No Restaurant At The End Of The Universe

Listen, we've all known for a couple of years that any sequel to Garth Jennings' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would be, at best, highly improbable, but now Martin Freeman has reiterated the fact and, here and there across the web, the knives have come out and people have started taking stabs at the film again.

But why? Why don't they like it?

Guide, as I tend to call it to save on tongue, is one of the films I use most frequently in my film classes. Every one of my students has watched it, and a couple of sequences have been quite rigorously dismantled in class. In fact, there's one shot in the film I find quite simply indispensible in teaching mise en scene (if you can work out which shot it is, you can win a gold star). There's some truly brilliant cinema here, and Jennings often displays the grasp of the language and craft of film that marks him out, after only two feature films, as one of the most exciting and talented of modern filmmakers.

Jennings' film is definitely not the TV show, which in turn was not the books, and they were not the radio show. Every new version has taken some pretty sharp turns from the previous, but that kind of goes without saying. What is much less discussed, however, is how the problems are, generally, problems that do stretch back through all of the versions. Houses getting knocked down to make way for bypasses? That's just the biggest and most obvious example of Douglas Adams dated satire and stale view of beauracracy. Where he did manage to hit on something timeless - the improbability drive, the conception of Zaphod as a politician - it has survived and much of this material is better presented by Jennings than we'd ever seen it before.

I think there's a sad nostalgia at fault here. Like the countless hordes that profess Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is somehow a better film than Tim Burton's Charlie (that's a truly ludicrous position if you just stand back and compare them side to side without emotional fogginess) these Guide bashers are basing their cases on little more than sentiment.

On the one hand, I'm sad that Jennings won't be stepping back behind the camera for The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - but on the other hand, he's got better things to do and I just want to see him do those. Son of Rambow is streets ahead of Guide, certainly in terms of the writing, and it suggests to me that Jennings is better off not shackling himself to fondly remembered, not-as-good-as-you-think dinosaurs that he can't deliver to their full potential without changing but can't update without being punished for it.

Digital Dent

I've been told by a rock-solid source that Cinesite in London are to be handling the CG FX for Two Face in The Dark Knight, with their work due to start in earnest in November. I mention this just so you know it isn't an entirely make-up based look.

[EDIT: Actually, my source has read this published post and told me, actually, it's Framestore CFC and I 'misinterpreted their clues' to the FX house. My mistake, and quite a dumb one, really. I could explain the confusion in how I thought they meant one and not the other, but they asked me not to, as it might just reveal who they are...]

But why not make-up, I wonder? The only solid reasons I can think of are all mouth-based - teeth showing through a wound, maybe, or impossible mouth movements. But I don't know for sure. Hopefulyl more info will be forthcoming.

Cinesite are, frankly, brilliant and have a great back catlogue of work - from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to Hot Fuzz.

[EDIT: And Framestore CFC are similarly excellent, if not more so. Their work on Children of Men is amongst the greatest FX work ever completed. As well as the digital Dent they'll also be creating the virtual set extensions for the Hong Kong scenes and some CG stand-in Batmen]

Son of Rambow: Why the Silence?

Type "Son of Rambow" into Google and what do you get? Just two pages. And one of them is this one. In some weird amalgam of Googlewhacking and Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, I think I may have just won a gold medal.

The other search result is the official site for Hammer and Tongs, Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith's commercial, music promo and feature film production company. They have made one feature film so far (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) with another one in the works (the aforementioned Son of Rambow) as well as countless dearly beloved, triple-A music videos. You know their clip for Blur's Coffee and TV, and you love it, I promise. The one with the milk carton that does the funny walk? Yeah? Told you.

The Quicktime cinema of their work is definitely the best thing on the site, and if you are even a little bit interested in moving images, you owe it to yourself to give it a through going over.

With must-own DVD collections of Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham and Mark Romanek's work, Palm Pictures' Directors Label series is incredibly strong, established instantly as a kind of Criterion Collection for short-form and promotional works. The third wave is deep in development and I hope it addresses all of the obvious omissions: Tim Pope, Shynola and Hammer and Tongs.

The fact that I'm the only blogger out here shouting off about Son of Rambow is a little bit disappointing to me. First of all, I'd like to think that there's somebody out there who knows more about what's going on with the film than I do, so they can spill the beans. Secondly, I remember all of the online fuss this time last year, and even the year before, over Guide to the Galaxy. Where's the brouhaha this time?

I'm reminded me of when Fellowship of the Ring was nearing release. Seems that the whole world was waiting to see if the film lived up to the books. I wanted to see if the film lived up to Heavenly Creatures. I was there because of Peter Jackson, not Tolkien. Again, I was interested in Guide because of Jennings and Hammer and Tongs, not really Adams.

(Having said that, Adams was obviously a smart man with lots of very strong ideas, some killer gags and, basically, just a lovely public demeanour.)

When Guide was released, and I rushed off to see it as soon as I could, the preview-screening fuelled two-thirds backlash had already begun. Some very, very critical pieces had been published, one infamous supporter of Adams had caused all manner of fuss, and expectations were being chopped off at the neck. Then the film began, and, frankly, I had no idea what any of them were talking about.

It's not a perfect film. It's not nearly a perfect a film. But it is a great film, and the skill and care with which it was made, not to mention the wild creativity and wit, cannot be underestimated. Remember the airlock scene, where Mos Def and Martin Freeman are ejected from the Vogon ship? A brilliant piece of cinema with set design, sound, composition, performance all putting in a piece of the puzzle. Isn't that how it's meant to be? And just the shape of Marvin, his posture, and his movement - even in silhouette - there's his character, right there. I've got a list of things I love about this film longer than you could ever stand to listen to them.

Jennings is a visionary. That is to say, he has visions that he shares with us and they communicate his ideas very powerfully. The man is a born filmmaker. Son of Rambow, on that evidence alone, is going to be a film genuinely worth looking forward to.

I've made a handful of music videos myself, though certainly not enough, and the budgets I've had have been varied (all the way from none to not much at all). One thing I have always told the bands or their management, though, is that whatever their budget, there will be a treatment that works within it. There always is. Having more money will broaden your options, no doubt about it, but no matter how limited the cash reserves are, a clever, creative director will find a treatment that works within that budget. Every time I've pitched for a video, as long as I knew the restrictions before hand, I was able to offer a treatment that satisfied me, the band and the bursar.

Sometimes, though, coming up with the great idea that works without money can be tricky, and it does often feel dispiritingly impossible to me while I'm sitting there, staring at a blank screen. I have been trapped before, staring at the white nothingness, listening to the track over and over, not knowing what to do.

And then, I remember and watch Hammer and Tongs' video for Big Fan by The Wannadies. It's all the inspiration I need.

Reportedly, the video cost only thirty pounds, spent primarily on ice-cream. My short film Dirty Rotten Double Crosser had even less of a budget - spent on a second hand typewriter and a round of drinks. John vs Laura and Aphrodisiac Casserole were not only made for essentially nothing but also to incredibly short deadlines that can be measured in hours, not days. I'm particularly proud of my promo for How High is Your Waistband by Dan Cairns, which was not only budgeted in the very low double figures and shot on an extremely tight schedule but is also a genuine one-of-a-kind, stop-people-in-their-tracks trick that took a lot of planning to pull off.

All I try to do, you see, is to live up to the spirit of ingenuity and invention, crafstmanship and egoless hard work that I think Hammer and Tongs exemplify.

If only they were hiring...

(There's more on Son of Rambow across film ick)

Talking of Hammers and Tongs

(UPDATE: I've covered of Son of Rambow further in a newer entry)

On the subject of genius "Milkman" Garth Jennings, as we were (at least if you read these things in chronological order - ie; bottom up), there's some very good news.

Apparently the French sales house Celluloid Dreams are to co-finance and sell distribution rights to Son of Rambow, Jenning's upcoming second film, following The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The 80's-set story seems to be about a couple of young kids trying to remake Rambo with their video cameras when everything turns a little Lord of the Flies. A "Vietnam War of the Buttons", maybe?

Son of Rambow is only a working title, you'll be relieved to hear. At least the copyright-issue-dodging "W" will go, I'd reckon.