In cinemas this week: The Incredibles director Brad Bird learned his craft from an animation master

IF you ever wondered how Disney has managed to stay at the top of the heap for all these years, just check out Brad Bird’s latest movie.

Incredibles 2 follows the massive success of the original The Incredibles from 2004 and it’s fair to say Bird has learned well from one of the Disney masters.

Milt Kahl, who first worked on the timeless classic of 1934 Snow White, went on to give us heroes like Tigger, Peter Pan, the Sheriff of Nottingham, Pinocchio and many more cartoon favourites.

However, he also mentored the young Brad Bird, setting him on the right path, letting him in on the tricks of the trade and when Kahl died in 1987, Bird had already helped animate five movies, even if he was still uncredited then.

The original Incredibles was the sort of tale that could wow adults as much as kids, because the whole thing was so slick and had such a nice line in humour.

Its story was based around the idea that superheroes had fallen out of favour with the public due to the collateral damage caused by their adventures and heroics.

The tale went back to the early 90s when Bird was trying to break into film, but he subconsciously let parts of his own life get into it, admitting: “Consciously, this was just a funny movie about superheroes. But I think that what was going on in my life definitely filtered into the movie.”

Ever since it finally came out, it’s fair to say his life has been rather marvellous and this sequel should not do anything to harm him, either.

With well-known voices involved, including Samuel L. Jackson and Holly Hunter, it also had a huge budget many times what the first one cost and has done amazing business in the USA.

Bird knows a good voice when he hears one – one of his sons, Nicholas, was the voice of Squirt in Finding Nemo.

The voice he still hears, though, is that of the late, great Kahl.

Milt was one of the so-called Disney’s Nine Old Men, such as Les Clark, who drew Mickey Mouse and Marc Davis who gave us Bambi, Cruella de Vil and more.

Like Bird, Kahl was a modest bloke, once joking: “Actually, I don’t draw that well. It’s just that I don’t stop trying, I keep at it.

“I happen to have high standards and I try to meet them.

“But I have to struggle like hell to make a drawing look good.”

Perhaps that self-effacing side is the best gift he passed on and he would have been thrilled to see how well Bird is doing now and still with Disney.

“I think if you talk down to a kid or aim it specifically at a kid, the kids aren’t going to like it,” is Bird’s opinion of this type of film. “Most kids can feel when you are being patronising.”

There is also the fact he has three kids of his own and his life with them also inspires his work.

“Animation is about creating the illusion of life,” he points out, “and you can’t create it if you don’t have one.

“I have three kids and a wife and any moments that aren’t dedicated to movies or my family are dedicated to sleep.

“We make films that we ourselves would want to see and then hope that other people would want to see it.”

Incredibles 2 is in cinemas now.