'District 9', 'Elysium' and 'Chappie' were all born out of some visual concept first. 'Chappie' is the imagery, because I think I'm a visual person first, of this ridiculous robot character. It's much more comedy based and in an unusual setting.

I think naturally I'm a very visual kind of person. If I wasn't in filmmaking, I'd be in something related to visuals. And I used to actually work as a visual-effects artist.

I've learned more, and I understand the process a bit better now. I can try to see how long I want to take in each aspect of the filmmaking process, and then arrive at around the two-year end mark.

There has to be the popcorn genre element, or I don't engage the same way. I like action and vehicle design and guns and computer graphics as much as I like allegory. It's a constant balancing game. I want audiences to be on this rollercoaster that fits the Hollywood mould, but I also want them to absorb my observations.

You can build a brain the size of a room, theoretically. You could also build a silicone based life form and it could be sentient. There's no limit to the height that you can reach in terms of design once we figure out how to design things, theoretically.

News is almost more interesting to me than other people's fiction, if that makes sense. But other people's fiction in terms of design is still incredibly interesting to me.

I think a lot of the inspirations for me are very instinctual and subconscious. I don't over intellectualize stuff much. It's a very instinctual thing.