101 Dalmatians saw me back working with the legend George Gibbs, on a film made at a time when visual effects played a much smaller part in productions like this. Most of what you saw happening around the actors had to be created for real, on the day real dogs, real props and real practical gags.

I had the pleasure of working with Glenn Close, Joely Richardson and Joan Plowright, all of whom were lovely to work with and complete professionals.

Then there were my two mates, Mark Williams and Hugh Laurie, who probably hated me by the end of the shoot. I enjoyed my work perhaps a little too much — spending much of the film throwing things at them, burning them, blowing things up around them and generally making their lives miserable, all safely of course. Dropping them into molasses was another particular highlight.

The film also introduced me to a lot more snow work, which was still relatively new to me at the time. It became another valuable part of my practical-effects education and something I would use extensively on later productions.

It was a great old-school Special Effects job: physical comedy, fire, smoke, debris, snow, mechanical gags and plenty of controlled chaos. More importantly, it was another production full of great characters and great memories from a period when so much of what appeared on screen really did happen in front of the camera.