CREATING MAN

Nick Park discusses the influences he moulded into his caveman sports film Early Man

Ray Harryhausen

“One of the things that made me want to be a filmmaker was watching One Million Years B.C. as a child. I was obsessed with dinosaurs. The two dinosaurs at the start, we called them Ray and Harry as a tribute to Ray Harryhausen.”

THE FLINTSTONES

“There’s a beetle shaver and crocodile pegs. I love that aspect — just coming up with gags. We couldn’t even fit them all in. There was one we wanted to put in somewhere in town, and that was a poster for ‘Find Love! Carbon Dating’.”

SPORTS FILMS

“I just watched as many as I could — Mighty Ducks, Slap Shot, The Longest Yard. I did feel quite inspired by Miracle with Kurt Russell. When he does a slide show of the Russian team. That sent shivers up the back of my neck, so I wanted a scene like that.”

DIE HARD

“The bit where Dug, Goona and Hognob jump out of the window and Dug grabs the toilet paper, I was thinking of Die Hard, where he jumps off the roof with the hosepipe. I tried to get that gag into The Curse Of The Were-rabbit actually, but it just didn’t fit.”