The Son of Rambow filmmaker, Garth Jennings, talks about making an animated musical competition with Sing!

Can they survive Busters rigorous training and rehearsal for the big night?

Still, the visual gags alone involving the various animals makes it a fun experience.

Garth Jennings:Oh my God!

Now youre going back!

Its heartbreaking, isnt it?

How quickly the time goes.

Well, you have a new movie thats going to be seen by a lot more people.

[Laughs]

What got you started on this project?

Was this an idea you were always thinking about: doing as an animated movie?

I always wanted to make an animated movie.

The reason for that is thats where the animation studios are based.

There are like 900 people working there in the middle of Paris, so thats how it started.

So was it something that was easy getting into working with animators?

Well, youd think so, and I thought so.

You go back and rewrite that.

But yeah, it was a massive learning curve, honestly.

Some have animators on certain characters.

I think at Pixar, each animator gets a different segment.

How did you work?

Did you have specific animators for each character?

Wed workshop the scene as you would do with your actors normally.

Wed sort of block it out and go through the moves.

Like for instance when you have two gorillas hugging at the end, how should that hug work?

How should it feel, where the head placement is?

But it would start with an initial, very physical, loud messy rehearsal sort of workshop.

But when you record the vocals, do you film their performances?

How did you come up with the animals that you used for the different characters?

It wasnt the other way around.

Weve got a character who is the meanest, most selfish, egotistical little prick really.

It was great that Mike was the smallest guy in the entire thing because he was the loudest.

He was the loudest and most destructive, and that was great that came from the tiniest guy.

It was great that the opposite was true of the shyest person.

The shyest person would be the biggest person, literally be the elephant in the room.

The animals were chosen for how theyd visually encapsulate what we thought was the personality of these characters.

Seth MacFarlaneis a bit of a ringer since hes done voice work and hes also a jazz singer.

I didnt realize he was voicing Johnny, but his singing voice was amazing.

Is that his real voice singing?

That is really it.

Everyone sings their own parts.

When she did this little audition for us, it was perfect, so we were like, Great!

so that was done.

This is them up there doing that bit.

Theres no one else helping them out.

I never imagined he had that kind of voice.

Yeah, and I get it.

I was curious about the British sensibilities youre bringing to this movie.

Did you feel your sensibilities were pretty well matched?

I never really thought about that.

Chris just gets that.

We always saw eye to eye in terms of tone.

Was it hard getting so much music and songs for this.

Did you have a lot of first choice songs that you couldnt get?

No, Id say that almost across the board, we got everything we wanted.

Its amazing, isnt it?

Its just incredible, and Chris has created this great big space for everything to happen.

Ive never been in that position before.

Earlier this year, Disney releasedZootopia,which is a very different movie involving a city full of animals.

No, its funny.

I get asked that sometimes, but I have to say it never occurred to me.

Its always the way, though, isnt it?

They start working on them.

And in animation, youre spending a minimum of five years working on something.

It is just one of timing things.

No, we didnt.

Yeah, hes great.

That was quite a big process for us, and Joby was brilliant.

He just knew how to do it.

I love him for that.

What kind of soundtrack album is this going to be?

Because you have a couple full performances but then you also have the score and a couple snippets?

I think its going to be one of the most eccentric soundtrack albums ever.

It is as eclectic as the movie is.

Did you say you were doing an animated movie with Nick as well?

I thought I read that Hammer + Tongs were no more.

No, we started trying to do one together.

No, Im desperate to see that!

I cant wait to see that.

Youve got to see that.

That is right up your street.

And honestly, that director and his work onFlight of the Conchords, Id see it off that alone.

Singopen nationwide on Wednesday, Dec. 23.