Screenwriter and director Garth Jennings was an award winning music video producer until he branched into cinema in 2005 with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
British born Jennings met production partner Nick Goldsmith when they were at school and in 1999 they launched their own production company Hammer & Tongs.
Over the years the pair built up a solid reputation shooting videos for REM 'Imitation of Life', Fatboy Slim 'Right Here, Right Now', and Blur's 'Coffee and TV'.
Along with working in music the company was also taking on commercial clients and had no intention of branching out into feature films.
But on the recommendation of director Spike Jonze the script for the adaptation of Douglas Adams' popular novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was passed on to them.
After impressing Disney with their pitch Jennings was signed in to direct and Goldsmith to produce.
Martin Freeman (Tim from The Office) stars as Arthur Dent, a British everyman suddenly thrust into intergalactic intrigue when the earth is destroyed by the Vogons to make room for an interspatial highway.
Arthur travels the skyways with good friend Ford Prefect (Mos Def), an alien writer for an electronic encyclopedia called The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
Things get downright dangerous--and absolutely hysterical--when Arthur and Ford thumb a ride with the president of the universe, two-headed Zaphod Beeblebrox (a wild and crazy Sam Rockwell); earthling Tricia McMillan (Zooey Deschanel), whom Arthur once had a thing for back in England; and a perpetually depressed robot named Marvin (voiced by Alan Rickman, played by Warwick Davis).
With much of the galaxy after them, the motley crew makes its way toward a super-computer that just might be able to provide them with the ultimate question; they already know the answer.
The screenplay was started by Adams but completed by Jennings and Karey Kirkpatrick after Adams passed away in 2001.
The film received mixed reviews upon release but went on to gross over $104 million at the global box office.This month sees Jennings and Goldsmith return with their second feature length production Son of Rambow.A nostalgic trip back to the 1980s, "Son of Rambow" is an inventive valentine to an era where, for the first time in history, young minds had access to technology that allowed them to create their own stories while paying homage to their larger-than-life heroes from the movies that inspired them.
Will, who isn't allowed to watch TV or go to the movies, expresses himself through his drawings and illustrations until he finds himself caught up in the extraordinary world of Lee Carter, the school terror and crafter of bizarre home movies.
Carter exposes Will to a pirated copy of the first Rambo film, "First Blood," which blows his mind wide open. Against his family's orders, his imaginative little brain begins to flower in the world of filmmaking.
Will and Lee become popular at school through their films, but when a French exchange student, Didier Revol, arrives on the scene, their unique friendship and precious film are pushed to the breaking point.Son of Rambow is a far cry from the big budget of Hitchhiker's Guide made on just $7.5 million and is based on Jenning's childhood love of Rambo, and his own version of Stallone's iconic action picture.Son of Rambow is released 4th April
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw