To celebrate the release of Pitch Perfect 2, let's take a look at 12 things you probably
didn't know about the musical comedy sequel.
To get ready for the movie's opening sequence, which features her performing Miley Cyrus's
Wrecking Ball, Rebel Wilson trained in acrobatics at LA's Cirque School with aerial stunts expert
Aloysia Gavre.
Although in real life Wilson's afraid of heights, she trained three times a week for five weeks
so she could swing using trapeze silks, and perform moves including what she calls the
‘Death Drop Spread Eagle', in a routine somewhat inspired by Pink's performance of
Glitter In the Air at the 2010 Grammy Awards.
Costumes for Pitch Perfect 2, including the Bellas' bodysuits for the opening sequence,
feature 20,000 dollars' worth of Swarovski crystals.
The costume department employed three women full time to crystallise costumes!
Thanks to the massive world-wide success of Pitch Perfect and its soundtrack, licensing
songs for the sequel was a little easier.
The toughest song to secure was Muse's Uprising, which German group Das Sound Machine perform
in the movie, and which took a personal request written by director Elizabeth Banks to Muse
frontman Matt Bellamy to lock down.
After tweeting Alexis Knapp, American football player David Bakhtiari managed to score a
cameo in Pitch Perfect 2 for himself and four of his teammates from the Green Bay Packers.
Bakhtiari and his fellow players, Clay Matthews, Don Barclay, T.J.
Lang and Josh Sitton, plus Jordan Rodgers, who plays in the Canadian Football League,
are such huge fans of the first Pitch Perfect movie that, according to Anna Kendrick, they
can do the finale back to front!
About a month before filming, the stars of Pitch Perfect 2 gathered for an a capella
boot camp with the movie's music and choreography team.
Musical director and vocal producer Deke Sharon made sure everyone could sing every note perfectly
from memory before they were allowed into the recording studio to lay down their part
of each track.
Whereas training for the first movie focused on nailing the basics, in Pitch Perfect 2
the Barden Bellas have been a capella stars for several years, so Sharon worked on extending
the actors' vocal techniques and ranges and made them mimic instruments!
The movie's World Championships feature cameos from a number of real-life a capella groups.
Among those appearing are Pentatonix, who hail from Texas and won US reality show The
Sing-Off, in 2011, and appear in the film as Canadian group Mountain Rhythm.
Also making an appearance are The Filharmonic, an all-male Filipino-American a capella group
based in LA, who are called Manila Envy in the movie.
Also getting a cameo are Penn Masala, a Hindi a capella group formed at the University of
Pennsylvania in the mid-90s, and who are called The Naan Stops in Pitch Perfect 2.
Sons Of Anarchy star Katey Sagal, who plays the mother of new Barden Bella Emily, actually
has an off-screen connection to the world of a capella, as her older daughter Sarah
White is in two a capella choirs, The Owl Creek Singers and the Stairwells, at Kenyon
College in Ohio.
Snoop Dogg wanted to be in Pitch Perfect 2 as his daughter is such a huge fan of the
first movie.
So, the rapper makes a cameo appearance as himself.
Adam DeVine's Bumper and Rebel Wilson's Fat Amy may be something of an item in the movie,
but in real life DeVine is dating Kelley Jakle, who plays Wilson's fellow Barden Bella, Jessica.
The pair met when they filmed the first Pitch Perfect.
As a student, Jakle was part of the SoCal VoCals, a University of South California a
capella group that's won the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, or
ICCAs, multiple times.
Oh, and also in real life, Jakle and Brittany Snow, who plays Chloe, are best friends and
share a home in LA!
Skylar Astin plays Anna Kendrick's on-screen boyfriend Jesse, but in real life his girlfriend
is Anna Camp, who plays former Bella Aubrey.
And, like Adam DeVine and Kelley Jakle, Astin and Camp also met on the original Pitch Perfect.
The movie's a capella World Championships may take place in Denmark's capital city Copenhagen,
but they were actually filmed in Highland Park in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
A casting call was put out in the summer of 2014 and fans of the first film were invited
to attend the night-time shoot, which attracted around 3,000 people.
Other Baton Rouge locations in Pitch Perfect 2 included the Old Louisiana Governor's Mansion,
which was used for the Dean's house; a mansion on Highland Road, which was used for the underground
a capella riff-off; and for exterior shots of Barden University, the filmmakers and cast
returned to the Louisiana State University where the original movie also filmed.
Well there you have it, 12 things you probably didn't know about Pitch Perfect 2!
Now, let me know in the comments below, what are your favourite moments from the Pitch
Perfect movies and why?
And what songs would you love to hear if they make a Pitch Perfect 3?
If you enjoyed this video, do please share it, hit the thumbs-up button and subscribe
for more things you didn't know, as well as movie reviews and interviews.
Thanks for watching!
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!