'Son of Rambow' feature

Time Out gains an exclusive insight into Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith's nostalgia-tinged follow-up to 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'

Can you give us more details about the story then?

It’s based on my childhood memories and experiences, but massively heightened. If the hero in the film was based on me, he wouldn’t be very interesting. But I lived next door to a Plymouth Brethren family when I was a kid, and they are very different to you and me. They don’t watch TV or listen to radio or read fiction books – they are cut off from the things that you and I are constantly doing. So if I moved the story next door, and if this young boy who has never watched television in his life, if the first thing he ever sees is ‘First Blood’, then suddenly it becomes interesting. It was one of those wonderful hallelujah moments because it was all great stuff but there wasn’t a movie there, but when I moved it next door, it came alive. Because I wanted to capture that feeling when you are young, just how affecting those moments are – when you’re so swept away by a film that you want to be that character. By doing that it helped – you can feel the eyes widening at seeing John Rambo making traps in the forest or sewing up his arm and that’s what lead us directly to making these ridiculous stunt movies.

So it’s a film about a film?

In part – well the kid in question is an avid drawer and illustrator – all his exercise books have little flip cartoons in the corners. He’s an imaginative chap who is suddenly given an outlet into filmmaking when he meets this ridiculous school fruitcake called Lee Carter, who’s kind of an outcast, but who is also very ambitious. When we first meet him he’s making pirate copies of Rambo and he also makes his own insect snuff movies – blowing up creatures – which he think will win him awards. In a weird and wonderful way they get together and make ‘Son of Rambow’, an action film that are sure will win them ‘Screen Test’ on the tele.

Is it all told from the kid’s point of view then?

Very much so – but we’re making a film with the same kind of ambition, scale and drama that the children in the film are going for. It’s called ‘Son of Rambow’, which is a ridiculously optimistic title, and it’s going to be shot anamorphic, with sweeping lenses and a big score – it just happens to have two kids at the heart of it. As far as we’re concerned it’s a big, romantic adventure. I want it to look as big and epic as it felt at that age. It was a big deal back then – biking down the hill to the next scene and swinging over lakes and nearly drowning – and they were big lakes! And yet you go back to those lakes and they are tiny now, so I want it all to look huge. All the locations we’ve chosen are as big, sweeping and widescreen as possible.