Next month, the seniors at East High will graduate from high school and embark on new adventures.  High School Musical 3 will hit theaters on October 24th and is said to be the last HSM movie installment for the stars.  Director Kenny Ortega is the man responsible for turning Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, and Ashley Tisdale into household names.  This week, he talked to England's The Evening Post about his upcoming movie and could barely contain his excitement about it.  Read on to find out what he has to say about how things have changed now that he's making a major motion picture and how graduation will affect the students of East High!

Ortega wasted no time filling in The Evening Post on the plot of High School Musical 3 and how big changes are about to come to the students of East High.  "We're on a different plane in terms of our story and the stakes that our kids are dealing with," he said. "We come in during spring, at the end of the basketball season, so it's this transitional moment and our characters are looking toward the future, to college and their lives beyond school, and wondering what's going to happen to their friendships and their relationships."  Of course, the question on everybody's mind is whether Troy and Gabriella will stay together but Ortega wouldn't say.

The first two High School Musical movies premiered on The Disney Channel and the third movie is the first to be released in movie theaters nationwide. Ortega explains how a major motion picture will be different than a made for television movie. "We have more money and a little bit more time, so this film is going to be bigger and more multi-dimensional. You'll see that especially in the dance numbers," he explained. "We've got a number on the basketball court, up on a rooftop, in a junkyard, in a tree house, and there's a great range of styles, which has been great fun for me. There's a little bit of Broadway in there, a little bit of funk and hip-hop, as well as ballet and ballroom."

Ortega finished up his interview with The Evening Post by taking a moment to reflect on the impact he's had on the musical theater world.  The newspaper asked him how it felt to have turned a whole new generation on to musicals.  "If I have, then I can't think of anything better," he reflected. "You know, my parents met at a dance and probably my earliest memory is of the two of them in the lounge at home, swing-dancing, salsa dancing, waltzing, and me thinking, 'That's love, that's happiness'. That feeling has never really left me."


- Gina Scarpa, BuddyTV Staff Writer
Source: The Evening Post
(Image courtesy of Disney)