Battle of the Year: Dream Team press conference – movie update [Video]

Battle of the Year: Dream Team, the movie based on the annual b-boy competition of the same name recently held a press conference as it enters post-production.

Battle of the Year: Dream Team is has been filmed in 3D and is directed by Benson Lee, director of the documentary Planet B-Boy.

Battle of the Year: Dream Team press conference video

Battle of the Year: Dream Team was originally titled Planet B-Boy and is likely to be renamed to avoid confusion with the documentary. Dream Team stars Josh Holloway from Lost as its lead role of the crew coach next to Caity Lotz and Josh Peck as its main cast and tells the story of an American b-boy crew heading to France to compete at the Battle of the Year International Championships. The pop singer Chris Brown also stars in the movie an a currently unnamed character (according to IMDb).

B-boys featured in the film as supporting cast include B-Boy Casper (Jesse Brown), B-Boy Flipz (Ivan Velez), Kid David; Dave Scott, choreographer for Step Up 3 is also involved with movement direction.

Benson Lee, director of Battle of the Year: Dream Team as quoted on the BOTY website said: “It was my goal to capture the culture, but more importantly show an alternate side to hip hop because most people see hip hop through the eyes of MTV and the media which is very gangster, violent and materialistic.”

To counter the perspective of how dancers are portrayed in the media and give more integrity Lee allowed the cast to alter the script to reflect their true selves, even when in character.

“If there was something that we didn’t feel was right or something we wouldn’t say they would let us fix that,” said B-Boy Casper.

“Our auditions were basically interviews where we dance and Benson interviewed us and they took little parts of our real story. My story in the movie is my real life story,” added Kid David. “As far as the dancing is concerned it’s important to know that over the years we create signature moves, moves that we’re known for in the dance community. In these movies we’re doing our signature stuff which is years of creativity that we’ve been working on. All of the movement that’s in the movie is original movement that we work hard to make up.”

Some scenes and crowd reactions for Battle of the Year: Dream Team was shot at Battle of the Year 2011 in November where Vagabond Crew emerged world champions. The annual b-boy competition, Battle of the Year (BOTY), upon which the film is based, began in Germany in 1990 as the ‘World Cup of breakdancing’ until 2009 when event moved to Montpellier, France. 35 qualifiers for BOTY are held around the world, seeing almost 3,000 b-boys and 350 crews competing for a place in the finals with up to 12,000 people attending the grand final.

Battle of the Year: Dream Team is released January 25 2013