Stratford marching bands off to Hollywood
High school students will attend L.A. premiere of Disney movie partially filmed in Bunnell
STRATFORD — Dozens of local high school students who appear in an upcoming Disney movie will attend the film’s premiere screening in Burbank, Calif., early next year.
The marching bands for Bunnell and Stratford high schools are scheduled to travel to the Walt Disney Studios in mid-February as part of the four-day trip that will also include stops in Hollywood and a performance at Disneyland.
The screening will showcase “Chang Can Dunk,” a coming-ofage story that was in part filmed at Bunnell last year and features performances by the two marching bands.
“It’s an excellent opportunity for our students and the staff at Bunnell,” Superintendent Uyi Osunde said of the trip at a school board meeting on Monday. “Disney coming into town last year was a hallmark and signature event for us.”
Filming for the movie took place in October of 2021 during the school’s annual Cavalcade of Bands, a competition featuring school marching bands. At the time, district officials said the production company would also use athletic facilities as backdrops.
In addition to Stratford, filming for the movie also took place in Stamford. Like Bunnell, Disney used Westhill High School’s athletic facilities to film key scenes.
According to IMDb, “Chang Can Dunk” is about a young Asian-American teen and basketball fanatic who wants to learn how to dunk in an attempt to win over a love interest. The movie stars Bloom Li, from Hulu’s “Into the Dark,” and was directed and written by Jingyi Shao.
The screenplay for the movie was included on the Black List in 2020, an annual survey of movie executives of their most liked unproduced screenplays. The film is scheduled to debut on the Disney+ streaming service sometime in 2023.
Following the screening, the marching bands will perform the same music they performed in the movie during a show at Disneyland. They will also visit the Hollywood Bowl, Universal Studios Hollywood and other Los Angeles-area landmarks, according to school board documents.