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.

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.

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

I always considered Ray Harryhausen's work so fine that it was way out of my league: in terms of realism and naturalism, in terms of animal movement.

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

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.