A decade after the premiere of the a cappella comedy “Pitch Perfect,” “Cups” remains the film’s most memorable cultural moment.
Following the release of the film, the song performed by Anna Kendrick for her character Beca’s a cappella audition went viral. Covers of “When I’m Gone” grew viral online, and Kendrick ultimately released a remix version of the song in April 2013. Three months later, the remix hit the top ten on the Billboard charts, and it presently has over 670 million YouTube views. “Cups” was not created for the film. According to Vulture, the 1928 recording of “Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?” by The Original Carter Family was originally coupled with the cup rhythm routine in 2009 by the band Lulu and the Lampshades. After discovering the routine online, Kendrick utilized it as her audition for the film.
Thus was born a viral moment and a chart-topping smash.
Originally, Kendrick’s character was going to sing “I’m a Little Teapot.”
In the film, Beca auditions for the Barden Bellas, a female a cappella group at the fictional Barden University, by performing “Cups.”
But “Cups” was not part of the original idea, according to scriptwriter Kay Cannon’s comments to Insider.
In early drafts of the script, Beca was scheduled to sing “I’m a Little Teapot” – an unusual choice compared to other auditioners that would have demonstrated her singing abilities, but that “you could easily make fun of,” as Cannon stated.
Kendrick adopted a similar approach during her audition for “Pitch Perfect.” While other auditioners sang hits by Beyoncé and Lady Gaga, director Jason Moore stated that when it came time for Kendrick to sing, she just pulled out a cup and began to execute the technique she had learned from YouTube.
Moore stated, “It’s kind of like when everyone is watching the movie for the first time and they’re like, ‘What the f*** is that?’” All of us were merely stunned.
When it came time to film the sequence, Kendrick rehearsed the “I’m A Little Teapot” part, but Moore stated that it did not land as intended. Instead, they tried “Cups.”
“I believe we were thinking, ‘Why aren’t we just employing the stuff that she dazzled us with?’” he told Insider. Let’s do that since it’s so meta and ideal.
Kendrick is pleased that they did. She informed Jimmy Fallon in 2017 when “Pitch Perfect 3” was released that she had no idea how she would have performed “I’m a Little Teacup” in the original film.
She exclaimed, “Thank God they changed that!”
The scene was filmed to emphasize that Kendrick was acting in good faith.
Julio Macat, the director of photography, told Insider that he wanted to emphasize that Kendrick was “truly doing this” when recreating the excitement of Kendrick’s audition on-screen.
To emphasize the act, he and Moore opted for a continuous shot, assembling a scene with relatively few cuts — largely to Anna Camp’s Aubrey and Brittany Snow’s Chloe.
Several continuous takes comprise the “Cups” segment in “Pitch Perfect.”
Universal Pictures
Obtaining the shot was more difficult than it sounds. Due to the low budget of the film, the crew was unable to afford the usual equipment required to achieve the scene. Macat stated that steadicam operator Chris McGuire had to ride on a dolly, a wheeled cart normally mounted on tracks, and crawl out over an extension arm, a mounting accessory that enhances a camera’s range.
“Typically, you just purchase a lovely telescoping crane and that’s it,” Macat remarked, referring to a piece of film equipment that extends a remotely-controlled camera. “However, because we could not afford it, he reached out and drew close to her.”
Already famous online, the song became a phenomenon following the premiere of the film.
The viral success of “Cups” preceded “Pitch Perfect”: in 2011, after Anna Burden covered Lulu and the Lampshades’ version, online covers proliferated, as noted by HuffPost.
However, after “Pitch Perfect,” “Cups” exploded. According to Google Trends statistics, searches for “cup song” began to increase in January 2013. In August of that year, after Kendrick’s recording of the song topped the Billboard charts, they reached their high.
Cannon, the screenwriter for the film, told Insider that people would email her all sorts of videos including the song, including a notable one of schoolboys in Dublin, Ireland “singing ‘Cups’ at the top of their lungs” in the city’s streets.
Moore, on the other hand, received criticism from acquaintances whose children had viewed the video.
“Many of my high school buddies were like, ‘Fuck you, my kid is trying to learn the cup song. No one is getting any sleep, I can’t do it, and it requires a great deal of work,’” he told Insider. “I’m like, ‘Sorry!’”