The Numberjacks Story

Open Mind Productions was formed in 1989 by Roland Tongue and Chris Ellis.  Roland was a film editor at the BBC, and Chris Ellis was a director at the BBC, having previously been a teacher.   Open Mind was one of the first independent productions companies to specialise in educational programmes for children, and over the years we have used technology creatively to make cost-effective, imaginative and award-winning programmes.  

We have made hundreds of programmes about many different areas of learning, and in 1995 we were asked by Channel 4 Learning to develop a maths series for 5-7 year olds, and created the Number Crew, which, in over 70 episodes, told the story of a family who sailed the world in an ocean-going liner with a crew of tame wild animals.  This was the beginning of our work on making maths engaging and exciting for young children, and we continued with the Mathemateers, a commission by Pearson Education for 7-9 year olds, 50 short programmes set among various strange beings in outer space.  We also made Maths Mansion for Channel 4. Aimed at 9-11 year olds this set maths in the context of a games show where young contestants had to escape from a gothic mansion.

We produced Paz for Discovery Kids in the USA and also helped launch the CBeebies channel with our series the Shiny Show, the world’s first quiz show for pre-school children, so when the BBC wanted to develop a maths series for CBeebies we were well placed.  The series as initially developed was very different from the Numberjacks.  It was called Number Chumbers, and was to be set in a number rescue centre, with adult presenters and puppets.  Changes of management and focus at the BBC, however, meant that Number Chumbers never came to the screen but instead become the Numberjacks, which put the numbers at the heart of the action, and combined computer-generated animation with real-world footage.   

The fact that our thinking had originally been about puppets and studio action undoubtedly helped in bringing the Numberjacks to life as cuddly characters as well as adventurous ones.  We have been very lucky in many long-term collaborations over the years, and in different ways the designers, animators, composer, directors, shooting crew, sound team and advisors (and many others) have all been crucial in making Numberjacks the success that it has become.  We have also been very fortunate in finding very skilled voice artistes, many of them of tender years, who helped bring the Numberjacks to life.