'Hitchhiker's' director and producer speak.

The boys tell us what it's like to move from making music videos to producing and directing one of the biggest films of the year.

Apr 29 2005

As 'Hammer and Tongs', Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith have made some of the most iconic and downright brilliant music videos of the last ten years.

With 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' the pair make the transition to film on a pretty large scale, so we thought we'd catch up with them to find out what it's like to make your debut with a big-budget blockbuster.

'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' is a pretty huge undertaking. Couldn't you have started out with something smaller?

Garth Jennings: We tried. We spent nearly three years writing our own film which was totally doable with a very small budget. We were getting the finances together and starting the casting process, then this turned up. And we never thought we would do a big film, for all kinds of reasons: firstly, we wanted to do things and generate the ideas ourselves and secondly, we thought a big film could never be a labour of love or a passion project because you would always be a gun for hire.

Nick Goldsmith: It is a big film but we didn't have to have any star names in it; 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' is the star. So it wasn't like we had to deal with that side of things. The studio pretty much said: 'You seem to know what you're talking about; go away and do it.' So we came back to London and shot it with people who we had worked with all the way through on music videos. A lot of them hadn't done films either so there were no big egos, In a way, even though it was a big film, it felt like a small first film anyway.

So when did you get the call? I heard that Spike Jonze recommended you.

Garth: Yes – while we were busy working on our own little film, Spike had been sent the script, turned it down and suggested us as director and producer. The studio saw our work – I think he even sent our show reel to them, and liked it enough to send us the script. It really just snowballed from there, so we have a lot to thank Mr Jonze for.

How close were your original sketches and storyboards to the finished film?

Garth: I would say it's about 90% of our original storyboards, maybe even closer. We were meticulous in our planning of this film, partly because that's the way we work anyway, but also because we're new and we wanted to make sure we were thorough and got this right. We didn't want to mess up.

So how long did you spend in pre-production?

Garth: There was an initial period of eight months where we weren't even in pre-production, we were just getting our stuff together – all the visuals, the script and the storyboards. We then took it out to the studio and they were so into what we'd done that they agreed to make the film right then and there, which was amazing. Pre-production then lasted five months, we shot for four months and finally we finished editing around February or March of this year.

What was the most difficult thing to transfer from the book to the screen?

Nick: Technically I think probably the planetary shop floor, just because it doesn't exist in any way, shape or form. And you needed to create that wow factor for the audience. We quickly found out that the tricky thing with creating a planetary floor is scale. When you have planets within an environment which is huge, but then you're meant to somehow relate human-sized people going through that environment, it’s incredibly difficult. You have to play around with different ideas because if you were to approach it purely from a realistic point of view, your mind would probably blow up.

Garth: It ended up being less about using CG buildings and CG people and more about painters who were able to artistically solve the problem. We're pretty proud of that – it should be bloody spectacular.

How did Mos Def end up in the film?

Garth: He was recommended to us by our costume director who had seen him in a play at the Royal Court. He's a great actor and he also happens to be a kind of Renaissance man who does so many things. It was a very easy decision to make because he really is quite unlike anyone else I have ever met.

Were you under any pressure to cast a star as Arthur Dent?

Garth: No. Some people thought when we came on-board that Hugh Grant was going to be used. But it was actually a clean slate for us because the title 'Hitchhiker's' is the star. We could just go out and find the right people for the parts.

When did the Henson guys come on board?

Garth: Almost directly after the green-light meeting. Once we got the go-ahead we flew back immediately, met with Douglas Adams' family and then went to Henson's and started to make models of Vogons and things.

Nick: We'd worked with the Henson people before on several music videos, so we had a prior working relationship with them. They're on the canal in Camden, we're on the canal in Islington, so it was only a short walk. Pretty much everyday we were up there designing and redesigning aliens.

How do you think the humour is going to translate to America?

Garth: Well, so far we've found that, rather like the books, the film has gone down really well. One of our screenings in Pasadena was a 50/50 audience; half of them had heard of the book and the other half had no idea what they were about to see, and it worked equally well with both parties. It's a joy to see it with an audience like that.

Nick: You sort of hope the film is going to work on different levels. On the humour side, for some people, someone being slapped in the face with a paddle is funny, and then there's this sort of intelligent rambling from Bill Nighy, which others are going to find funny. We tried to pepper it with a few different things.

Finally, how did you enjoy the premiere?

Garth: It was overwhelming. But it was a good overwhelming in the same way your wedding day is. It was insane, as our background is behind the scenes, not getting out of cars and signing autographs then talking to television cameras. It was extraordinary.

Nick: I have to say I have no idea what happened. It was a blur.

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