Receiving its European premiere at this year's Times bfi London Film Festival 2004, The Incredibles takes on conventions of computer animation and goes one step further to create exceptionally life-like cartoon characters. The film took three years to complete, and is the longest animated film ever made.

The mastermind behind the film, Brad Bird, who was also the subject of a London Film Festival masterclass, was fascinated by animation as a child. He was drawn to it through a love of watching animated shows over and over again, which was uncommon in an age before video. From this he drew his first sequential pictures at three-years-old, and was inspired by The Jungle Book to make his first animated movie. As a teenager he made a 15-minute animated version of The Tortoise And The Hare, which he describes as "more like a Road Runner cartoon". He trained at Disney where he met Pixar's John Lasseter. "He went to Lucasfilm and I went to Spielberg," explains Bird, who went on to work on Spielberg's Amazing Stories TV series. From there he had stints on King of the Hill, joined The Simpsons for 160 episodes, and made his name with the popular 2-D feature The Iron Giant.

Family Man

When Bird came up with the story of The Incredibles he was a first-time father and thinking about how a person might integrate family life with personal dreams. This led to the idea of a superhero who reluctantly gives up his passion for saving the world in favour of the good of his family.

"At its heart I saw The Incredibles as a story about a family learning to balance their individual lives with their love for one another," says Bird. "It's also a comedy about superheroes discovering their more ordinary human side. As I wrote, I wanted to create a world filled with pop culture references � with spy movie gadgets and comic book super powers and outrageous evil villains using ingenious devices � but at the same time, to create a story within that world that is very much about family � about being a husband, being a father, the idea of getting older, the importance of family, what work means and what it feels like to think you're losing the things that you love."

Bird also wanted to create something that reflected everything he loved about the movies: adventure, unconventional families, inventive thrills, cutting-edge imagery and sharp humour, as well as characters so compelling it would be impossible not to become involved in their emotional and moral dilemmas. The hitch was that Bird felt very strongly that he wanted to do all this in an animated feature.

"The thing is, I like genuine jeopardy in movies. I think sometimes people are so well intentioned about protecting their children they create these shows that are designed around superheroes bashing each other about but that have no consequences. To me that's a far worse message to give a kid than to have a world in which there's actual jeopardy and prices are paid. I like a bit of bite in storytelling."

Whilst challenging the technical limits of animation, Bird also hoped to give the story a new edge. "To a certain degree, I was inspired most by the classic Disney animated films like Lady And The Tramp, which have such indelible characters that they've stood the test of time. The question was how to do that with the very best tools the art form has to offer today. The end product remains the same story I set out to make 12 years ago."

Time on The Simpsons also taught Bird some invaluable lessons. "There is a similar sense of humour and family dynamics in both The Simpsons and The Incredibles," he says. "Also the tricks used to be able to manage a budget in The Simpsons helped make the money go further and get things cheaper for The Incredibles."

Pitching to Pixar

When Bird finished The Iron Giant he brought an early draft of the script to the only people he was convinced would understand his vision: Pixar Animation Studios (the company behind Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Monsters Inc and Academy Award winning Finding Nemo).

"This studio was created for people like him � people who are passionate about taking entertainment, animation and great characters in unforeseen directions," says Pixar Vice President of Creative John Lasseter. This was the first time the studio had tackled wholly human characters, and was a massive undertaking for them. Bird was asking the Pixar team to create believable human animated forms with palpably kinetic skin, hair and clothing.

"Pixar is a refreshing place to work, comfortable, keeps people in a refreshing creative mind which creates an atmosphere for good ideas," says Bird. "It's amazing that animators are allowed to customise there own offices to what works best for them and can stimulate there own ideas. I have even seen some reconstruct a shed."

The Incredible Story

Whilst there is nothing new in The Incredibles' story of the imminent destruction of Earth saved by superheroes, it is groundbreaking in depth, scope and attention to detail. Bird has not only had fun with character and script but has created an animation environment that is truly marvellous to behold.

After the life-saving heroics of superheroes backfire in lawsuits from people who don't want to be saved, our caped crusaders are forced to take up mediocre lives amongst the ordinary. Mr and Mrs Incredible (aka Elastigirl) become Bob and Helen Parr and move to the suburbs and raise three kids, who inherit their super powers. The family is forced to keep their powers secret to avoid detection until Mr Incredible is made an offer he can't resist. But things don't turn out quite how he expected.

Whilst the film deals with modern issues like litigation, job dissatisfaction and corporate slavery, the look and feel of The Incredibles is retro. The titles and graphics are springy, spidery and quirky in true Batman style, and our island dwelling villain is straight out of James Bond. The cities are skyscraper tall and newspapers spin out to greet us with screeching headlines. This adds a familiar friendliness to the animation which is both sophisticated and astounding.

Even a brief stay during the end credits gives an idea of the amount of people involved just to get the look and feel of fabric or hair. Recreation of water, wet hair, skin texture or chin stubble is exceptional, as is the movement of the characters that lends them their individual personalities. Mr Incredible's hunched shoulders, the way he nervously fingers his earlobe, or his wife's swing-hipped walk, all make for memorable characterisation. The most enjoyable cameo, however, is fashion diva Edna 'E' Mode. Voiced by Bird, she is a hilarious caricature of a fashion dictator complete with German drawl and a security system the FBI would be proud of.

The film's attention to detail is a delight, whether it's liver spots on an old lady's hands, Mr Incredible's receding hair line, his attempts to fit back into his superhero suit with an expanding waistline, or his wife's absorption into domestic drudgery. The use of light and shadow is also interesting, such as in a room lit by a single lamp, the light from a television, or a car's headlights, all contribute to a richly crafted story.

Being essentially a children's film, and such an exceptionally well-designed one, it hardly seems fair to criticise The Incredibles for its predictable story. Plus it raises some original ideas, like the ungrateful public suing our superheroes for damages as a result of injuries sustained whilst disaster was being averted, our superheroes indulging in some life-saving on the side when their wives think they are bowling, and a look at deadly superhero fashion disasters through the years. The film's underlying message is positive if it is achievable, that life in the suburbs is boring and what is really good is to give in to your competitive nature and strive to be the best.

Craig T Nelson (Mr Incredible), Holly Hunter (Mrs Incredible), Jason Lee (villain Syndrome) and Samuel L Jackson (Mr Incredible's superhero pal Frozone) are just some of the very talented voice contributors. Some of the production team also add voices, such as Brad Bird himself and Lou Romano (production design), and Brad's own son Michael Bird, whom baby Incredible Jack Jack is named after, plays the voice of Violet's love interest.

The voice of Edna Mode came from Bird's habit of describing the characters using an impression or a voice rather than a description. He explains: "I wasn't intending to play Edna, but we had trouble finding any other voice and it just seemed easiest for me to do it. I really like this character because I've always been fascinated by the question: who designed superhero costumes? You know, costumes are such a big deal in the superhero world because it gives them their identity and sets them apart from everyone else. The way I saw it the costumes had to be created by somebody with a scientific and engineering background. So I started thinking of German engineering. And then I got to thinking that the Japanese make all those unbelievable cars and cameras. So I thought about a half German, half Japanese, tiny powerhouse of a character and Edna just emerged".

The Creative Process

Despite being the most complex computer-animated entertainment ever created, The Incredibles still relies on the same traditional elements as any other film: character development, production design, cinematography, costumes, effects, music and overall vision.

Bird admits that even he found it bewildering when he first came to the world of CGI animation. "I'd look at a screen that had half a torso with a big blue ball behind it. And the animator would say to me: 'Ignore the big blue ball. Ignore the fact that the character is being impaled by a naked version of himself. Just concentrate on the feet.'"

The process of creating any animated film goes through multiple, carefully planned stages, and Bird explained some of this process from storyboarding through to simulation in his London Film Festival masterclass.

First, the story is written and preliminary story-boards are drawn. Bird spent a large amount of time and resources storyboarding so he was clear how he wanted the film to appear before he went into production. He was concerned not only about the character design but even about the lighting, backgrounds and camera movements from the earliest stages, so that the entire production team got a vision of the film from the very beginning.

The storyboards are then turned into a form of early animation (known as 'reels' or 'animatics') where the filmmakers start to move people around. This allows them to fine tune the sequences before animating them. The next stage is to add hair, fabric, light, etc, and build each layer up, whilst the art department illustrates every physical detail of the individual characters (animators film themselves to get the movements of the characters right; how they walk, how they move, how to make a person look strong yet straining when picking up something heavy) and the entire universe in which they exist. They also brainstorm the design of virtual sets, props, buildings, surfaces and colour palettes. Bird wanted a stylised, believable and compelling yet cartoony feel; something that hints at reality but doesn't duplicate it.

Once the story and look of the film are decided upon, actors are brought in to record the voice performances � giving the characters indelible personalities, which are in turn used to inspire the rest of the creative process.

Metamorphosing these 2D representations into a 3D reality then begins, an experience Bird describes as "daunting" and that has "an Alice In Wonderland quality". It is when the filmmakers simulate the hair and movements to react to their surroundings and fine-tune the characters and the camera to create the shots from the storyboards.

Following this the characters are fully animated � move by move, shot by shot � coming to life with a full range of expressions, movements and emotions. Then the shading, digital lighting and more theatrical lighting (dark is dark and light is light) complete the production phase. Bird worked with the director of photography to produce functional and mood lighting that draws the audience into the animated on-screen world (monochrome when Bob is sat at the insurance desk to highlight the dullness and boredom of a mundane job, and dark when something was mysterious).

Finally, the entire movie is rendered (translated from digital data into the actual frames of the film), and completed like any other via editing, scoring and the addition of sound. Sound and special effects were hugely important to the success of the film, and a great deal was created with props. Brad was inspired by spy films from that period and wanted to use that swingy jazzy style of music reminiscent of James Bond, The Pink Panther and Mission Impossible to capture that retro-style and quality.

The film is something of a landmark, being the first to computer-animate a cast predominantly made up of people. "It is very easy for computer animators to do spectacular effects like blowing up buildings," says Bird. "But if you want a character to touch another character's hair or clothes they practically have seizures, because it's incredibly difficult stuff to do. So the terrible part of it all is that if you do your job well nobody notices. No-one says 'Hey, that was a great 'hair touching scene'".

Bird says he owes a great deal to Pixar, in that they kept with him and had faith in his ideas. "These complete technical geniuses would just grow pale and start looking at each other like 'Does he know what he's asking?'. But no one ever gave up � we had ten huge hurdles such as simulating fabric, hair, hair underwater or flying through air, fire .. but every problem found a solution that kept pushing the film's creativity. We had four times the number of sets for any Pixar movie. It was one big car crash of a film and miraculously we survived."

Fortunately for us, none of them did give up, and went on to make what is a truly magical movie event. Whilst kids marvel at the superheroes, adults will gasp at the technical skills of the animators and the incredible imagination and creative talent that has gone into making The Incredibles. Story-wise it's nothing controversial or subversive. Apart from knocking our litigation culture and corporate slavery, most of the ground-breaking work has gone into the technicals. Hopefully it doesn't mark the death of the brooding superhero with a dark side and troubling past who had real moral dilemmas, rather than worrying about how to pay the mortgage. In which case Bird's film would be a refreshing domesticity-bound interlude.