Carl Hunter: ‘A Day in the Life’

Mr. Hunter directed the short film “A Day in the Life (24 Zero Hours).”

One of the things that interested us was, after the Beatles had toured America, they decided to go into the studio and never tour again. So when they went in to do “Sgt. Pepper,” they wanted to make a record that you couldn’t play live. So me and Frank [Cottrell Boyce, the screenwriter] lifted that idea and made a film that, although it has a through line of reality, it’s not reality. It’s a film which isn’t real.

When you look at the film, it plays with time: It speeds up and slows down. It’s not a film you would describe as docudrama. That’s what we took, the kind of spirit of “Sgt. Pepper.” We also looked at the kind of sonic experimentation that the Beatles applied to “Sgt. Pepper” and we lifted that idea and tried to do something visually that was in the spirit of that.

Roy Boulter: ‘A Day in the Life’

Mr. Boulter produced the short film “A Day in the Life (24 Zero Hours).”

I used to go to my auntie’s and she had the album when I was about eight, and the thing that attracted me to it were the inserts, the masks and all the original artwork. It was actually “Sgt. Pepper” that was the first album that I listened to properly and became obsessed with. We weren’t doing a literal version of the song. Because it was interpretive and because the album was experimental, I think that gives you a freer reign. You think of other classic albums, I think it would be more restrictive if you were gonna do art interpretations of them. But I think because “Sgt. Pepper” was so experimental that sort of frees you up.