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Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles

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Wikipedia article




'Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles' is a 2021 American concert film directed by Robert Rodriguez and Patrick Osborne, starring singer-songwriter Billie Eilish. It features performances of all 16 tracks from Eilish's second studio album, 'Happier Than Ever' (2021), at the Hollywood Bowl amphitheater. Accompanying her are other musicians, including her brother Finneas O'Connell and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Inspired by films like 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' (1988) and 'Cool World' (1992), 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles' blends live action and animation.

Filming took place for one week in Los Angeles, mostly at the Hollywood Bowl, without a live audience due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The crew aimed to avoid making the performances feel too similar to each other and to create a sense of intimacy between Eilish and the viewers. They created distinct color palettes and lighting effects for every song, and they often recorded Eilish from very close distances. Besides directing, Osborne worked on the film's visual effects, mixing motion capture animation with rotoscoping techniques. For the job, he collaborated with Nexus Studios, Zoic Studios, and Digital Frontier FX.

'A Love Letter to Los Angeles' was released exclusively to Disney+ on September 3, 2021. Critics directed praise towards its performanceswhich they felt were of similar or better quality compared to the songs' studio versionsas well as its animation, cinematography, and setting. It received nominations for Best Austin Film at the 2021 Austin Film Critics Association Awards, Best Music Film at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, and Best Longform Video at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards.

== Plot

The film begins by showing a two-dimensional, animated version of American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish in a recording studio. Picking up a microphone, she leaves the place and drives a Porsche to visit various landmarks around Los Angeles, California. Meanwhile, her live-action self performs the tracks from her second studio album, 'Happier Than Ever' (2021), at the Hollywood Bowl.

Eilish starts with "Getting Older", covered in blue lighting as the camera spins around her. The lights switch to a red-orange color for "I Didn't Change My Number". A symphony orchestra accompanies her during the next two performances, the first of which is "Billie Bossa Nova". While Eilish sings the subsequent song, "My Future", a wide shot depicts her animated counterpart on the rooftop of the Roosevelt Hotel, as she looks across the Los Angeles skyline and contemplates. The animated version returns to her Porsche to drive around the city at high speed.

Back at the Hollywood Bowl, the live-action Eilish prepares for a performance of "Oxytocin". As she sings the song, red lights pulsate in the background; the screen turns to black and white during two verses, and she belts some of the closing lines. Nighttime passes, and the next morning, the animated Eilish awakes to find herself among the clouds, about to sprout angel wings. For "Goldwing", a children's chorus performs its first verse, an excerpt from a religious hymn. They act as backing vocals for Eilish during the rest of the number, and the orchestra reappears to provide accompaniment to go with electronic music. The choir and orchestra are gone once the next song, "Lost Cause", begins. Eilish's performance is interspersed with shots of the Porsche as it travels through Los Angeles at night.

During "Halley's Comet", Eilish returns with the orchestra for another number, and she looks up to see the eponymous comet pass through the sky. Her animated version, sitting in an empty restaurant, also notices the comet. Eilish delivers a spoken-word interlude with "Not My Responsibility" and monologues about the public's obsession around her physical appearance. Shown as a silhouette against a black and red background, her animated self slowly takes her clothes off, is picked apart into bifurcated clones, and submerges herself in water. She arises from the water then levitates, after which the camera transitions back to her live-action self, about to perform "Overheated" with red lights and smoke around her. With "Everybody Dies", the animated Eilish visits a cemetery, and the orchestra helps with the instrumentals.

For "Your Power", Eilish duets with her brother Finneas O'Connell, who plays the acoustic guitar. Her animated counterpart arrives at the Palladium theater, after which paparazzi gather around the entrance to take pictures. Close-up shots of Eilish's face repeatedly flash on the screen as she sings "NDA" with distorted vocals, and the orchestra appears one final time for "Therefore I Am". During the performance of the title track, the animated Eilish enters the Hollywood Bowl while a spotlight follows her every move. She notices her live-action counterpart, who sees her and smiles at her, and takes a seat at the front row to watch the performance. The live-action Eilish headbangs and thrashes around the stage once the electric guitar appears in the song. She closes the film with the stripped-back "Male Fantasy"; as the song ends, flowers appear all over the Hollywood Bowl. The animated Eilish, still watching, disappears from sight, a smile on her face.

Cast ==

* Billie Eilish, vocalist

* Finneas O'Connell, Eilish's brother and close collaborator on music

* Romero Lubambo, guitarist

* Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

* Los Angeles Philharmonic

* Los Angeles Children's Chorus

* Andrew Marshall, drummer

* Brady Heiser, precision driver

Production



Development



Eilish spent her formative years in Los Angeles, and developed an intense emotional attachment to it over time. She explained during a segment on 'Good Morning America': "I don't think I'd have any of the same anything if it wasn't for my hometown. I owed Los Angeles some love." Eilish came up with 'Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles' as a way to pay tribute to the city, intending it to be about self-reflection and growth. With regards to its visual style, she envisioned it to combine live action and animation, a "dimension that [she had] never experimented in", and felt that Disney would help her with the goal.

She contacted Robert Rodriguez, who she thought was the best candidate for directing, in April or May 2021. He agreed to be involved in the project with his daughter, who was willing to help plan how Eilish's animated counterpart would look. They met with Eilish to discuss ideas for the film and listen to her second studio album, 'Happier Than Ever', before its release. Rodriguez noticed many of the songs contain explicit lyrics or discuss mature themes, and he wondered how Disney would react including them in the film. For instance, the word 'fuck' appears in the title track, and one verse in "Male Fantasy" mentions using pornography to distract oneself. Disney opted to censor 'fuck', but not other swear words like 'shit', 'damn', or 'bitches', nor the subject matter of the songs themselves.

Eilish also enlisted the help of Patrick Osborne, an animator for several Disney films, to co-direct and work on the animation and visual design. For the film's setting, she instructed him to create a romanticized depiction of Hollywood, aiming for a vintage noir look. When conceptualizing the aesthetic for 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles', she drew inspiration from 1980s films. Osborne learned that Eilish was a fan of films like 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' (1988) and 'Cool World' (1992), that blended live action with animation, and used them as a benchmark for the visual design. Eilish also told him that she wanted her animated counterpart to feel like an idealized version of herself, and he decided on a femme fatale look for the character to reinforce the film's inspirations.

Work on 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles' began by late June 2021, when Disney+ contacted Nexus Studios about the project. Darkroom and Interscope, Eilish's record labels, handled production for the film, in association with Nexus Studios and Aron Levine Productions.

Filming

, albeit without a live audience due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Filming for the concert sequences took place at the Hollywood Bowl, without a live audience due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kerry Asmussen directed and choreographed the corresponding scenes. Apart from Eilish, other musicians who appeared include her brother Finneas O'Connell, drummer Andrew Marshall, guitarist Romero Lubambo, conductor Gustavo Dudamel, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Children's Chorus. They performed all 16 songs from the album in the order that they appear on its track list. To avoid accidentally leaking the album to passersby, everyone on set listened to the performances via headphones.

Principal photography was completed within the first week of July. According to Osborne, the crew's shooting schedule at the Hollywood Bowl was from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m. Since 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles' was filmed without a live audience, the crew could move their cameras freely, able to get angles that would not be possible to attain if there were people in the venue. At least 10 cameras were used for acquiring footage, alongside steadicams, cranes, and large Alta-X drones. Scenes that involved the Los Angeles Philharmonic had to be filmed together in one night for production considerations.

For the animated vignettes, the crew recorded in several locations around Los Angeles, using the footage to create the animated character's journey across the city. They placed most of the scenes between each song performance. During filming, they also constructed a reflecting pool, a former feature of the Hollywood Bowl that separated performers from audience members, and built it in place of some of the venue seats. It reflected back to itself, making the Hollywood Bowl look like a full circle instead of a semicircle. In Osborne's view, the caustic motifs reflected by the pool onto the Hollywood Bowl provided visual effects reminiscent of the film 'Blade Runner' (1982).

Cinematography

Pablo Berron served as the cinematographer for 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles'. For the project, he collaborated with aerial director of photography Sam O'Melia, digital imaging technician Dan Skinner, chief lighting technician Konrad Sigurdsson, and Eilish's tour lighting designer Tony Caporale. Once Berron learned everything he needed to know about the project, he was surprised; he compared the shooting schedule to filming four music videos per night. Meanwhile, he was relieved that that there would be no crowd during filming because to him, it meant that all the lights would focus on Eilish instead. In an interview with 'CineD', Berron explained that this approach allowed him to film her at a very close range, and he "really wanted" to do it because it would create a sense of intimacy between her and the viewers.

The crew aimed to avoid making the performances feel too similar to one another. During a 'Sony Cine' interview, Berron said that they initially planned a vintage, "classic Hollywood old-school" look for every concert scene. However, after gradually getting to know Eilish's personality, which Berron described as "high energy", they decided that sticking to one visual atmosphere throughout the film was not appropriate. Hence, during certain songs, the crew used smoke machines and lasers or went "crazy" with operating the handheld cameras. Furthermore, Caporale assigned each performance its own color palette and lighting effects, and Berron and his crew listened closely to all of the songs to figure out when to adjust the lights. They employed only backlighting techniques during close-up shots of Eilish, set up fill lights to tweak the contrast when necessary, and occasionally put "old movie lights" below her as key lighting, to highlight the theatrical elements for some scenes.

Animation

Osborne worked on the film's animated sequences with Nexus Studios, with assistance from visual effects companies Zoic Studios and Digital Frontier FX. Sallyanne Massimini served as the studios' visual effects supervisor. According to Osborne, Nexus was responsible for animating the "most magical, more surreal parts of the story", while the other studios worked on the more "grounded stuff". He added that around five or six people based in Los Angeles, London, and Sydney worked on the animation.

Animating Eilish provided a "real challenge" for Osborne, who had 12 weeks to do the job. He had little time to capture her physical disposition for the "old-school" version of the rotoscope process, which he had to do before she embarked on the concert sequences. His solution was to put her in a motion capture suit, having previsualized how the scenes for the corresponding shoot would look, and render the resulting animation. To maintain the 1980s look, Osborne did rotoscoping on top of the motion capture animation.

Osborne used the Blender program to edit the motion capture, of which there were around 90 minutes of footage. He and his team made simple storyboards for the animated sequences, with around one drawing for each shot. Regarding the animated footage, he said that his team created 12 minutes of it, finishing the editing process by the week of August 20, 2021.

Marketing and release



Eilish announced 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles' on July 22, 2021, eight days before the release of 'Happier Than Ever'. A teaser trailer was revealed alongside the announcement. Another teaser trailer premiered on August 4, and an official trailer premiered 20 days later. While the first clip offered a small glimpse of the film's animation, the other two put more focus on that element.

After the trailers were revealed, many journalists immediately compared Eilish's animated character to a Disney Princess, including MTV News's Athena Serrano and 'Billboard' Gill Kaufman. Meanwhile, Ben Pearson of '/Film' likened her to a less-sexualized version of the character Holli Would from 'Cool World'. Three days before the screening of the film, Eilish shared a video of the "Oxytocin" performance on social media. Released as a Disney+ exclusive, 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles' premiered worldwide on September 3, 2021. Disney+ made the film available to watch with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.

Reception



Thematic analysis



Larisha Paul, a writer for the Recording Academy, cited freedom from fame as a recurring theme of 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles'. In the film, Eilish's animated counterpart drives through the Highland Park neighborhood, where she used to live before she moved away due to security concerns such as experiences with stalkers. She references similar privacy-breaching encounters in the lyrics to "Getting Older", "Billie Bossa Nova", and "NDA". According to Paul, the animated counterpart, by travelling across various locations in Los Angeles, demonstrates freedom that the live-action Eilish does not possess, reminding viewers of the life she had before the massive success of her debut studio album, 'When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?' (2019). As she drives, she sees many billboards used to promote 'Happier Than Ever' by the roads of the city. In Paul's view, this reinforces "the ironclad inescapability of fame" and the conversations that result, such as the ones referenced in the "Not My Responsibility" interlude.

In a review for 'Billboard', Sydney Urbanek analyzed how Los Angeles might connect to the film's plot. Her argument was that the city functions as a setting for the stories told through the album's lyricsshe interpreted the plot as Eilish's attempt to fix her estranged relationship with Los Angeles, caused by certain traumatic experiences discussed in the songs she performs. To back this up, she cited the album's exploration of Eilish's past relationships and lack of privacy. Urbanek also pointed to one line in the penultimate song, the title track, which reads "I'd never treat me this shitty / You made me hate this city." She called its performance the film's culminating moment, a sentiment that Paul shared. Discussing Eilish's encounter with her animated counterpart during the scene, Paul said: "[her] ongoing theme of solitude, and the autonomy found within that [...] speaks to the one consistency between where Eilish has been and where she's headed: herself."

Critical response



Some critics deemed 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles' a film that Eilish's fans would enjoy. Johnny Loftus recommended watching 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles' in a review for the website 'Decider', certain that it would "make her thriving fan base swoon", and 'CNET' Abrar Al-Heeti argued that doing so was the best way to listen to the album. Jennifer Green, a writer for Common Sense Media, remarked that Eilish's followers would "enjoy parsing her lyrics for biographical details and references" while viewing the film. Urbanek considered its release as a way to satisfy fans with live performances before they got to see Eilish during the world tour in support of the album. However, she warned against reducing it to a "mere gift" to them: "there's simply too much at work conceptually to dismiss it as [such]."

The film received some praise for its animation and cinematography. Urbanek liked the way that 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles' mixed animation with live action footage, finding the variety in camerawork appropriate for an album that is varied in themes and tones. Loftus lauded the film's use of lighting, as well as the aesthetic and color schemes employed for the animated sequences. He believed that the sequences succeeded in establishing the mood for the performances despite looking substantially different from the live footage. The scenes of the animated Eilish, observed Green, slightly paralleled the beginning and end of each performance and the stories told by the songs. However, she found their inclusion in the film unnecessary: for her, Eilish and her music do enough to convey the right emotions.

The concert numbers were another aspect of the film that critics praised. They wrote that the songs' live renditions sounded as good as or better than their studio versions, often attributing the quality to the Los Angeles Philharmonic's involvement. Meanwhile, Loftus was impressed by Eilish's voice, which he described as "striking". He sensed improvement in her vocals and saw the film as an opportunity for her to prove her ability to sing live. Loftus concluded that the performances in 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles' rightly emphasized Eilish's artistry, music, and her nuanced character in spite of all the media narratives about her.

Callie Ahlgrim of 'Insider' selected the live renditions of some of her favorite tracks from the album"Oxytocin", "Halley's Comet", and the title trackas the film's highlights. Urbanek felt like the title track performance lost some impact as a result of Disney's censorship of the word 'fuck' in the lyrics. Nevertheless, she thought that the film still managed to make the song feel cathartic. The "Goldwing" performance was singled out for praise in multiple reviews; it was regarded as more beautiful compared to the song's studio version thanks to the presence of the Children's Chorus, of which Eilish used to be a part as a child. The reviewers found their reunion through the film sentimental.

However, Ahgrim was critical of the film as a whole, of the opinion that without any memorable conceptual risks or a "palpable buzz" from a live audience, 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles' felt underwhelming like the album itself. Conversely, Al-Heeti was glad that there was no live audience to distract her from the film, and 'Uproxx' contributor Rachel Brodsky thought the absence of an audience made the viewing experience more heartwarming. For Brodsky, criticisms were instead directed towards the performances' monochrome color schemes and Eilish's vocals, which she thought came across as pre-recorded and not live.

Writing for 'The New York Times', Teo Bugbee praised the directors' use of the empty Hollywood Bowl as the concert venue and stated that the lack of an audience demonstrated the "star-struck hauntedness" of Los Angeles. In Bugbee's view, the choice of location was the film's "best tribute" to the city. Brodsky shared the same opinions; she found the choice appropriate because of the Hollywood Bowl's significance to the city's music and film scenes. Meanwhile, Al-Heeti lamented the perceived lack of commentary about Los Angeles in the film, but she suggested that this might be because Eilish intended to emphasize the music "in its purest form".

Accolades

'A Love Letter to Los Angeles' was shortlisted for Best Austin Film at the 2021 Austin Film Critics Association Awards, held on January 11, 2022. Other contenders included the 2020 releases 'The Carnivores', 'The Get Together', and 'Queens of Pain', as well as the winner 'Without Getting Killed or Caught' (2021). On November 23, 2021, the Recording Academy announced the 64th Annual Grammy Awards nominees, which included 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles' for Best Music Film. The ceremony was held on April 3, 2022, and the documentary 'Summer of Soul' (2021) won the award. 'A Love Letter to Los Angeles' was also nominated for Best Longform Video at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards.

References




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