Dundee students win animation prize for best TV licence excuses video

Published On Wed 16 Mar 2016 by Roddy Isles

Animation students from the University of Dundee have scooped a prestigious competition win by bringing to life a bizarre excuse for watching TV without having a TV licence.

The winner of the People’s Choice film, ‘King of Scotland’ received 173 ‘likes’ on the TV Licensing YouTube channel from a total of more than 1,000 votes, seeing off competition from films produced by degree course students from Derby, Middlesex, Belfast and Bristol¹.

All teams produced a range of animations illustrating the dubious explanations for non-payment, which visiting officers and call centre staff have heard this year.
The winning ‘The King of Scotland’ video features a rap sung by ‘Phil’, who greets Enquiry Officer ‘Nigel’, with a range of colourful reasons as to why he doesn’t require a licence, including a claim that his cat is ‘in labour’.

Third-year Dundee students Alex Heywood, Mark McGinty and Steven Buntin got together to form the ‘Rixty Minutes’ team, guided by animation tutor, Sharon Campbell, who has taught at the college for over ten years and has also worked in the industry as an animator on such feature films as Sylvain Chomet’s ‘The Illusionist’.

Mark McGinty, from ‘Rixty Minutes’ also did the voice acting and rapping for the animation. He said, “We’re so happy to win the People’s Choice award. It took the team three weeks to work on the animation after many hours of planning, research and script writing. We wanted to make sure we created a piece of work that had the right balance of getting a message across that would also be credible. Including a rap in the entry was a natural progression from the way we work as a team, with many of us using rap when improvising new ideas.”

More than 40 excuses films were submitted from students across the UK. View the animations, including the winning video, at youtube.com/tvlicensing

Fergus Reid, TV Licensing Scotland spokesperson, said: “The winning animations are a testament to the imagination of the students. We’re not so impressed, however, with the creative approach to excuses, as watching or recording live TV without a licence is against the law. 

“Even though we’re effective at catching evaders, we’d always prefer people pay than risk a maximum £1,000 fine.  For those who may find it difficult to pay in one go, we offer a range of payment options to spread the cost, sign up at www.tvlicensing.co.uk.” 

To check if a licence is needed, visit www.tvlicensing.co.uk/info or call 0300 790 6112

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head of Corporate Communications
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
Tel: +44 (0)1382 384910
Mobile: 07800 581902
Email: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk