"There are no lim­its to what can be shown. What­ev­er the brain thinks of its pos­si­ble to draw it; I like the idea that it's to­tal­ly cre­at­ed out of an­i­ma­tion." These are the words of the fa­mous Amer­i­can an­i­ma­tor Bill Plymp­ton.He has proven to be a role mod­el and in­spi­ra­tion for many young an­i­ma­tors around the world. For Brent Bachew and Kelsey Noel, their ad­mi­ra­tion delves deeply as grad­u­ates of the UTT (Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go) An­i­ma­tion Diplo­ma Pro­gramme.Noel and Bachew both 24 and 27 years old re­spec­tive­ly, un­der­took this two-year Diplo­ma Pro­gramme through a nat­ur­al love for an­i­ma­tion. In an in­ter­view Bachew told gieMAGAZINE that he had a lot of sup­port from his moth­er, Gwedolyn Bachew. For Noel, the idea of an­i­ma­tion was in­tro­duced to him by his cousin Jabaroy Cook, who is cur­rent­ly a graph­ic artist. Noel fond­ly re­mem­bers his cousin telling him about the comics that he drew. "You know that you could make these move" Jabaroy would tell him, en­cour­ag­ing him to con­sid­er an­i­ma­tion as a ca­reer path.When ques­tioned about the 24,000 still shots he had to take for his an­i­ma­tion film, 'Ted­dy in Trou­ble', Bachew could on­ly find one word - "Pa­tience". His film fea­tures a Ted­dy Bear that has out­grown his two-year-old own­ers and seeks to re­move the trou­bles from his life. "The most chal­leng­ing as­pect of the film was work­ing with tod­dlers" Bachew dis­closed. Two of his nephews were fea­tured in the film. "De­spite them not hav­ing any lines," Bachew ex­plained "their per­son­al­i­ties can change on a day to day ba­sis."

Noel on the oth­er hand, tack­les the en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sue of glob­al warm­ing in his film 'Cy­borg Chick­en'. Set lo­cal­ly, the film fea­tures a war with the Cor­beau com­mu­ni­ty to erad­i­cate a nu­clear pow­er plant. Noel told gieMAGAZINE, "De­spite the fact that a se­ri­ous is­sue is be­ing dealt with, the film may come across as be­ing some­what com­i­cal."But what car­toons fas­ci­nat­ed these mas­ter­minds when they were chil­dren? Based on their an­swers it was clear that their tastes are quite dif­fer­ent. Bachew pre­ferred the time­less tales of Tom and Jer­ry while Noel pre­ferred the ac­tion packed Samu­rai X.Do they plan on get­ting in­to a more lu­cra­tive an­i­ma­tion in­dus­try abroad? Both Noel and Bachew in­sist­ed that they plan on do­ing so but they are in­tent on re­turn­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go to ex­pand the in­dus­try here. Cur­rent­ly, there is no de­gree of­fered in an­i­ma­tion but both film­mak­ers in­ter­viewed ex­pressed the need for peo­ple who are in­ter­est­ed in an­i­ma­tion to come for­ward and de­vel­op their craft. They both be­lieve that it can be used to spread mes­sages on a wide range of is­sues. They al­so ex­pressed con­cern over the tremen­dous in­fil­tra­tion of Amer­i­can car­toons on lo­cal tele­vi­sion. In Trinidad and To­ba­go, they be­lieve that we should be able to "see" our­selves rather than "see" oth­ers. 'Ted­dy in Trou­ble' and 'Cy­borg Chick­en' were screened on Sep­tem­ber 30th, 2011 at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my of the Per­form­ing Arts. The event en­ti­tled 'Lift Off' show­cased the 11 grad­u­ates of the UTT pro­gramme and their film com­po­si­tions. Hope­ful­ly, both films will be fea­tured in the An­i­mae Caribe Fes­ti­val which takes place from to­day and runs un­til 5th No­vem­ber.

Sha­had Ali

Se­nior Press Pass Cor­re­spon­dent

Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies