The nice thing about animation is that you can realise your inventions without understanding all the hard theory.

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

Like my father, I would never as a child throw anything away, keeping old toys, electric motors and bits of broken machines under my bed in what I called my Box of Useful Things.

Americans like the British kind of quirkiness and the strange accent. They find it kind of cute or something, with a certain charm.

When I was a teenager, my dad watched my films and told me I could go to art college and study animation. He made me see that I could do this for a living.

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.

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.