London
Initially a print designer, Johnny Hardstaff’s spare-time experiments with moving images caught Sony PlayStation’s attention. The resulting commission, the film History of Gaming, won Hardstaff immediate critical success and led to his signing to Ridley Scott Associates and Black Dog Films, where he has directed films for Radiohead, Orange, and the BBC, all while continuing to push his personal experimental projects.
HARDSTAFF’S SKETCHBOOKS ARE overwhelming. With dozens of ideas squeezed onto each page, to describe them as visually dense is a vast understatement. “They’re an exact window on what I do and how I do it—even why I do it. When I was a child, my father would paint the detail on models for me with a one-hair sable brush. It’s that level of attention to detail that I have grown to expect. Anything less, and I feel shortchanged.” He points out, “I want to control everything,” which has led to stockpiling his preferred pad and pens in case they are discontinued.
Certainly, this precision and focus is reflected in his film work, although Hardstaff points out that he rarely revisits his sketchbooks to mine ideas. “I download and move on. I used to go back to the sketches, to dissect and assimilate, but it’s pointless. I don’t need to, and I get nothing from them. The irony is I spend all this time recording thoughts and notions and then discard every entry. I’m very much a designer-director, and I respond to briefs—hopefully—in a different and original way each time. Therefore, old thoughts are exactly that: old and inappropriate.”
In fact, he says, rather than having benefited his work, “they’ve probably detracted from it. But being able to draw has proved hugely beneficial. I work among some amazing designers and directors who can draw wonderfully. Ridley Scott. Jake Scott. I admire them, and I find the creative visions of those who can’t draw to be inevitably lackluster.
“The conclusion is this: I keep these sketchbooks because they look nice. They’re a project and an end in themselves. It’s another way of being more productive.”
