Sing writer-director Garth Jennings on the feel-good magic of animals making music
There is no question that Garth Jennings is a man of many talents.
Among the numerous achievements of the British writer, director and former music-video virtuoso is a recent turn in front of the camera for Wes Anderson's Christmas commercial for H&M.
"It's a career high," he says, of his moments as train engineer, Fritz. "I turned up and he put me in some green trousers that I loved and then I just got to run around with Adrien Brody. It was the most fun thing ever."
Anderson, in turn, makes a brief cameo in Sing, Jennings' third feature, as a giraffe who can't hear anything, because his height makes him so far away from everyone.
Miss Crawly (voiced by Garth Jennings) and Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) in Sing.
The giraffe in question is auditioning for a singing competition in front of a koala who runs a theatre – such is the absurdly whimsical premise of Sing.
The world of Sing, written and directed by Jennings, is one entirely populated by animals in a standard Californian suburb. Our focus is on the infectiously optimistic theatre owner Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) and five richly rounded characters – a mouse, a pig, a gorilla, a porcupine and an elephant – who all want the chance to shine on stage.
The voice cast includes Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson and John C. Reilly, who show off their singing talents across the soundtrack of 65 songs by artists including Katy Perry, Ed Sheeran, Leonard Cohen and Stevie Wonder.
Jennings, too, voices a character – Miss Crawly, an ailing lizard with a propensity for losing her false eye.
Garth Jennings drew on his experience as a music-video director for Sing.
"When you make animated films, you do a rough version before you get the cast involved, with storyboards and your own voices from people from the office, and I was doing a lot of the temp voices myself just for the speed of getting it done," he says.
"One of them was Miss Crawly" – he puts on a creaky old voice – "'OK, come on now', and I just enjoyed doing it so much. It's completely self-indulgent. I like being an elderly lizard."
Tori Kelly voices Meena the elephant, with Matthew McConaughey as Buster Moon.
It's hard to imagine the ebullient Jennings being unenthusiastic about anything. The movie was borne out of a meeting in 2011 between Jennings and producer Chris Meledandri, the boss of studio Illumination Entertainment, the stable behind the Despicable Me films and The Secret Life of Pets.
"He had the initial idea of animals in a singing competition and I just lit up with the possibility of it – what couldn't you do with that?" he says.
The voice cast includes names such as Reese Witherspoon, Matthew McConaughey and Scarlett Johansson. Credit:Norman Jean Roy
Jennings said they both had in mind The Commitments as an influence, in the way that it uses music to depict the lives of the characters and how music is their salvation.
"We got quickly hooked on the idea of following multiple characters and seeing how their ordinary little lives were turned upside down. That just felt like the richest seam of story to mine," he says.
Jennings had caught the eye of Meledandri with his semi-biographical 2007 feature Son of Rambow, about a boy who attempts to make an action film after being inspired by First Blood.
It was Jennings' second feature after The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), and follows his time during the 1990s and 2000s as one half of prolific music-video duo Hammer & Tongs, who were behind acclaimed clips for artists including Fatboy Slim, Blur, Pulp, Beck and REM.
How much did he draw on his past experiences for Sing?
"I've made so many videos – and by the way that's not a boast because a great deal of them in the beginning are just dreadful – but when it started to get good, we [had] worked out how you try and catch something lovely from a performer, how you translate what is magnetic about them to a wider audience," he says.
"You've got to learn how to do that and what to look for and I was able to instil some of those things into the performances. It felt very familiar territory."
His favourite moments on the production were recording songs in the studio, with singers such as Tori Kelly and Jennifer Hudson.
"Here's the thing," he enthuses. "Imagine standing in a room with Tori Kelly while she's singing Hallelujah. That's how it comes out of her face. That is how she sounds – there's no laser trickery or auto-tuning. It's really, really moving. It's really exciting and thrilling.
"And when Jennifer Hudson comes in and, and cue the orchestra, you're like, 'Wooooooooow, Jesus.' Those are really magical moments."
But it's not only about the music. The foundation of Sing is the characters and their journeys.
"Because we're following six characters, it's hard to boil it down to one overriding [message], it's not like [puts on dynamic voice] 'Be true to yourself', or anything like that. I think that would do us a disservice – each character has their own little theme that hopefully will resonate with different people.
"Ultimately it should be an uplifting film. It should be one that leaves you better than when you came in."
Sing
Director Garth Jennings
Stars Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson
Genre Musical animated comedy
Critical buzz Feel-good magic with a dazzling finale
Released December 26, rated G
Sarah Thomas is an entertainment writer for Fairfax Media. Sarah has been working for Fairfax since 2006, writing about movies, music and general entertainment.
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