All Of Rachel Zegler's Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes Singing Was Done Live On Set [Exclusive]
There are a multitude of ways to incorporate characters singing on screen in a film. Traditionally, the actors record the tracks separately from their on-set line delivery and lip-sync during the actual filming, as shown with Ryan Gosling and his army of Kens in Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" movie for "I'm Just Ken." But every once in a while, a filmmaker will elect to record the raw, on-set delivery of a vocal performance. Director Tom Hooper took this route with both "Les Miserables" and "Cats," with ... one turning out infinitely better than the other. There are pros and cons to both approaches, but the second option is exponentially riskier. And yet, "Hunger Games" franchise director Francis Lawrence went that route on "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" with star Rachel Zegler's performance as Lucy Gray Baird.
In the book as well as in the movie, Lucy Gray Baird is a performer. She and her family are part of a performing group called the Covey, meaning music is a massive part of her life and her approach to rebellion. A majority of the songs she sings have a rustic, folk sound to it, which as /Film's own Jacob Hall learned in our exclusive interview with Lawrence, was by design. Suzanne Collins, who wrote "The Hunger Games" books was consulted on the film every step of the way, including the music, which was to sound generational. "When people were collecting these songs or ballads that had been passed down through generations, often from England, Ireland, Scotland, and then orchestrate it with maybe a fiddle, a guitar, a standup bass or something, a little drum, very simple, playing in saloons, around people's porches," Lawrence explained. "But very much from that District 12, which is West Virginia Appalachia, that feel. And I fell in love with that sound. Suzanne already loved that sound."
And nothing about that sound comes with the cleanliness of a studio recording.
Zegler's recordings were rehearsals
Francis Lawrence says that after they figured out what the music would sound like, they went to Nashville bass producer and songwriter Dave Cobb for his expertise. He would eventually write the music that went with the lyrics Suzanne Collins had written in the book. Once it was all in place, they recorded the instrumentation with the band and then brought in Rachel Zegler to add the vocals. "But her recordings were almost more of a rehearsal, to make sure that she fell into the sound, the genre, all that kind of stuff," Lawrence says. "And so she could work with Dave a little bit." In any other movie, this would have been the end of it, but that wasn't the case for "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes."
"She fell in really seamlessly into the style that we needed," Lawrence continued. "And then she was able to sing live on set every day, so that was also amazing." He confirms that there was no lip-syncing or anything like that. "Whether she's on a mic or singing acapella, it was all live." Zegler is a theater kid through and through and has been singing for the entirety of her young life. Her cover of "Shallow" from "A Star Is Born" went viral on Twitter after she was announced as the lead in Steven Spielberg's "West Side Story," proof-positive that the girl has pipes. That's the secret to recording live musical renditions on a film set — cast someone who can belt the house down.
"The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" is now in theaters.