‘Movie Magic’: An Oral History of the ‘Pitch Perfect’ Riff-Off, 10 Years Later
It’s hard to remember what life was like before Pitch Perfect. Since it opened in theaters 10 years ago, on Oct. 5, 2012, pop culture has never been the same: From adding “aca” in front of everything to the blinding popularity of the “Cups” song, the musical comedy has had quite the impact on society.
But it took time for Pitch Perfect to get there. During its opening weekend, the movie made just over $5 million. That’s not quite what we would call a strong start. However, thanks to word of mouth promotion, good reviews, and social media hype, by the end of its run, the film grossed over $115 million worldwide. Against a budget of $17 million, it was a major success—one that spawned two sequels and a devoted fan base.
Pitch Perfect was actually an adaptation of Mickey Rapkin's non-fiction book: Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory. Written by Kay Cannon (30 Rock) and directed by Jason Moore in his feature film directorial debut, the film follows sarcastic college freshman/aspiring music producer Beca (Anna Kendrick). Early into the semester, she reluctantly joins an a cappella group on campus: the Barden Bellas. Despite the group’s ups and downs, the Bellas end up finding victory and life-long friendship along their way to the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (the ICAAs).
From the audition mash-up of Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” to the Bellas’ show-stopping final number, the film is chock-full of instantly classic moments. However, for its 10-year anniversary, The Daily Beast wanted to take a deep-dive into Pitch Perfect’s most beloved scene of all: the Riff-Off.
Whether you were in a movie theater dancing along, finding the clip on YouTube, or sitting on the couch at home, you will always remember where you were when you first saw Anna Kendrick launch into Blackstreet’s “No Diggity.” It’s a moment that fully encapsulates just how original the film is—a fun, completely cool love letter to the a cappella world.
The scene comes almost halfway into the film. The new Barden Bellas have just formed, are tirelessly rehearsing choreography and, sadly, just bombed their first gig. The Riff-Off, where all the a cappella groups on campus (the Barden Bellas, the Treblemakers, BU Harmonics, and the High Notes) at the fictional Barden University come together to compete in a spontaneous singing game, provides the first moment of true bonding for the Bellas. The rules are simple: You must sing a song that fits in the category chosen, and the first word of your song has to match the last word of the song sung before it. Otherwise, you are *clap clap* cut off.
There are many moving parts that must perfectly align to make the movie magic seen here. From nailing down the right songs to use—including “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” “Like a Virgin” and “Feels Like The First Time”—to figuring out how to arrange the numbers to sound both intentional and organic, the Riff-Off had no shortage of complications.
To find out how it all came out so perfectly, The Daily Beast talked to Moore, Cannon, vocal arranger Tom Kitt (the Tony-winning co-creator of Broadway hit Next To Normal), vocal arranger Ed Boyer, executive music producers Julia Michels and Julianne Jordan (Grammy winners for their work on A Star Is Born), and music supervisor Sarah Webster.
This is, in their own words, how the Riff-Off went from the page to the screen, one aca-amazing step at a time.
Quotes have been condensed for clarity.
THE CONCEPT
The Riff-Off was not something that was at all mentioned in Mickey Rapkin’s book, at least as far as writer Kay Cannon remembers. Instead, she came up with it on her own, inspired by her improv roots.
Kay Cannon (writer): I had wanted to do a [game] that I had stolen from comedy sports. I’m an improviser, so one of our comedy sports games was “last word, first word”–when you take the last word of the person speaking before you and you make that the first word of your sentence until someone steals it from you. I just put that to music.
Jason Moore (director): Kay invented it, and she invented the rules. In fact, I was like, “Is this a real thing?” And she’s like, “no, it was an improv game.” I think [it was] also a little bit of a rap battle, where people step into the circle and challenge the other person. That was definitely a point of reference for me. I would go back and watch 8 Mile and movies like Step Up.
Cannon: [Producers] Elizabeth Banks and Max Handelman went to [the University of Pennsylvania], and they had talked about how an a cappella group would just start singing on campus. They’d go into the cafeteria and they’d just start singing. So it was just combining the last word, first word [game] with breaking into song on campus.
Ed Boyer [vocal arranger]: [The idea of a Riff-Off] was definitely not at all a thing before Pitch Perfect. In theory it could happen, but in reality, if you had four groups and there were 15 people in a group and they were all amateur singers, getting 60 people to spontaneously not only arrange things and perform them on the spot, but also know the songs and be able to jump in on lyrics—it’s not really a thing that could happen.
NAMING THE GAME
“Riff-Off” is now synonymous with the Pitch Perfect franchise, but it took a special encounter to come up with the name.
Cannon: I went to Mickey Rapkin’s book launch that was in New York, and [this a cappella group] performed in this tiny bar three feet from the audience. Afterwards, I wanted to ask them questions, and it’s so funny now when I think about it, because they must have thought I was just such a weirdo. I [was] just like, “Oh, I just, I sold this movie and I’m writing about a cappella based off of the book Pitch Perfect. … Do you have [a thing] where you kind of compete against each other? And one of the women in that group, it was a co-ed group, said, “Do you mean a Riff-Off?” And I go, “Yes, I do. Do you have Riff-Offs?” I can’t really remember the answer other than they did embrace it. So I [thought], “Oh, I’m not crazy for putting this in the movie. I can make it what I want, and now I’m gonna call it a Riff-Off.”
SETTING THE SCENE
The Riff-Off is not only an epic musical moment, but it’s also a pivotal scene for the Barden Bellas and protagonist Beca. Figuring out where to set it, both in the script and in location, was crucial.
Cannon: I knew I wanted to have a competition on campus, [that was] different [from] them on stage doing the regionals and the semis and the championships. It had to be something different to add to the story of the Bellas coming together and Beca having her first moment of really committing to the group.
Moore: The vision was that it felt underground. It felt like an old school rap or dance battle. And then, it had this sort of triumphant moment for Beca, where everybody sings along with her, and the pool sort of made it feel like it was a big experience, even though there was something like maybe 80 or 90 people in that whole [scene].
Cannon: Where’s the cool place where these people are hanging, where it’s not the popular place on campus? It’s kinda where they’re hiding out in a way. But the biggest drive [behind why] they would hang in an empty swimming pool is because they all know the acoustics are the best there.
Moore: I wanted it to feel a lot less puritanical than the other performance modes—certainly for the women, since their whole story was that they were kind of choosing these square, slightly strait-laced songs. I wanted the whole thing to feel a little more dangerous and on edge and cool. Once we had the pool, then I [thought], “How do we do lighting at the pool?” And then, I had the idea about giving everybody flashlights, as a way to make it feel like it was theatrical lighting, but it was still homemade.
THE MUSIC
There were two categories of music ultimately chosen for the Riff-Off: “Ladies of the ’80s” and “Songs about Sex.” Finding the right songs to fit in this category while also moving the plot along was crucial. But from there, getting the rights and clearances to these songs provided their own challenge.
Julia Michels (executive music producer): Julianne [Jordan, the other executive music producer,] and I had no idea how [the Riff-Off] was gonna work. It was written in the script, but we kept putting it off to the side a little bit because it seemed like a daunting task. And then Jason said, “Why don’t you call my friend Tom Kitt, because he could really play an instrumental role in this puzzle.” After we had some initial conversations with [Tom, the vocal arranger], what Julianne and I did was come up with music that’s actually easy to clear, because we can’t just have him pulling from any music in the whole universe… So, Julianne and I went to all the major publishers, told them what we were doing, and [asked], “Can we please have some easy, clear lists?” So we handed all these lists to Tom and said, “Go for it.”
Tom Kitt (vocal arranger): It was then [about] looking at all those songs and finding what categories come out of those… This all sprang from Kay and her script. She had mapped out in the script how the Riff-Off was going to work, and it was so exciting on the page. We had to figure out how to execute that. At first, we were thinking it would be three categories, but we ended up on two, and those categories were the ones in the film.
Moore: I remember one thing in particular is that Ester Dean, who plays Cynthia Rose in the movie, was a co-writer on the song “S&M” [by Rihanna]. And so I thought it would be so cool to have an Ester Dean song… So, we got the rights to “S&M,” and then once we had “S&M,” we changed the category to “Songs about Sex.” Once we had “S&M” as an anchor, then we would try and find other songs that were about sex that then could apply to the rules of the game.
Cannon: I had 18 songs [at first], because I had a quicker back-and-forth to really amp on the competition. But, if you’re only using a couple of lines from a song, you still have to pay $100,000 or whatever for the song.
Moore: We tried to pay a lot of attention to choosing songs that people want to hear, but that they haven’t heard a thousand times either. Also at the time, Glee was on television, so one of those things that I honestly thought a lot about was what’s a song that Glee can’t do or hasn’t done—something like “No Diggity” [by Blackstreet] was probably a little too risky [for Glee].
Quick Easter egg: One of the categories not used in the movie but on the wheel of possible categories at the beginning of the scene was “Songs Ruined By Glee.” “We were really being political,” Cannon said with a laugh when remembering this decoy category.
LANDING “NO DIGGITY”
This song gets its own section, because it provides for one of the most memorable moments. However, the road toward securing “No Diggity” was a winding one.
Cannon: The Riff-Off was the coming together of the Bellas, but really it’s Beca declaring she’s in. And I had been really focused on the Bellas coming together, so my temporary song for the end of the Riff-Off was “Stand By Me.” And at one of our first meetings with the music supervisors and Jason, the music supervisors said, “Okay, we’re definitely not doing that song.” [laughs]
Moore: It was actually Tom who suggested “No Diggity.” I love that song, and I had to remind myself that it was about sex. [laughs] I had to go back and read the lyrics.
Kitt: Jason said that the way this [scene] is built is that we really need to have a big, dramatic thing that leads to the Bellas having their big moment, where they come together and inspire everyone around them, and we need to find a song that’s going to be able to be a big sing-along galvanizing moment. “No Diggity” was a song that I love, and the singing part of it, I thought was going to be great. It was just gonna have great energy. And I also thought of how fun it would be for Beca to do the opening rap.
Julianne Jordan [executive music producer]: We had difficulty clearing the last 1 percent of the song, because of [one] writer.
Michels: He was, I guess, estranged from [the band members] and didn’t wanna clear his 1 percent. It was such a drama. One of the rules in music supervision/executive music producing is you never go to shoot a song that’s not fully cleared for lots and lots of reasons. Well, guess what? The day that we were shooting “No Diggity,” that 1 percent was not cleared. We had a huge stomachache about it. I think it cleared while we were shooting—I think it was that close.
Jordan: I don’t think we had a backup song for it.
Michels: Heck no, we didn’t have a backup. It was the whole end of the [scene]. But what’s so interesting now is I’ll watch a movie subsequently and go, “How’d they get ‘No Diggity?’” They must have resolved their differences, but it was a very stressful behind-the-scenes moment. And thank goodness it happened, because it’s a legendary moment in our film.
Sarah Webster [music supervisor]: I sprung my first gray hair the day that the last approval for that song came in. I just looked in the mirror and I thought, “‘No Diggity,’ look what you did.”
THE ARRANGEMENTS
Arranging the vocals for the Riff-Off was a puzzle like no other. It required a lot of collaboration, many last-minute changes, and no small number of demos.
Moore: I [said to Tom Kitt], “Look, here’s the puzzle we have to solve and it has to make sense for the rules of the game. It also has to be fun to listen to and it has to escalate in terms of eventually Beca sort of steps up and does something that surprises everybody.” And he was the perfect person to figure out that puzzle.
Kitt: I remember being on a bus and putting [the Riff-Off arrangement] together. Writing it out and underlining the word that was going to be able to bridge from one [song] to the next and how I was building it.
Moore: Tom did such a good job of making the whole thing build. There’s a lot of stuff that you don’t even see—like he made sure the key relationships [were intact], that the songs escalated and changed keys and got bigger. That’s one of his talents.
Kitt: There’s a fantastical element of this. You wanna believe that these teams are gonna show up, steal a song, and have an arrangement ready that they can figure out together and sound great. That’s movie magic, right? But you also want it to sound great… What [additional vocal arranger] Deke Sharon, Ed Boyer and [additional vocal arranger] Ben Bram did on the ground was they tweaked some things to just make it feel a little bit more like it was of the moment.
Boyer: With the Riff-Off specifically, we had to make sure it wasn’t too structured. Sometimes we would take Tom’s arrangement and take some things out of it, just because he would write a nice, beautiful chord, but we would think, "If this person was just singing along with their friend and making it up on the spot, it might not be a nice, big, beautiful chord. It might just be one person coming in, then another person coming in.” Sometimes it was like taking his car and knocking the hubcap off or whatever, just to dirty it up and make it seem a little more spontaneous.
Kitt: It really was a team effort once the arrangements were done. I believe the first demos [for the Riff-Off] were just me and [additional vocal arranger] Alana Da Fonseca. She sang a lot of the parts, but I had arranged it all, and then we created these demos and sent them down. I actually have those first demos of the ’80s medley and “Songs About Sex.” Even going forward into the second and third films, I have a bunch of Riff-Off demos that I love to listen to.
THE FILMING
The dreaded night shoot. It was cold, it was late, and there were a lot of moving pieces. But the scene not only bonded the characters within the film—it also bonded the cast and crew filming the scene for life.
Moore: [The Riff-Off] was a fun moment, but it was also pretty miserable filming. It was extremely cold and in the middle of the night. People had big parkas on—if you look closely, in the movie, you can see their breath sometimes [when] they’re exhaling… But one of the great things about a musical is even the shitty days on the set tend to be really fun, because once the music starts going, there’s an energy that happens.
Boyer: Most of my memories from the scene are all the takes they did of the hosts just ad-libbing jokes and lines. The best part was that you would get on set and the actors would just riff. That was fun, because we knew what the music was gonna sound like already… but you got to hear the jokes first and you got to hear all the jokes that were cut.
Moore: We did pre-record everything so that we had a map going in, and just in case something goes wrong technically or someone is sick or the acoustics suck. I would still have everyone sing it live, since there are no instruments in a cappella, and the transition from speaking dialogue into singing needed to feel organic… we would actually record the transitions live. Then we had a lot of options in the mixing stage to make it both feel polished and organic to the moment. We even did a breathing pass, [because] to make something sound natural, you need to have people breathing and inhaling things. So we would do passes where the whole point was actually just to record people’s breath.
But there was one song that was recorded completely live that day on set …
Moore: Anna Kendrick did the “No Diggity” rap live. Anna Kendrick can do basically anything— she’s such a talented actress, musician, singer, and dancer. It was really no conversation. She [said], “Of course, I’m gonna rap that live.” I think we pre-recorded some of the background vocals, but especially for her, we wanted it to feel like it was happening in the moment. And because Anna has all those skills, you don’t have to cheat anything with her… No one really heard her before it happened that night. So everyone was as surprised as the characters are that she suddenly [starts rapping].
THE LASTING IMPACT
Memorably, the Bellas ended up losing the Riff-Off—they were the underdogs after all. The scene had a lasting impact on not only the film franchise (both sequels have their own Riff-Offs), but also the a cappella world and pop culture itself.
Michels: We all knew we had something really special, but it’s hard to know the impact of something. I mean, who knew it would be [this big]? But here we are 10 or 12 years later, interviewing about the process that we went through on this little movie called Pitch Perfect.
Cannon: I’m not surprised [of the scene’s impact], because it’s that moment. It’s that moment where [Beca]’s saying, “I’m in this world and I’m committing to this world.” And then once you have a song in which everybody starts singing [along]—that’s just pure joy. It was magic. They all acted and Jason shot it in a way that made you just feel it. I’m not surprised [it’s so beloved], because there’s a feeling connected to it.
Boyer: What’s funny is after the movie, you would get a call or an email from somebody saying, “Hey, we’re putting together a Riff-Off. Can you guide us through the process?” And you’d have to politely explain [that] these things don’t really exist. You could pre-plan one to try to make it seem like one happened, but it’s not really something where you can just have it happen. [laughs]
Kitt: You want to find a way to make something feel personal to your audience… Many people probably say they didn’t just see Pitch Perfect once, they saw it many, many times. And the reason is because of set pieces where it’s like, no matter how many times I watch it, it still speaks to me and I get chills… I think that there’s great nostalgia and appreciation [for how] the film not only speaks to people who are in that world now, but it speaks to all the people who have been in that world.
Moore: We don’t make these things to just screen for ourselves—we make them for an audience… I would love it when we would go see screenings of Pitch Perfect and people would clap at the ending of musical numbers like they would at a Broadway show. That’s what I wanted it to feel like.
Cannon: I don’t know if this makes me a cheese ball or not, but I have [the Riff-Off track] on my iTunes. When the Riff-Off comes on, I’m in. I listen to it and it brings me a lot of joy.
Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now.
Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now.
