Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles (2021) on Netflix

PG20211h 5mDocumentary Music

Billie Eilish performs the 16 songs of her album Happier Than Ever at the Hollywood Bowl, backed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. An animated version of her drives around Los Angeles.

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Netflix4.3/5
IMDb7.3/102,032 votes
Rotten Tomatoes100%

Trailer

Plot summary

Billie Eilish sings all 16 tracks from her album Happier Than Ever in their album order on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl, the Los Angeles venue where the performances were filmed without a live audience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her brother Finneas O'Connell joins on acoustic guitar, with drummer Andrew Marshall, guitarist Romero Lubambo, conductor Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Children's Chorus behind her. Between numbers, the film blends live action with animation: a two-dimensional Eilish walks out of a recording studio, picks up a microphone and drives a Porsche past Los Angeles landmarks including the Roosevelt Hotel and the Palladium. Eilish, who grew up in the city, conceived the project as a tribute to Los Angeles, drawing on films that mix cartoons with live footage.

Cast

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles (2021)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

Disney censored the word "fuck" from the title track of Billie Eilish's album in the film, but left in "shit", "damn" and "bitches" and kept the songs' mature themes. Director Robert Rodriguez had wondered how the studio would react to the explicit lyrics.
The crew rebuilt the Hollywood Bowl's old reflecting pool, which once separated performers from the audience, in place of some of the venue's seats. Its reflections made the amphitheatre look like a full circle instead of a semicircle, evoking Blade Runner to co-director Patrick Osborne.
Given only 12 weeks to animate Billie Eilish, Patrick Osborne put her in a motion capture suit after previsualizing the concert scenes, then rotoscoped on top of the motion capture animation to keep the film's 1980s look.
So that passersby outside the Hollywood Bowl would not hear the unreleased album, everyone on set listened to Billie Eilish's performances through headphones during the concert shoot.
Because the film was shot without a live audience, the crew could move their cameras freely and used at least 10 cameras plus steadicams, cranes and large Alta-X drones to get angles that would be impossible with people in the venue.
Cinematographer Pablo Berron compared the film's shooting schedule at the Hollywood Bowl to filming four music videos a night, once he learned everything he needed to know about the project.