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.

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

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.

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.

I think we all have a Wallace and Gromit inside us. Wallace is the part that has wild plans. Gromit is the sensible side, reining you in.

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.