Doin' It for the Kids

It’s the morning after the London premiere of High School Musical 3: Senior Year and, ears still ringing from thousands of pre-teen screams, most of the film writing fraternity are begging your pardon or nodding politely after the third time of asking.

It is – thank goodness – a week day. The assembled throng outside the Dorchester Hotel is, therefore, largely comprised of English soccer moms – football mom just doesn’t have the same ring – standing politely, holding spots at the barrier, so their offspring will have a good vantage point from which to scream for Zac Efron once school gets out.
Mr. Efron, for all this pre-pubescent frenzy, is not the ringmaster of this particular circus. That honour falls to Kenny Ortega, the creative spark behind High School Musical and countless other teen sensations.
“Paramount has just asked me to do a re-imagining of Footloose but I’m not so sure,” he says gesturing towards the adoring crowd outside. “I don’t want to turn my back on this extraordinary audience. It’s not like I’m settling for kids. This is a great, enormous, absorbing audience. I’m honoured to be able to create work for them.”
In recent times Mr. Ortega, an acclaimed choreographer and director with movie credits stretching back to Xanadu (1980), has become the lunchbox-shifting lynchpin of the Disney Channel. The multi-million dollar Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus Best of Both Worlds concert tour, a career-making spectacle for the teen queen and her supporting act, the Jonas Brothers, was all his doing.
That, however, is nothing beside the High School Musical juggernaut. The original film, made as a teeny cable TV special on a teeny budget, has been seen by more than 250 million viewers worldwide, the sequel by about 187 million. This year consumer products related to the franchise are expected to reach in excess of $650 million in sales.
For cooler, bigger kids, HSM3, the first film in the series to get a theatrical release, must look awfully like something from the Book of Revelations. Canon adherents, come the end of this quarter, may well gnash their teeth and wail to see how Bon Iver fared against HSM3’s official soundtrack. Similarly, the Dark Knight-Riders – you know, the eager beavers who think this year’s Batman is the Greatest. Film. Ever – are already muttering nervously in corners of the internet upon learning that HSM3 has, two weeks before its official release, smashed all known US and UK records for advance box office bookings.
“I searched this little project out,” beams its clearly delighted progenitor. “I wanted to find something for a cable channel, something a little under the radar, that didn’t have a whole lot of attention focused on it. Not in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be here. It was a big goal in the first place. So when I was getting ready to do High School Musical 2 and a number of friends and colleagues were advising me to go do something bigger, I was like, ‘What ‘s bigger?’ This is what I always wanted to do. You don’t need to do a sequel? That’s nonsense. Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney did seven movies together. And that worked out okay.”
For those who’ve somehow contrived to miss out on all the hysteria, the all-singing, all-dancing High School Musical franchise stands as an accidental riposte of the entire Larry Clark back catalogue. The third film, a sweet, squeaky clean teen confection in which basketball hero Troy (Zac Efron), nice girl Gabriella (Vanessa Anne Hudgens), fun-loving Chad (Corbin Bleu), spoiled princess Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) and camp hoofer Ryan (Lucas Grabeel) all get ready for prom, bids a fond farewell to the current cast and ushers in the next generation of tweenie superstars.
The kisses are chaste. The crises are minor. The orthodontic work is impeccable. The dancing is definitely not dirty. Yet, for his part, Mr. Ortega insists that Disney’s family friendly policies have not interfered with his creative process.
“The Disney channel wants a healthy, family image,” he says. “But there are all sorts of ways to be creative and I think that it’s actually nice to have a particular language that you’re dealing with. It challenges you. How can I create something that’s exciting and stimulating but also that offers something, some lesson, that might actually be incorporated into your own life? I like being restrained a little bit. I like having a budget I have to work with. It’s all part of the contest for me.”
Overnight success has been a long time coming for Kenny Ortega. Born in California to first generation Spanish immigrants, his interest in dancing was first ignited by watching his grandmother do the Flamenco around the kitchen.
“I remember watching my mother and father mambo and rumba,” he tells me. “My dad was dipping her and she was laughing with her hair falling back. All of that said to me that this is the most beautiful part of life.”
He initially found fame working alongside Gene Kelly on Xanadu and One From The Heart. Mr. Ortega, now aged 48, still lights up boyishly at the recollection.
“He was my great teacher,” he gushes. “He was extremely generous and shared everything he could about his design of choreography for the camera. He taught me to have an opinion. it’s not good enough to choreograph and then let some guy come in and photograph it. You have to get down on your hands and knees with a stopwatch and a viewfinder and think like a camera. And what a man of the world. His appreciation for art and literature and culture and travel and women was phenomenal.”
Still, even Gene Kelly couldn’t have prepared his young charge for the tough times ahead. Hollywood during the eighties had little use for a choreographer and none for a song-and-dance man. Undeterred, Mr. Ortega moved into the pop sector when he would work with Madonna, Cher, Elton John, Bette Midler and Michael Jackson. He later choreographed the Superbowl and several Olympic opening ceremonies.
While he has been able to approximate the old-fashioned movie musical through work on Dirty Dancing and Pretty In Pink, HSM3 is, he insists, his finest hour.
“I’ve done so many things so it’s not like I’m looking to prove anything,” he says. “But I love all this. I’m only interested in having fun and being creative and connecting with an audience. When I started out there were no real opportunities in TV or film for what I wanted to do. It was a little frightening. I really thought I had missed the boat. So I’m really grateful. And I’m really happy that I am one persistent sucker.”