San Andreas director Brad Peyton on making a blockbuster

Brad Peyton's favourite disaster film isn't Dante's Peak. It's not Day After Tomorrow. It doesn't feature a single collapsing building or thundering geographic monster.

It's Titanic. Which should give you some idea of the emotional thrust of his summer blockbuster, San Andreas. 

An earthquake film with heart, San Andreas reunites Peyton with Dwayne Johnson (the pair previously worked on Journey 2: The Mysterious Island) for a project of epic proportions.

Dwayne stars as Ray, a helicopter rescue pilot renowned for plucking stricken and stranded Californians from deadly scenarios. When a record earthquake splits the San Andreas fault line wide open, Ray calls upon his skills to rescue his ex-wife Emma (Carla Gugino) and daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario) from the ruins of San Francisco. 

We caught up with Peyton ahead of the UK release of San Andreas to find out what it's like making a disaster epic, convincing a cast that they're surrounded by a chaos that isn't really there, and working with a man who could easily slam you through a table.

San Andreas is in cinemas now

For an insight into what kind of effects went into making the project, Sploid has put together this brilliant video on what the summer epic looks like without its computer trickery. 

(Image: Rex)