Paul the Penguin

Gary Carse (17) and Michael Bailey (18) from Prudhoe Community High School in Northumberland make up Batt and Ball animations, a student enterprise company set up in December 2006. Gary began making animated films after a friend invited him to come along to an after school film club on an evening where Stop Motion Animation was being demonstrated. He immediately expressed an interest and took the lead in the group working on simple drawn animations using a whiteboard and readily available software (Stop Motion Pro). He borrowed some equipment and 2 weeks later reappeared with 3 or 4 short plasticine animations he had made around his bedroom. An opportunity was then presented in a Film Studies AS level lesson to make short film clips to accompany extracts from music tracks for an MTV sponsored competition. Gary had identified that he wasn’t confident in building sets and so he approached a friend in his DT class, Michael Bailey, who was immediately excited by the idea.

Their first complete film was made for the MTV Boom Academy Music Video Making competition, open to all schools in the UK. His 60 second short went on to win Best Entertainment and Best 16 to 18 age group categories and was described by one of the judges as the best entry he had seen in the 3 years of the competition. We were also informed that the animation had been awarded full marks in every category by every judge. This was at the Awards Ceremony in the Curzon Cinema Mayfair, and was also the first time Gary and Michael had been to London.
The short also received praise at the Royal Television Society North Young Film Makers showcase, where it was commended as ‘Best Film’ for the first time in the showcase history.

Their second short was a 90 second extract submitted as coursework for AS level film studies, and was highly commended by the Examining Board. In this film Gary developed his style exploring new techniques and much more complex model making challenges. Michael built sets purely in support of Gary, not part of any coursework.

Immediately after their exams Gary and Michael were asked by Creative Partnerships Northumberland if they would make a 60 second short ‘viral’ to promote their new project aiming to inspire teachers called Northumberland Rising. Using a real interview with the National Director of Creative Partnerships, Paul Collard, They produced a ‘Creature Comforts’ style animation of a penguin speaking the words. This is a highly challenging task and took over 4 weeks to achieve. The resulting clip has since been seen by Paul Collard, many of the directors of Creative Partnerships and a variety of other individuals, all of whom are amazed and highly amused by the result. Whilst the animation often catches the attention the simple but effective set makes a superbly realistic setting, adding to the overall impact, with amazing attention to detail.

At the same time as this Gary and Michael were also asked to produce a music video for a new singer songwriter Tom Baxter, by the PR Company who managed the MTV Boom competition. This was to be a 3 minute and 30 second long film, which was animated in 2 weeks, which works out at a rate of around 300 individual frames per day, taking twenty 12 hour days to complete.

After a 3 week public vote their film lost by less than 10 votes in a total of over 3,000 cast. Although disappointed this never once dented the pairs enthusiasm, they said the enjoyment of making the film was enough reward! In the end the pair pretty much gave up the whole of their holiday to make these films.

However things did not let up and in the second week back to school they were approached by John Hassay a Commissioning Editor who has produced some of the most famous music videos of recent times (including Praise You for Fat Boy Slim, and Alfie for Lily Allen) and was a judge in the MTV competition. Gary and Michael were asked to make a pitch for the next single for Mika with a potential budget of over £20,000. This was not a school competition but they would be pitching alongside some of the leading animation companies in the UK.

Again they were unsuccessful, losing out to a French company. But not only is it completely unknown for someone of ther age to have pitched at this level, but they were also told that it had been a “Very, very, very good pitch” and that they would definitely be asked to do so again.

All of these achievements have been the result of a combination of skill and commitment. They are focussed and driven to achieve the highest standards they can. This is not an external pressure from family, friends, or teachers, but their own commitment to a medium they have found to express themselves in. Recently Gary was asked to talk about how he got his ideas, and he said he just sees things that way! We discussed his future intentions at a fairly early stage and when I talked about Animation as a career, he replied that animation wasn’t just something he did, it was who he was. Michael has a very pragmatic view and hopes to go on to study design and media, keeping his options open, but he is looking at courses in the same places as Gary in order that they can continue working together.

Whilst the school curriculum did not initially fit with this style of work, new developments such as the Creative and Media diploma look to cater much more for this kind of work. Both Gary and Michael have talked about how much such a curse would have suited them and allowed them to fully fit these achievements into their curriculum. However in Year 13 it has been possible to almost build their curriculum around this work. In Gary’s case he is designing and building puppet armatures for his A level DT project, the sketch and development work is part of his A level art portfolio, and an extract from the finished film is his Film Studies creative coursework. Michael is designing and building the sets for the film as his DT coursework, and including developmental work in his Art portfolio.

Gary was not a ‘high flying’ student in the academic context but he has pushed himself to really achieve amazing now he has found his ‘gift’. As a result of this he is much more comfortable this year in the curriculum and looks likely to move from a C/D borderline GCSE student to a grade A ‘A’ level student. Michael achieved a strong set of GCSE’s. and has maintained this whilst putting large amounts of time into their films. He manages his time well, and never once has any subject teacher suggested that he is not putting enough time into the curriculum. Gary had to make a difficult decision in year 12. He was studying PE, and had even justified it to himself in terms of understanding movement and anatomy as an Animator, but he was finding it difficult to focus on the subject alongside the total engagement he was finding in the film making. After discussions with practicing animator’s he realised that he would need Art and specifically figure drawing to possibly access Higher Education, he immediately set about changing options and having done no examined art at GCSE is now achieving excellent results.

Their first two films were made with borrowed equipment, both Michael and Gary have limited family finances and so have gradually earned all the equipment they now use through the commissions and grants they have won. The first time I saw their first completed animation, I knew without a doubt that this was an amazing talent, and I still feel lucky to have had the chance to meet them and work with them. I had only really begun experimenting ith animation, and still am a very long way behind Gary in technical ability, and even specific knowledge now, but seeing the response their films generate has pushed me to build up skills and offer them out through my role as an AST in Northumberland.

It is very rare that you get to meet people with such gifts and to actually see these develop from the very early stages has been amongst the most exciting experiences of my life. I continually ask myself the question what would Michael and Gary have done if they had not happened across animation, or had the chance to try it out, hopefully the gift would have shown itself somewhere down the line, but who knows. I hope by celebrating their achievements and those of many others, it inspires, schools, teachers and students just to give things a go, who knows what might develop out of this.