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.

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.

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.

My father, an architectural photographer, was an incurable tinkerer, maker and mender.

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.

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

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.