“Glee” In 3D: No Flat Notes for the Stars

Adding 3D to “Glee” promises a lot more than a highly realistic slushie-to-the-face sequence.

“Glee: The 3D Concert Movie” brings the series’ sold-out “Glee Live! In Concert!” tour to the multiplex in multidimensional glory, and the stars are almost as excited as the fans to get a glimpse of what their whirlwind stint on stage performing favorite numbers from the show looks like on the big screen.

“I'm so excited about the movie,” Lea Michele, who plays uber-achiever Rachel Berry, tells PopcornBiz. “My children in years to come will get to see it, and I'm really proud. So many people don't even know we spent this whole summer doing a tour. So they can see what all the hard work was really for.”

“Essentially what we did was take two days of shows and shot during the day onstage,” explains co-star Jenna Ushkowitz, who plays Tina Cohen-Chang on the series, “and then at night they would shoot the show. So there was no stop-and-go. It was ‘Do the number, we're going to shoot it, and that's it.’ We only had time to do a few a day, and then we did the numbers." 

The film is also peppered with behind-the-scenes sequences and brief in-character bits that the “Glee” performers shot on the fly as well. “We did do one day where the beginning of our day was close ups,” adds Michele. “And it was so strange, because it was like, 'Are we filming "Glee" right now? Or are we doing a live concert?' And I'm playing Rachel in the movie, so there's a lot of backstage stuff where I am Rachel, which was very interesting for me to kind of be Lea/Rachel/I'm on my summer break. That was much more completely ad-libbed, in character, no script whatsoever.”

Actress Ashley Fink, who became a regular last year playing tough cookie Lauren Zizes, said she loved the in-the-moment immediacy of performing for the live audience. “I hadn't really been many places before tour, so I loved getting to travel and sing and dance and meet the fans,” says Fink, “because when you make the show it's sometimes a couple months before you see it. And so getting to sing and immediately see who we do it for and the way it affects them is just like this incredible, incredible feeling.”

Michele says that while a couple of musical numbers from “Glee” episodes were reconceived to take advantage of the 3D effect, most will feel close to what the fans remember for the show, with more spontaneous energy. “I definitely think like 'Dog Days' is going to look super cool in 3D,” she says. “There's some choreography that I think is going to look great. But for the most part we didn't really kind of tailor it. We just made our show and then just hoped that it kind of would go well with the 3D aspect."

"But I'm so nervous. I'm just deciding whether or not I'm going to watch it in 3D or watch it without the glasses. I don't know: Me coming at me just feels like a lot!”

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