MARTIN BAYNTON, TALENTED & IMAGINATIVE ILLUSTRATOR & ALL ROUND CREATIVE GUY

During my years at Scholastic NZ I had the great privilege of publishing Martin Bayton after he emigrated here from the UK.

The first title I published was Why Do You Love Me? which to this day remains one of the titles I am most proud to have published. I remember taking it to the Bologna Children's Book Fair that year and selling US, UK and French rights. And in my office here I have a piece of the original art work, the cover art in fact, and it is much treasured.

Other books of his we published, many in conjunction with Walker Books in the UK, included Baby Floats, Under the Hill, Fifty the Tractor series , Jane & the Dragon & The Dragon's Purpose. In addition he illustrated Mousewing by William Mayne, Daniel's Dinosaurs by Mary Carmine, The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame and others.

Baynton is an enormously talented and creative artist who these days works with Weta Studios creating wonderful children's television of which his latest creation is The Wot Wots shortly to have its world premiere.

Introducing the WotWots

From the creative minds of the Academy Award winning Weta Workshop comes the WotWots, a stunning new television series for preschoolers.

The WotWots worldwide television launch will premiere on TV2 New Zealand, Monday 23rd March at 8.50am, screening weekdays.

Filmed at Wellington and Auckland Zoos, this homegrown sensation follows the adventures of two adorable siblings from outer space, SpottyWot and DottyWot. These delightful creatures come to explore planet earth in their steam-powered spaceship and arrive in the middle of a zoo. This inquisitive and energetic brother and sister duo delight in discovering all the exotic creatures at the zoo as they scoot around in their hover-chairs.

The WotWots wonder who they are and what they’ll look like when they are fully grown adults. Will they look like one of the zoo animals outside? Through their escapades, the WotWots encourage children to be creative, inventive and expressive as they share their discoveries with their preschooler audience.

The show is energetic, colourful and entertaining, but all the adventures are built on one central ingredient which defines the series – the joy of learning and discovery. In each episode the WotWots help children to celebrate and understand the animal world, to recognise kindness, co-operation and core values, to delight in learning new words and to be expressive and creative through drawing.

The WotWots is produced by Pukeko Pictures and made at Richard Taylor’s Weta Workshop. Pukeko Pictures is a new business partnership between Academy Award winner Richard Taylor, the co-founder and creative lead of Weta Workshop, and internationally acclaimed author, illustrator and children’s television creator/producer, Martin Baynton.

Taylor and Baynton previously teamed up to create the award winning children’s program, Jane and the Dragon.
To officially launch this exciting new property, Wellington Zoo will host a WotWots Fun Day and media event on Sunday 22nd March, 2009.

There will be exclusive preview screenings, visits from the show’s two characters, SpottyWot and DottyWot and a chance to meet with the creators of the series. There will be treasure hunts, face painting, craft activities, colouring in competitions and lots more. For more information visit: www.wellingtonzoo.com/wotwots

This innovative 52 x 10 minute series received critical praise from broadcasters when it was screened at the Mip Com TV conference in Cannes last October, praise which has since turned into placements in major territories including the UK and Australia.
Visit the WotWots website - www.abc.net.au/wotwots

MARTIN BAYNTON
Creator, Writer, Narrator and Executive Producer of the WotWots

Martin Baynton has an international reputation as a writer and illustrator of children's books with over 30 titles published by major English and American houses including Walker Books, Penguin, Scholastic and Greenwillow. He has also worked for the stage, radio, TV and film as a producer, director, screenwriter and script editor. Baynton teamed up with Richard Taylor at Weta Workshop seven years ago to develop and produce the award winning Jane and the Dragon TV show based on Martin’s successful book series of the same name

Martin has been a literacy lecturer and motivator in Australia and New Zealand where he has held workshops on how to encourage and motivate children to write. His focus is on helping children who have lost ‘writing self esteem’ and providing tools to rediscover their hunger to be the natural storytellers all children are born to be.

Martin co-created the WotWots with Richard Taylor and is the Executive Producer and Series Editor. He is also the voice of SpottyWot and narrates the show.