For his very first feature film - the forthcoming kid-friendly comedy Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore - the Gander, Newfoundland-born director not only had to cope with a largely four-legged cast more inclined to nap than take direction. He also had to marshal a film combining live-action, CGI and puppetry.

In 3D.

Indeed, while the story may be straightforward - former cat spy goes rogue and hatches evil plan for world domination, thus forcing felines and canines to set aside differences and work together - the execution of the film was anything but.

Luckily for Peyton (who comes down decidedly in favour of cats over dogs in the great pet debate) the pay-off was worth it: a film with enough nutty spectacles to captivate the small-fry and enough clever in-jokes and sly movie references to amuse the adults shepherding them into the multiplexes.

As the effusive 30-year-old director explains during a press stop in Toronto ahead of Kitty Galore's July 30 opening, while the light-hearted vibe of the film isn't entirely indicative of his larger filmmaking aesthetic, its many moving parts forced him to stretch.

"I just said, I am going to go out of my comfort zone on this one and do something that maybe isn't my exact sensibility," Peyton offers, "but it is going to make me a better director."

Sympatico: Can you comment on working with the animals.

Peyton: We worked with over 100 animals. There was a day where it took us 10 hours to get one shot. The camera would go into Dog HQ (a setting in the film) and we had multiple dogs walking and pushing carts and on mobile devices and delivering the mail and so on. You'll notice of course we had the Labrador Retrievers wearing lab coats (laughs).

Anyway, that shot took forever because you can't just put 50 dogs in a room or it's utter chaos. You have to work with two at a time. Then you pull the first two out and put in two more. Then pull those two out and put in two more and so on and so on and so on.

So I was just glazing over in the director's chair. It was like shooting stop-motion again. I never thought anything could be so slow but it's just part of the process of working with animals. It's not like a regular shot where you can put 50 background extras in a room. But there was some fun stuff, too. We had cats in costumes and we had one cat that was so comfortable he wouldn’t get out. He just sat there purring.

It was a weird process and you just never knew what was going to happen. That was the most stressful thing and yet the animals were so well-trained. It wasn't that difficult. The difficult thing as a filmmaker was not getting a rhythm. On this movie, you couldn't block a scene to save your life and you can imagine the challenges faced by our continuity person. So for two days I am shooting Chris O'Donnell. Then for two days I'm shooting puppets. Then for two days I'm shooting cats. Then I'm shooting 60 dogs and a cat that can't be in the room with the dogs. Just crazy gear changes, and all on my first movie.

Sympatico: The insider references to James Bond movies, Silence of the Lambs, Scarface and Sunset Boulevard are presumably intended for the adults taking the children to the theatre, yes?

Peyton: Obviously Cats and Dogs is going to feel like a little kids movie so as a filmmaker, you aspire to make it more than that and to add references that adults are going to enjoy because I'm not a six-year-old and I need jokes for me. So for example, for the voice of Seamus the pigeon, I hired (streetwise comedian) Katt Williams which is a totally outside-the-box choice.  But you try and make choices that you can get jazzed on. I have friends who are young parents and they tell me that there are some movies without a single joke for the grown-ups in them.

And then there is Roger Moore voicing a tuxedo cat wearing a bow tie who heads the MEOWS cat spy agency - a total James Bond reference. I know it's silly but I thought if we cold get a real Bond actor to do a voice in this thing, it would be amazing. And when he said yes, I nearly had a movie nerd meltdown.

So I am working with Sir Roger Moore, who's doing the voice of a cat, and he's in Geneva and I'm hitting the buttons on the box to talk to him from L.A., and I could ask him to do the most ridiculous voices and he was totally game! You start to realize these people are just actors and they just want to have fun.

(Other actors lending voices include Better Midler as the titular Kitty Galore, plus Nick Nolte, Neil Patrick Harris and Christina Applegate while Chris O'Donnell and SNL's Fred Armisen add live-action parts).

Peyton: So yeah, I tried to add elements that would exceed your expectation as a parent. And on the flip side of that, I also tried to exceed the expectations of a kid by making it wild, so you have jet-packs flying through San Francisco.

Sympatico: How did you feel when you first started seeing the rushes - seeing the film come together?

Peyton: Nervous. It was all a new experience to me. It's not like I cut my teeth making music videos. I'm not a commercial director. I am a self-trained animator. So this was a big jump for me. But I'm lucky because a lot of the executives at (distribution company) Warner Brothers are my age and they're just big movie fans and yes, there was big money involved and stress and everything but I ended up being friends with these people and getting good encouragement and feedback. But yes, there were lots of shots with just a dog panting or a plate where a pigeon was going to be later (laughs). It was unique.