In the Heights Trailer: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s First Musical Hustles Its Way to the Screen

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Contra Hamilton, it is the opposite of quiet uptown in In the Heights, the movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Broadway musical. The movie, directed by Jon M. Chu (of Crazy Rich Asians, and perhaps more pertinently in this case, Step Up 3D), stars A Star Is Born and Hamilton’s Anthony Ramos as Usnavi, a hustling bodega owner with big dreams, the role Miranda originated on Broadway, with Melissa Barrera as Vanessa, Corey Hawkins as Benny, and Leslie Grace as Nina Rosario. You might also recognize Stephanie Beatriz as Carla, Dascha Polanco as Cuca, Daphne Rubin-Vega as Daniela, Jimmy Smits as Kevin Rosario, and of course Miranda himself as the Piragua Guy. Quiara Alegría Hudes, who wrote the book for the musical, also wrote the script for the movie, which Warner Bros. won the bidding rights to last May, after the rights to the material reverted to Miranda from the Weinstein Company. In the Heights comes out on June 26, 2020.​
 

PlayerR

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It was good, I guess I could see folks points about darker skinned folks being in the background etc. But you did have a non latino in the lead cast & Folks will always find something complain about I guess. They also had a student from up here in the movie (based on his performance in the middle school version of Hamilton that they did last year).
 

knightmelodic

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The trailers didn't do shit for me. I remember the show and people here not being wild about it. Basically it was for white people.
 

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It was good, I guess I could see folks points about darker skinned folks being in the background etc. But you did have a non latino in the lead cast & Folks will always find something complain about I guess. They also had a student from up here in the movie (based on his performance in the middle school version of Hamilton that they did last year).

I saw it way back on stage. And met Lin way way way back.

It's funny I agree with you. I thought the one brother would be enough cover and Dascha rep that Afro Latina life hard.

But SEEING it? Yeah on screen for some reason it was obvious. Surprised no one caught it before release.

They also waited to long, the should have dropped this soon after Hamilton while lock down was still in effect. It would have done serious numbers. And less scrutiny I bet.. I met someone who worked on it who said the REALLY wanted this in theatres.
 

PlayerR

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I saw it way back on stage. And met Lin way way way back.

It's funny I agree with you. I thought the one brother would be enough cover and Dascha rep that Afro Latina life hard.

But SEEING it? Yeah on screen for some reason it was obvious. Surprised no one caught it before release.

They also waited to long, the should have dropped this soon after Hamilton while lock down was still in effect. It would have done serious numbers. And less scrutiny I bet.. I met someone who worked on it who said the REALLY wanted this in theatres.

I think Covid has something to do with it being release now, but up here TON'S of folks have watched it (streaming) & Artscape is showing it at their theater and they've folks a bunch of tickets. I'm in a heavily Puerto Rican area in Pa, with a Dominica area near by. Being from the DMV it's good to see Corry doing his thing.
 

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Rita Moreno says she's 'disappointed' with herself for In the Heights remarks

By Maureen Lee Lenker
June 16, 2021 at 09:23 PM EDT



Rita Moreno is not one to back down, but she does know when to apologize.

The Oscar winner shared a statement on Twitter on Wednesday evening, addressing remarks she had made about Lin-Manuel Miranda and In the Heights the night before while appearing on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

"I'm incredibly disappointed with myself," she wrote. "While making a statement in defense of Lin-Manuel Miranda on the Colbert Show last night, I was clearly dismissive of black lives that matter in our Latin community. It is so easy to forget how celebration for some is lament for others."

"In addition to applauding Lin for his wonderful movie version of In The Heights, let me add my appreciation for his sensitivity and resolve to be more inclusive of the Afro-Latino community going forward," she added. "See, you CAN teach this old dog new tricks."



When speaking about the recent criticism In the Heights has faced for lack of Afro-Latino representation on Colbert's show, Moreno defended Miranda, saying, "You can never do right, it seems. This is the man who literally has brought Latino-ness and Puetro Rican-ness to America. I couldn't do it. I would love to say I did, but I couldn't. Lin-Manuel has done that really singlehandedly."

She added, "I'm simply saying, can't you just wait a while and leave it alone? There's a lot of people who are puertorriqueño, who are also from Guatemala, who are dark, and who are also fair. We are all colors in Puerto Rico. This is how it is and it would be so nice if they hadn't come up with that and left it alone, for now. They're really attacking the wrong person."


The film's director, Jon M. Chu, was asked about Black Latinx representation in the movie in a recent interview with The Root. While he admitted it was something "he needed to be educated about," Chu said that "in the end, when we were looking at the cast, we tried to get the people who were best for those roles."

Miranda - the musical's creator, composer, and original star- offered an apology for the issue on Monday, writing, "I can hear the hurt and frustration over colorism, of feeling still unseen in the feedback. I hear that without sufficient dark-skinned Afro-Latino representation, the work feels extractive of the community we wanted so much to represent with pride and joy. In wanting to paint a mosaic of this community, we fell short."

Moreno and Miranda have collaborated several times, but most recently, Miranda served as a producer on Moreno's documentary Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It, which just premiered at the Tribeca Festival.
 

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I think the criticism is bullshit. I saw a black lead, and never saw the lack of black Latino characters in the lead as an issue. I assume the one black lead (corey aka dr.dre) was a black Latino. Overall, I enjoy the movie and kept it moving. My favorite musicals growing up was Grease & Westside story and neither had any black representation but it didn't matter to me because I enjoy the story & music. Same way I fee about In the Heights. LM has been representing the Latino community for quite some time but to think he has all the answers is ridiculous. Somebody is always going to gripe about non existent shit and this is an example of that. Assuming there were more black Latinos in the forefront, how much different would that make to the movie? they would still complain anyway.

LM success is the reason for the criticism.

What you didn't see was Latinos doing drugs, posing drama, killing each other, stereotypes and a whole bunch of white folks in roles they clearly should not be cast in.
 

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I think the criticism is bullshit. I saw a black lead, and never saw the lack of black Latino characters in the lead as an issue. I assume the one black lead (corey aka dr.dre) was a black Latino. Overall, I enjoy the movie and kept it moving. My favorite musicals growing up was Grease & Westside story and neither had any black representation but it didn't matter to me because I enjoy the story & music. Same way I fee about In the Heights. LM has been representing the Latino community for quite some time but to think he has all the answers is ridiculous. Somebody is always going to gripe about non existent shit and this is an example of that. Assuming there were more black Latinos in the forefront, how much different would that make to the movie? they would still complain anyway.

LM success is the reason for the criticism.

What you didn't see was Latinos doing drugs, posing drama, killing each other, stereotypes and a whole bunch of white folks in roles they clearly should not be cast in.

And there it is.
 

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I think the criticism is bullshit. I saw a black lead, and never saw the lack of black Latino characters in the lead as an issue. I assume the one black lead (corey aka dr.dre) was a black Latino. Overall, I enjoy the movie and kept it moving. My favorite musicals growing up was Grease & Westside story and neither had any black representation but it didn't matter to me because I enjoy the story & music. Same way I fee about In the Heights. LM has been representing the Latino community for quite some time but to think he has all the answers is ridiculous. Somebody is always going to gripe about non existent shit and this is an example of that. Assuming there were more black Latinos in the forefront, how much different would that make to the movie? they would still complain anyway.

LM success is the reason for the criticism.

What you didn't see was Latinos doing drugs, posing drama, killing each other, stereotypes and a whole bunch of white folks in roles they clearly should not be cast in.

No, here you go talking about the Latino community like it's one.

And the point Is they only want to highlight the white Latin people regardless of its Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans etc. Those who look like Spaniards and not Africans.

Just like mofokrs having issues with Zoe playing Nina, this is the same thing.
 

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I think Covid has something to do with it being release now, but up here TON'S of folks have watched it (streaming) & Artscape is showing it at their theater and they've folks a bunch of tickets. I'm in a heavily Puerto Rican area in Pa, with a Dominica area near by. Being from the DMV it's good to see Corry doing his thing.

I know about the Covid issue EVERYTHING was effected

I haven't heard any NEGATIVE talk about the actual movie I gotta check the numbers but I EXPECTED it do very well. I want it to. Like I said I saw it before and I root for Lin but I still haven't seen it so I can't give a fair assessment

but I knew who the cast was for AWHILE and never heard no gripes so I am a LITTLE surprised about the backlash.

I gotta hear from actual Latinx folk to see what they think.
 

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IN THE HEIGHTS UPDATED JUNE 16, 2021
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jon M. Chu, and In the Heights Actors Address Film’s Colorism
By Rebecca Alter@ralter
Photo: Macall Polay/Warner Bros.
In the Heights, the major movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2008 Broadway musical, opened to a modest box office and largely positive critical reception this past weekend. But for all of the film’s themes of diversity and identity, In the Heights noticeably lacks dark-skinned Afro-Latinx performers or characters in any of the film’s major roles, of which there are many. The only Black character in the main cast, Benny, is played by non-Latino actor Corey Hawkins, and in the musical, his character is non-Latino and viewed by Nina’s father as an outsider. Meanwhile, all of the main Latinx characters are portrayed by light-skinned and white-passing actors, which viewers have pointed out on Twitter makes for an incomplete and inaccurate depiction of the Washington Heights neighborhood in New York City.
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The Root
’s Felice León addressed these concerns in an interview with In the Heights director Jon M. Chu and members of the film’s cast on Wednesday, June 9. “As a Black woman of Cuban descent, specifically from New York City,” León, who is a Black New Yorker of Cuban descent, asks Chu, “What would you say to folks who say that In the Heights privileges white-passing and light-skinned Latinx people?” Chu says, “I would say that that’s a fair conversation to have,” but doesn’t proceed to fully have it. Chu also faced accusations of colorism for his 2018 film, Crazy Rich Asians.

Leslie Grace, who is Afro-Latina and plays Nina, addresses the colorism at play in this film and Hollywood at large, saying, “I didn’t realize until making this movie that I didn’t really get to see myself or people that looked like my siblings, that are darker than me, onscreen.” She adds, “I hope that this is cracking that glass ceiling. Because I do hope to see my brothers and sisters that are darker than me lead these movies.”
Melissa Barrera, the Mexican actress who plays Vanessa, chimes in, saying, “In the audition process, which was a long audition process, there were a lot of Afro-Latinos there. A lot of darker skinned people. And I think they were looking for just the right people for the roles. For the person that embodied each character in the fullest extent,” clarifying, “Because the cast ended up being us, and because Washington Heights is a melting pot of Black and Latinx people, Jon and Lin wanted the dancers and the big numbers to feel very truthful to what the community looks like.” Chu also points León to diversity among the background dancers.

Update, Monday, June 14: On Monday, In the Heights creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who appears in the film version of his stage musical as Washington Heights’ resident piragüero, posted a statement to Twitter apologizing for a lack of dark-skinned Afro-Latino representation in the work.
“I started writing In the Heights because I didn’t feel seen,” he says. “And over the past 20 years all I wanted was for us — ALL of us — to feel seen. I’m seeing the discussion around Afro-Latino representation in our film this weekend, and it is clear that many in our dark-skinned Afro-Latino community don’t feel sufficiently represented within it, particularly among the leading roles. I can hear the hurt and frustration over colorism, of feeling unseen in the feedback. I hear that, without sufficient dark-skinned Afro-Latino representation, the world feels extractive of the community we wanted so much to represent with pride and joy.”
“In trying to paint a mosaic of this community, we fell short,” Miranda continues. “I’m truly sorry. I’m learning from the feedback, I thank you for raising it, and I’m listening. I’m trying to hold space for both the incredible pride in the movie we made and be accountable for our shortcomings. Thank you for your honest feedback. I promise to do better in my future projects, and I’m dedicated to the learning and evolving we all have to do to make sure we are honoring our diverse and vibrant community.”
Update, Wednesday, June 16: Rita Moreno, the legendary Puerto Rican actress who portrayed Anita in that other New York City musical-comedy, was asked about In the Heights’ colorism issues on Tuesday’s The Late Show. “You can never do right, it seems. This is the man who literally has brought Latino-ness and Puerto Rican-ness to America. I couldn’t do it,” she responded, referring to Lin-Manuel Miranda, who, as previously noted, wrote the music and lyrics of the original musical. “I mean, I would love to say I did, but I couldn’t. Lin-Manuel has done that, really single-handedly, and I was thrilled to pieces and I’m proud that he produced my documentary.” When asked by Stephen Colbert to clarify if she believes the criticisms are justified, particularly to Miranda, Moreno made it clear that she didn’t agree.
“Well, I’m simply saying, can’t you just wait a while and leave it alone? There’s a lot of people who are Puerto Rican who are also from Guatemala who are dark and who are also fair,” she explained. “We are all colors in Puerto Rico. This is how it is. It would be so nice if they hadn’t come up with that and left it alone, just for now. They’re really attacking the wrong person.” Moreno added that the criticisms “really upset me.”

Update Wednesday June 16, 7:00PM
Rita Moreno tweeted a walking back of her remarks on The Late Show. “I’m incredibly disappointed with myself,” she wrote. “While making a statement in defense of Lin-Manuel Miranda on the Colbert Show last night, I was clearly dismissive of black lives that matter in our Latin community. It is so easy to forget how celebration for some is lament for others.” Moreno added that she is making a conscious decision to be more inclusive of the Afro-Latino community, and not letting anyone give her a pass due to her age, concluding that you “CAN teach this dog new tricks.”
 

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How In the Heights Pulled Off the Big Swimming-Pool Scene
Hundreds of extras. Thunder on the forecast. And only three days to nail it.
By Jackson McHenry@McHenryJD
Corey Hawkins as Benny, dancing in Highbridge Pool. Photo: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Picture/Courtesy of Warner Bros. Picture

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It’s the hottest day of the year, and four young men are strolling down the block in Washington Heights, bullshitting about their dreams. A winning lottery ticket has been sold at the bodega run by one of them, Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), and the $96,000 prize is the kind of money that could change your life if used wisely. “Yo, if I won the lotto, tomorrow …” Usnavi’s friend Benny (Corey Hawkins) starts riffing.

“96 G’s ain’t enough to retire,” Usnavi points out.
“C’mon, I’ll have enough to knock your ass off its axis!” Benny responds.
“You’ll have a knapsack full of jack after taxes,” Usnavi counters.


It’s early on in director Jon M. Chu’s sweeping film adaptation of In the Heights, the Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes. And in this version, they wind up somewhere they couldn’t go onstage: at the public pool, where word about the winning ticket starts to spread like spray from a cannonball. The music shifts into a dancehall beat as different characters take their own verses to rap or sing about what they’d do with that kind of money. The main characters’ melodies layer over each other in counterpoint, the rest of the poolgoers joining in. In the water, swimmers break into choreographed routines. The camera chases a dancer doing a flip into the pool and ducks below the water. The song builds to a crescendo, with the ensemble leaping out of the water together in one of the biggest climaxes of the film.

Each of the songs in In the Heights takes off along its own visual gambit. There’s a dream ballet trip from Cuba to America in the 1940s for the song “Paciencia Y Fe” and a Fred-and-Ginger moment in “When the Sun Goes Down.” The “96,000” sequence, shot on location over three unseasonably cold days at New York’s public Highbridge Pool, is the moment when the movie most adopts the visual grammar of a classic Hollywood musical. Think of the geometric patterns in 1952’s Busby Berkeley–Esther Williams movie Million Dollar Mermaid, with its identical synchronized swimmers, but with modern choreography and a mostly Black and Latinx cast of dancers and actors of varying ages and body types. “This is an ‘I Want’ song not for one character; this is an ‘I Want’ song for the whole neighborhood,” Chu says. “This is a big spectacle, but in the end, this is about yearning. What would these people dream about?”

With In the Heights out in theaters and on HBO Max today, the creative team behind the movie broke down how they made that show-stopping sequence — from how it was first performed on-stage through the grueling shoot and post-production process.


Playing the Numbers

As with many elements of In the Heights, the lottery-ticket plotline came from Miranda’s own experiences while growing up close by, in Inwood. “My earliest memory, full stop, is going with my abuela to the bodega on Dyckman Street and eating candy as she played the numbers,” Miranda says.
The show started out as a rough collection of songs and scenes he wrote and performed as an undergrad at Wesleyan in 2000. In 2004, Hudes — a Puerto Rican playwright who had been working on a play about her own childhood neighborhood in North Philly — joined Miranda to write the show’s book, and in 2008 it premiered on Broadway. The movie version updates the action for a time when DACA exists and the block has already started to change in significant ways. “We had countless four-hour meetings to talk about what era this was in,” Chu says. “We knew we didn’t want to make a movie about gentrification, because in a way, we’re in a post-gentrification time. It’s happening — what do you do now?” That gave “96,000” a new context too: Those who haven’t been priced out of Washington Heights yet are in some ways already lottery winners, says Hudes, who returned to write the film’s screenplay. Still, they know their position is tenuous.

“The plot point is that if you win the lottery, what are you going to do with the money?” Hudes says. “But what that really becomes is everyone in the community fighting over their little vision of what their dream would be. It’s an opportunity, through fantasy play and banter, to touch on what people want out of their life.” Usnavi dreams about sorting out his affairs and heading off to the Dominican Republic, while Benny, ever practical, would want to use his winnings to pay for business school. Most of the women who work at a local salon dream of blowing it on Atlantic City leases and weaves — except Usnavi’s crush, Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), who wants to escape downtown. Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV), the youngest and most idealistic character, dreams of getting the barrio computers and web browsing. “He’s the only one who’s like, ‘If I win, that’s not for me — that’s for my block,’” Hudes says.

Miranda says he chose the number “96,000” for very specific reasons. “It was always intended to be not enough money to permanently change someone’s life, but enough to give them a little breathing room. That holds true today,” he says. “For me, the number ‘96’ has a subconscious wealth line connotation, because I was so aware of the price of living on 94th Street, where I went to school, versus 200th Street, where I lived. I always saw 96th Street as this economic dividing line as a child. It also has its own rhythm, just saying it aloud, like, ‘Maria’ or ‘Oklahoma.’ It makes you wanna sing it.”

There’s one notable lyric change from the original version: In 2008, Benny imagined being on the links with Donald Trump as his caddy. Now he sings about Tiger Woods instead.

Director Jon M. Chu on set with Hawkins. Photo: Macall Polay/Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

‘I Had Never Seen a Pool Like That’

Onstage, the “96,000” sequence takes place on the block where nearly all the action is set. “We knew we had a lot of scenes at that intersection,” Chu says. “So as I was getting a tour of Washington Heights, we got to the end of the block and I was like, ‘What’s that building?’” It was the entrance to the Olympic-sized Highbridge Pool. The giant complex, with side-by-side swimming and wading areas, was built with WPA funds in the 1930s as part of Robert Moses and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia’s pool-construction mania. “It was immense,” Chu says. “I had never seen a pool like that before.”

He and Hudes started riffing about the possibilities of shooting an old Hollywood–style number at the facility, which is run by the NYC Parks Department, but the idea seemed impossible. A major movie had never been filmed on location there, and the logistics of shooting with a large crowd seemed prohibitively expensive. “But then, as we walked away, we were like, Oh no, we have to do that,” Chu says. “So that’s where we started, and all our producers’ jaws dropped.”

They filmed the scene in early June 2019 — after the city had refilled the pool with water, but before it opened to the public. They imagined an overhead shot of Vanessa surrounded by synchronized swimmers that would typically be accomplished by putting a camera on a drone, but it’s illegal to pilot drones within New York City. Next idea: Get the biggest crane possible. “But there’s a reservoir system of tunnels under the pool deck, and the weight of the crane was going to be too heavy,” says Alice Brooks, the cinematographer. “So we worked with all these engineers to figure out the exact weight allowed to get the height we needed. It was a big science experiment to figure out how many people we could fit in the frame based on the height we could get.”

The sequence offers a tour of New York dance styles. In the pool locker rooms, there are B-boys and B-girls breaking, a style born in the Bronx. During Sonny’s verse, he’s surrounded by dancers doing contorted moves based in FlexN, which developed in Brooklyn. When the salon ladies relax on the steps by the pool, they pose with Caribbean-inflected dancehall moves developed by associate choreographer Ebony Williams. Since Vanessa’s dream involves getting the heck out of the neighborhood and pursuing a fashion career (“If I win the lottery, you’d never see me again”), Barrera walks down a ramp into the pool with balletic poise, with the pool railing acting as a barre. “Something about ballet gave me a sense of high art, high fashion, though I treat street dance with the same respect as high art,” choreographer Chris Scott says. To fill out the blocks of dancers, he hired experts in each style. “You could see people teaching each other stuff on the side. We created a community at the pool surrounded by a real community of dancers.”

Scott, Chu, and Brooks ran into problems that could only arise from a water-based dance sequence. If they wanted to get a shot of a dancer (Brandon Rosario) doing a jump and twist into the pool, that also meant calculating just how fast a camera could follow him — it would need to dunk into the water with enough force to overwhelm its natural buoyancy and fully submerge. The scene climaxes with a sweeping overhead shot of a large group of dancers splashing in the water in unison, which Scott and his team of choreographers workshopped in a separate pool. “The level of the water was the biggest factor — if it’s too low, it looks dumb,” he says. “We had about 20 versions of that choreography.”

Capturing dancers in the pool. Photo: Macall Polay/Courtesy of Warner Bros. Picture

Floaty Wrangling

After all that prep, the In the Heights cast and crew arrived at the Highbridge Pool on what turned out to be some especially cold and rainy days. “It was great,” Anthony Ramos says enthusiastically, before hedging a bit. “I mean, it was hard, it was gray, it was raining, and the water was cold.”
The weather came with scattered thunderstorms, and the cast and crew had to work around their interruptions. “Every time you hear thunder, you have to shut down for 30 minutes and turn off the electricity,” Chu says. They also couldn’t film if it was raining too hard — any dripping or disturbance on the pool surface would make it clear this wasn’t, in fact, the hottest day of the summer. (They color corrected the sky and pool in postproduction to make it look sunnier.) Although they had, according to Chu, 500 to 700 people on set, that still wasn’t enough to make it seem crowded, “so we were shuffling people around and changing their bathing suits.”

Between shots, the actors and dancers huddled in towels and robes to warm up, though many of the dancers had to stay in the water for long periods of time. That made the moves a lot more challenging. “Popping is so connected to your muscles and being able to understand the tension in your body, but when you’re freezing you can’t feel the tension,” says Scott, who also got in the pool. “The water is splashing in their faces, and they had to do their best not to look like they’re splashing water in their faces and hold their eyes open. Whatever the dancer award for making it work is, they should get that.”

When they tried to capture that big overhead shot of Vanessa posing in her inner tube while surrounded by rings of dancers, the tube kept moving whenever the ensemble splashed around her. “Eventually, Jon was like, ‘Everybody get out, we’re just going to film Melissa by herself and then superimpose it [onto a shot of the dancers],’” Barrera says. Even then, she and her inner tube would start to drift out of frame. “So Jon jumped in the pool and held me in place for the entire shot,” she says. (Chu, resident pool wrangler, also pushed the woman on a floaty who shows up at the end of Sonny’s verse.)

All of this had to be accomplished in three days, before the city opened the pool to the public. This meant that one final bit of the scene was shot “night for day,” at 9:30 p.m. “It’s so painful to me,” says Brooks. “It’s just the shot of Anthony Ramos splashing in the pool at the end. We lit him as much as we could and then visual effects helped us get as close as possible.”

But if days were long, there was also a sense of camaraderie. “One of the most special moments on set for me happened while shooting that,” remembers Ramos. It came while getting that big sweeping shot of the dancers leaping out of the pool and splashing in unison. “Right before Jon called action, everybody was hyping each other up and a few of us were watching from the sidelines going, ‘This is for the culture! Let’s go! Let’s go!’ At that moment, it was just like we’re doing something that’s way bigger than us.”

“Well, he did that often,” says Chu. “He did it whenever anything felt hard. He was our spiritual leader.”

Melissa Barrera as Vanessa. Photo: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Picture

‘What’s the 2.0?’

The film’s executive music producers, Bill Sherman and Alex Lacamoire, are the same people who orchestrated and arranged Miranda’s songs in the Off Broadway and Broadway versions of the stage musical. “We’ve been working on this for 20 years, and whenever Alex and I reapproached this music, we always went, ‘What’s the 2.0 version?’” says Sherman. “For ‘96,000,’ we went, how do we get it the most hip-hop, the most dancehall, and the most reggaeton?” They brought in producers Mike Elizondo, who focused on the hip-hop elements, and Trooko, who focused on the reggaeton parts.

They also extended some of the transitions and built out the song’s climactic conclusion. When the show moved to Broadway, they had added a big “button” — in musical-theater parlance, that instrumental “wham!” at the end of the song that tells the audience to start clapping. “Then we had to outdo ourselves, again, on film,” says Lacamoire. They added in eight more measures of music to heighten the song’s build, at Chu’s request, as well as some movement on the baseline, which starts to rise on the way to the film’s even-bigger button.

The actors themselves knew they were working in the shadow of well-known, previously recorded performances by the original Broadway cast, including Miranda himself as Usnavi. “I’ll never do it like Lin, so I didn’t necessarily aim to do it like him,” says Ramos. “I was just like, Yo, he’s going to be Anthony, the most honest version of this guy to me.” Though Miranda did help coach Ramos on the music, Ramos says, “Lin was never in my ear unless some scansion was wrong, but it was always musical. It wasn’t about a character choice.” The actors filming the “96,000” scene weren’t recorded live on set — as is pretty much standard for most movie musicals — but instead recorded temp tracks in advance, which were played at the pool, and then rerecorded more audio later to better match the footage. “Sometimes it would be, ‘Can you see how your mouth cuts off that word a little earlier than in the pre-record?’” Lacamoire says. “That level of finesse.”

Even with the time crunch on set, “96,000” came into the editing room with far more footage than they ever could have used. “I watch a lot of musicals and there’s way too much overcutting,” says editor Myron Kerstein, who had previously worked with Chu on Crazy Rich Asians. “I didn’t want it to feel like a music video, where I was overcutting things just because I had the footage.”

The sequence starts out with bits of animation scrawled onscreen over the characters in a way that references the mixed-media magic of the original Mary Poppins or 1971’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks. They’d planned on continuing the drawings throughout the sequence, but in the editing room, it quickly became clear that the embellishment was too much. “We weren’t watching their faces, and their faces were the thing to watch,” Chu says. “Our struggle for the whole movie was to only use things to communicate an emotion, never doing it just to wow an audience.”
“We’ve spent most of the film introducing characters, and now this is our big set piece where each specific character could talk about what they would do with the money and hand it off to each other,” Kerstein says.

The song closes with the big reveal of the winning lottery numbers. Before filming, the creative team debated how to pull them up — from cutting back and forth to Usnavi’s bodega as the winning numbers went up on the wall to having actors shape pool noodles into the digits. Finally, they settled on having the character Graffiti Pete (Noah Catala) spray the numbers onto towels in the locker room with sunscreen. The audience isn’t sure what he’s writing until the big reveal of the numbers on towels right at the end.

The punchline after the reveal is that no one at the pool actually has the winning ticket; when the song ends, the mood deflates like a punctured beach ball. In the stage musical, we learn who won soon afterward, but the movie delays that discovery. That choice also makes the “96,000” spectacle, on its own, more of a full-stop in the action — “like a one-act break, structurally,” says Kerstein.

As for those winning numbers: 5-7-16-26-33. Chu, whose wife was pregnant with their second child during the shoot, slipped in some special meanings. “Five is the month of my wife’s birth; 7-16 is my daughter’s birthday; 7-26 is my anniversary and also the day my son was due. Thirty-three is my favorite number,” he says. “Then when I showed my wife, she was like, ‘You know our anniversary is the 27th, right? And the baby is due on the 27th.’ However, just a few weeks later, my baby was born on the 26th, so he had my back.” They named him Jonathan Heights Chu.
 

playahaitian

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I think the criticism is bullshit. I saw a black lead, and never saw the lack of black Latino characters in the lead as an issue. I assume the one black lead (corey aka dr.dre) was a black Latino. Overall, I enjoy the movie and kept it moving. My favorite musicals growing up was Grease & Westside story and neither had any black representation but it didn't matter to me because I enjoy the story & music. Same way I fee about In the Heights. LM has been representing the Latino community for quite some time but to think he has all the answers is ridiculous. Somebody is always going to gripe about non existent shit and this is an example of that. Assuming there were more black Latinos in the forefront, how much different would that make to the movie? they would still complain anyway.

LM success is the reason for the criticism.

What you didn't see was Latinos doing drugs, posing drama, killing each other, stereotypes and a whole bunch of white folks in roles they clearly should not be cast in.

Corey isn't a Black Latino
 

playahaitian

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Lin-Manuel Miranda responds to criticism of ‘In the Heights’ underrepresenting dark-skinned Afro-Latinos: ‘I’m truly sorry’
Lin-Manuel Miranda, center in blue, poses with the cast of “In the Heights” at last week's New York premiere. (Noam Galai/Getty Images)
By
Sonia Rao
June 14, 2021 at 9:16 p.m. EDT

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With critical acclaim for the new film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical “In the Heights” quickly came criticism over the film’s lack of dark-skinned Afro-Latino leads. Miranda apologized Monday evening, saying he had heard the “hurt and frustration over colorism.”

“I hear that without sufficient dark-skinned Afro-Latino representation, the work feels extractive of the community we wanted so much to represent with pride and joy,” Miranda wrote in a statement posted to Twitter. “In trying to paint a mosaic of this community, we fell short. I’m truly sorry.”
“In the Heights” takes place in the largely Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan. The film, directed by Jon M. Chu (“Crazy Rich Asians”) and written by Quiara Alegría Hudes (who wrote the original book), follows characters played by Anthony Ramos, Leslie Grace, Melissa Barrera and Corey Hawkins as they each work to pursue their career dreams.


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The film has earned praise for uplifting Latino voices in an industry that vastly underrepresents Latino communities. A study conducted by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative in 2019 found that Latinos accounted for just 4.5 percent of all speaking characters in the 1,200 top grossing films from the previous dozen years. By contrast, the U.S. Census Bureau reports approximately 18.5 percent of the overall population identifies as Hispanic or Latino.
But as “In the Heights” continued to be regarded as real progress for on-screen representation, many voiced concern over the racial makeup of the film’s cast. Grace, who portrays Nina, is the only Afro-Latina among the lead actors. Her character’s non-Latino love interest, Benny, is played by Hawkins, the only dark-skinned Black actor in the main cast.
“Where are the dark-skinned Black Latinx folks with a story line?” the Root’s Felice León wrote in a recent article about the film. “After all, this film is placed in Washington Heights, N.Y., right?!”



In a separate interview with Chu and a few cast members, the director told León that the team talked about Afro-Latino representation but went with the actors they felt were “best for the roles.” While Barrera responded in a similar fashion, Grace noted to León that she hoped “to see my brothers and sisters that are darker than me lead these movies” as well.
In his apology on Monday, Miranda wrote that he originally conceived of “In the Heights” because he “didn’t feel seen.” The musical eventually opened on Broadway in 2008 and earned 13 Tony Award nominations, winning four. It set Manuel on a clear path for success, boosted years later by “Hamilton.” Over the last 20 years, he wrote, “all I wanted was for us — ALL of us — to feel seen.”
“I’m trying to hold space for both the incredible pride in the movie we made and be accountable for our shortcomings,” he stated. “Thanks for your honest feedback. I promise to do better in my future projects, and I’m dedicated to the learning and evolving we all have to do to make sure we are honoring our diverse and vibrant community.”
 

PlayerR

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I know about the Covid issue EVERYTHING was effected

I haven't heard any NEGATIVE talk about the actual movie I gotta check the numbers but I EXPECTED it do very well. I want it to. Like I said I saw it before and I root for Lin but I still haven't seen it so I can't give a fair assessment

but I knew who the cast was for AWHILE and never heard no gripes so I am a LITTLE surprised about the backlash.

I gotta hear from actual Latinx folk to see what they think.

It's wild my lady is Puerto Rican & we live in an area that's heavily PR with an area thats heavily Dominican close by and I haven't really heard anything bad up this way. Now here some of the negative stuff maybe tempered because LM chose a middle school student to be in the movie based on his performance that the school did of Hamilton. Some staff sent him a video & he was blown away.
 

playahaitian

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It's wild my lady is Puerto Rican & we live in an area that's heavily PR with an area thats heavily Dominican close by and I haven't really heard anything bad up this way. Now here some of the negative stuff maybe tempered because LM chose a middle school student to be in the movie based on his performance that the school did of Hamilton. Some staff sent him a video & he was blown away.

^^^
I heard about that

that should be the damn STORY of the SUMMER

and now its getting lost.

Again I feel like I aint qualified to comment on this. I know that hood I dated women who from there got friends there. So I KNOW about the color thing but this one to me is kinda complicated

I gotta see it for myself first.
 

dtownsfinest

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I think the criticism is bullshit to be honest.....I mean I'm not Afro Latino so maybe that's why I don't give a damn.......

You hire the actors you want for your film and you have to have some PC muthafuckas step in and tell you what you can and can't do?

I haven't seen the whole movie just the beginning I saw plenty of people that were dark skinned but the issue was they weren't in lead roles? Well Corey Hawkins was but shit he not latino so that's a issue too?
 

dtownsfinest

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No, here you go talking about the Latino community like it's one.

And the point Is they only want to highlight the white Latin people regardless of its Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans etc. Those who look like Spaniards and not Africans.

Just like mofokrs having issues with Zoe playing Nina, this is the same thing.

Naw and see the is my issue with every time people try and compare shit like this to that Zoe bullshit. First off, Nina was a smart, beautiful BLACK WOMAN. She wasn't no Afro Latina. She wasn't no work of fiction. And the most offensive shit was instead of hiring one of these talented black actresses who somewhat favor Nina Simone(there were plenty) they went and hired a person who not only wasn't that great of a actress but someone they had to DARKEN HER SKIN and give her PROSTHETICS that looked like something out of a horror movie.

There were all shades of people in In The Heights...well I Take that back I haven't finished the movie I just saw the first 20 minutes and that's what I saw in it. Either way, its a work of fiction.
 

ballscout1

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Naw and see the is my issue with every time people try and compare shit like this to that Zoe bullshit. First off, Nina was a smart, beautiful BLACK WOMAN. She wasn't no Afro Latina. She wasn't no work of fiction. And the most offensive shit was instead of hiring one of these talented black actresses who somewhat favor Nina Simone(there were plenty) they went and hired a person who not only wasn't that great of a actress but someone they had to DARKEN HER SKIN and give her PROSTHETICS that looked like something out of a horror movie.

There were all shades of people in In The Heights...well I Take that back I haven't finished the movie I just saw the first 20 minutes and that's what I saw in it. Either way, its a work of fiction.

so you add qualifiers that make it okay for them to continue using colorism ...

it doesn't have to be authentic if it's a work of fiction?

the point of the controversy them using people who make crakkas comfortable.....The white Latino people as opposed to the afro Latino people which is exactly what they do with black characters.
 

dtownsfinest

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so you add qualifiers that make it okay for them to continue using colorism ...

it doesn't have to be authentic if it's a work of fiction?

the point of the controversy them using people who make crakkas comfortable.....The white Latino people as opposed to the afro Latino people which is exactly what they do with black characters.

No the issue her isn't that there aren't darker skinned people in here.....

The issue that people are upset that the darker skinned people here aren't the leads...is that not it? Because I see people of all shades in this.


Comparing this shit to what they did with Zoe Saldana is lazy as fuck and not the same thing.

But see to me this is like people being mad that there were no black people in that stupid show "Girls". I don't give a fuck. I don't agree with people telling artists what their film should look like or who they should hire.

I make a black film I have to be PC about it. I have to make sure I have at least one gay character, one light skin, one dark skin, one latino person just so I can be fake and PC....

If people want to get to the root of the issues go and see who these movie execs are...see who these casting directors are.....attack the main source not the artists....
 

ballscout1

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No the issue her isn't that there aren't darker skinned people in here.....

The issue that people are upset that the darker skinned people here aren't the leads...is that not it? Because I see people of all shades in this.


Comparing this shit to what they did with Zoe Saldana is lazy as fuck and not the same thing.

But see to me this is like people being mad that there were no black people in that stupid show "Girls". I don't give a fuck. I don't agree with people telling artists what their film should look like or who they should hire.

I make a black film I have to be PC about it. I have to make sure I have at least one gay character, one light skin, one dark skin, one latino person just so I can be fake and PC....

If people want to get to the root of the issues go and see who these movie execs are...see who these casting directors are.....attack the main source not the artists....


It's a movie about a Dominican neighborhood without Dominicans in it and the Latin people staring are the white Latin people not afro-Latin.

and if afro Latino people are extras or in the background then are they really in it ?:)

and Miranda is the main source.

to be fair I haven't watched the movie but listened to urbanview yesterday and this was the topic ...
 

dtownsfinest

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It's a movie about a Dominican neighborhood without Dominicans in it and the Latin people staring are the white Latin people not afro-Latin.

and if afro Latino people are extras or in the background then are they really in it ?:)

and Miranda is the main source.

to be fair I haven't watched the movie but listened to urbanview yesterday and this was the topic ...

So none of them people in the film were Dominican at all?
 

ballscout1

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So none of them people in the film were Dominican at all?

the featured parts.

another part of the discussion is that the people speaking out and saying what should or should not be were also not Dominican.

the issue with Rita Moreno speaking out was that she has no standing to address it...as well as others who were responding to the controversy.

Similar to white people telling us how we should feel or respond to anything.
 

HAR125LEM

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The Colorism controversy is a fair assessment.
I absolutely LOVED the film. And plan on seeing it again this week on the largest screen possible (IMAX).

But I'm certainly not going to sit here and act like I wasn't thinking of the "Colorism" issue either.
Especially since it's my 'hood.
Because with the except of the characters of Benny (who's actually Black) and Nina,
The Afro-Latin experience is pretty much side-lined and glossed over.

As a Black Man who was raised and lived in the area during the 70s/80s, (born and raised in Harlem and Da Bronx during the 60s) I know of the various issues many Afro-Latins faced from inside/outside their families regarding their darker skin color.
Hell. That's been in my own family.
I've been reading how quite a few Black and Latino folks are upset with Miranda of late. This issue has just added to it.

Again,
I enjoyed the film immensely. Even with its issues. But I'm glad to see it bring out discussions concerning various aspects of it.
But considering the area, Miranda should have known better.
Hell.
Miranda probably did know better.
But he fell in for the Ole Hollywood Colorism line.
It's like some studios (and Creatives) still haven't learned a DAMN THING from "BLACK PANTHER".

Can't wait to see the "issues" coming up with Spielberg's version of "WEST SIDE STORY
Now that's a film we DON'T need...AGAIN!!!
 
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