Children who were in the choir for Lilo & Stitch share what it was like 20 years later. The LA Times shared stories and experiences.
What’s Happening:
- Lynell Bright, the choir director, loves Disney’s Lilo & Stitch. Students would draw pictures of him and there would be plush Stitches everywhere.
- Even Bright’s car was known as the "Stitch Mobile".
- Bright and Stitch go way back when, two decades ago, she received a call from Disney inviting her choir to record music for the soundtrack of the animated project.
- The project was Lilo & Stitch, which was said to be an emotional family film about orphan Hawaiian sisters who adopted a new "puppy" who was an experiment from an outer space lab.
- "The kids have no idea the effect that they have on the audiences," Bright said in a recent video interview.
- "Sometimes we have performances, and I see people touched and moved. And the kids, they’re like, ‘OK, where is our lunch?’ That’s important to them. … But I always say, ‘Twenty years from now, they’re gonna see what an impact their singing had on people.’"
- It's been 20 years since the film opened in theaters, and the former members of the choir are much older when Lilo in the movie was made. They have come to understand the power of their performance.
- "Especially watching it now as an adult, you see the impact that it has," said Kamehameha alum Paul Iona, a 32-year-old augmented-reality graphics producer who splits his time between Honolulu and L.A.
- "It’s one of those films that you can gather so much at different times of your life. … It’s welcoming you into Hawaii as we would hope that people feel welcomed when they come to Hawaii. And I hope moviegoers were able to feel that, seeing that scene and then hearing our voices."
- The choir was made up of 100 students ages 9 to 12, but for recording purposes they had to lower the number to 40. Auditions were held for the most experienced singers, and they were then chosen for the gig.
- "That’s the hardest thing," she added. "I hate auditions, because they’re all great kids, and they’re all good."
- Initially, students were told that they would be singing about a movie for a girl and her dog, and information was kept private about the true story.
- "When we finally found out the title, it was just such an odd name for a dog," Iona said. "I couldn’t fathom what it could possibly be at the time. … It was such a funny progression of finding out more about the film and the story behind it."
- "I might still have it somewhere, the original music in that envelope, because it seemed like it had to be so private and secret," Justice said. "We had no idea what the scope of it was gonna be or how it would impact my life. I mean, I was the oldest among us, but still we had no clue what we were getting into … a small piece of a big puzzle."
- The choir flew to LA for the premiere of Lilo & Stitch and heard their voices synced up with animation on the big screen.
- "Lilo & Stitch and choir and music in general really shaped my life," Kanagusuku said. "Mrs. Bright was saying … the kids in the choir don’t necessarily realize how they’ve impacted the people in the audience. I don’t know if she’s actually realized how much she and music have impacted all of us.”