Angus MacLane ('WALL-E')

Taking their track record into account, it won't be a surprise to many that Pixar's latest film WALL-E is brilliant. The science fiction epic - about a robot stranded on an abandoned Earth - is funny, moving and in possession of a keen intelligence that you wouldn't expect to find in a film marketed towards a pre-teen audience. Angus MacLane, WALL-E's directing animator who has had a hand in every Pixar offering since A Bug's Life, recently caught up with Digital Spy to talk about the movie.

Can you explain how your job of directing animator works?
"The directing animator works underneath the supervising animators and the director. Their job is to basically design the motion, kind of set the stage [and] inform everyone on how the characters should be. As the film goes along, [I have to] make sure that the director's wishes are being executed by the crew and make sure all the animation looks the same."

There's no dialogue in the first 40 minutes so the animation has to support the story. Did that make it the most challenging film you've had to work on?
"It was fairly challenging. Having no dialogue wasn't maybe as challenging as it might seem. It was pretty exciting. I don't think we ever worried saying, 'Oh, is it going to work?'. It was really an animator's movie. It's great that that part has been so well received because aside from sound effects, it's up to us to carry the film. I'm very proud of the animation and I think that the team did a wonderful job."

Eve looks very iPodish. Did Apple influence the design of the character?
"I think that there was inspiration from that design sensibility of having a streamlined outside that’s designed aesthetically with swooping curves and a clean, simple interface but has a lot of technology inside."

Did you go back and look through classic sci-fi films for reference? The film is very respectful to sci-fi cinema, there’s a few nods to 2001 and you have Sigourney Weaver in the cast.
"We didn't directly go back and look at them for reference so much as we just… when you see a bunch of stuff and you're so steeped in it because you love it, it's more the memory of the idea of what you like about. We went to a Mission To Mars-type Imax film to see what Mars looked like, just to give you an idea of that world. It was more the idea and the romanticism of what's left in our psyche having grown up with those films."

It's an ambitious film in terms of ideas. You look at environmentalism, consumerism and technology. How did you feel about having those themes in a children's animated movie?
"It's not really like a kid's film, I would say because it's animated and rated G then it's kind of for everybody. We never feel like we talk down to kids. Going into it we wanted to make a sci-fi film and in a particular aspect of it is the post-apocalyptic storyline. A by-product of that is the trashed Earth story. It's a means to an end in terms of genre. It does have some relatable themes but I think the core ideas are all based on a love story and it being a sci-fi backdrop."

The film has an anti-corporate message. Did you ever feel worried that Disney might panic with that?
"I think we just put it in there because we thought it was funny. If we knew we had a good movie to hang it on that those jokes wouldn't be a problem. I think that corporate culture, the reason it is so funny, is because it's so present. The best sci-fi has a relatable element, so in this if its corporate culture and consumerism then that's our relatable element."

Do you watch other CG films to see what the competition is doing?
"Sometimes. I’m much more interested in what's going on with live-action films than what the competition is doing. Because there's so many more live-action films, the chances for films to be great… it's more likely that they'll be live-action."

WALL-E is released in cinemas this Friday.