsgate also released snippets of behind-the-scene footage from some of the film’s other production numbers too. They’re on-set videos rather than rehearsal ones, but, like the parking lot rehearsal, they offer a more grounded perspective of La La Land’s enchanting musical world: