After studying in Sheffield, I went down to London to do my post-graduate degree at the National Film and Television School, embarking on the movie that would eventually become 'A Grand Day Out.

If you respect the audience enough, they can take onboard many things.

We have to look forward and keep filming new films and not get stuck in the past.

I have to admit to not being the greatest technician, but stop motion animation gives me licence to create machines that wouldn't otherwise be possible - inventions that seem real and actually work.

We can do things that we never could before. Stop-motion lets you build tiny little worlds, and computers make that world even more believable.

With some CGI, I think the brain slightly perceives that things aren't real. There's no gravity, the light's not quite real, the shadows aren't quite real.

There is something about the Australian psyche that seems to like films that are slightly offbeat.