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.

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.

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.

Get out and make films. There are so many cameras now to suit any budget, so there are no excuses.

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

But I think people see 'Wallace and Gromit' as something akin to an elderly couple. These two know each other so well. Nothing can split them apart.

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