Behind the Credits: John Carrafa, Choreographer, Song Sung Blue

Writer-director Craig Brewer’s Song Sung Blue remembers the real-life story of Mike and Claire Sardina (Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson). The couple fell in love in the late ‘80s, forming the Neil Diamond tribute band Lightning and Thunder. As tragedy and triumph came their way, the two never lost their belief in each other, nor their joy in performing Diamond’s classic songs. IndieWire writes, “Jackman and Hudson pour everything they have into their characters, and Song Sung Blue is at its most infectious when we’re watching this couple bask in the dorky pleasures of singing Neil Diamond songs loudly enough to drown out the painful realities of life.”

Choreographer John Carrafa brought his years of Broadway, TV, and film experience to give their performances the right patina of reality. After dancing for years with Twyla Tharp, Carrafa started choreographing Broadway shows like Urinetown and Into the Woods—for which he received Tony nominations. Film and television productions regularly turn to him to choreograph a musical number of the complex movement of everyday life.

As part of Behind the Credits series, we spoke with Carrafa about his work helping Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson become Lightning and Thunder.

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How did you get involved working on Song Sung Blue?

Most of the jobs I get are really from people I've worked with before. When I started, I realized that both Craig and I had worked at American Conservatory Theater (ACT) before, so I knew he was going to be really savvy about what he wanted. He asked me to help with the sequences with Hugh and Kate, the soul band, The Esquires, and the big performance sequences at the end.

What are filmmakers looking for from you?

I work mostly with actors, not so much with actual dancers, because my focus is storytelling through movement, not necessarily steps or choreography. My work is about integrating my choreography into their vision.

Both Jackman and Hudson are phenomenal performers. How did you adjust your choreography to fit the characters, rather than the actors?

There's a certain roughness to what Thunder and Lightning do. The fun was in not being too polished, letting it feel jagged around the edges in the way that their shows would have been. With the choir, for example, we figured that Mike or his manager would have put them together at the last minute and that they would not have rehearsed a lot. We looked for that roughness in the choir in the casting and we didn’t rehearse too much.

How did you work with Craig and the cinematographer, Amy Vincent, to coordinate your choreography with the filming?

On this film, I’d often cut together a sequence to show the filmmakers what was being emphasized in the choreography. When you are filming a dance, sometimes you want to highlight what the dancers are doing with their feet. Often it’s easier to show the filmmakers than it is to explain it.

As a Broadway choreographer, I can, in a stage performance, signal to the audience where to look with the choreography. In film and television, the editing does that. When you’re making a film dance, you’re choreographing it for the camera and for the editing. When you are capturing a film dance, it’s all about capturing reality and lightning in a bottle. With Hugh and Kate, we were trying to capture the moments in their performance that felt real to them. It’s not about the steps and dancers.

How was working with Hudson and Jackman?

Hugh and Kate are incredible live-stage performers and that makes a huge difference. This is the third film that I’ve worked on with Kate. Every time she appears on the monitor, she looks like a movie star. It was the same with Hugh. They bring something magical to the camera. As a choreographer, I find a lot of actors are very anxious about their performances, fearing that working with them is going to be my worst experience. I can say, however, working with Hugh and Kate was a dream.

For film, are you often called on to choreograph non-dance sequences?

A lot. There are a lot of times when people tell me, “We don't want this to look like choreography.”

What has creating choreography in film and television taught you?

I've done choreography in a gazillion different styles. When I get to the point in a script where it says, “The dance,” I think about what is necessary for the story before I try to figure what kind of dance to employ. I recently figured out I’ve done over 200 different scenes and episodes, each one of them very different from the one before. I’ve built up a huge mental library of movement and story to call on.

What films made you want to become a dancer and then choreographer?

It was really Jerome Robbins for me and films like West Side Story. I got to know him and Fosse a little bit when I was dancing with Twyla Tharp. I’ve always thought I wanted to have a career like Robbins. When I asked him how he did it, he told me, “I never had a plan. I just took what I got and ran with it.” I aspired to create dances like “Cool” in West Side Story which occupy a place in the film’s storytelling that really matters. In Song Sung Blue, I get to inhabit a part of the film where the movement and the physicality of the characters is telling the story.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.