When credits rolled at the end of “Barnyard: The Original Party Animals,” Paul Ehreth’s parents cheered.
Reviews for the animated comedy weren’t red-hot. Most critics mentioned a baffling distraction – male “cows” endowed with udders.
Karen Ehreth didn’t mind. She and her husband, Leo, have a good reason to give “Barnyard” two thumbs up.
Their son Paul, a 2004 graduate of Henry Cogswell College in Everett, was part of a team that created backgrounds for all those barnyard critters. His name is listed in the credits of the Paramount Pictures release under “modelers.”
“We’ve gone to see it twice,” said Karen Ehreth, who lives south of Seattle in Normandy Park. “We didn’t stand up at the end, but we did cheer out loud.” The cheers were for their 23-year-old son, who found his niche and earned a degree in digital arts at Cogswell.
In June, Cogswell College announced it will close due to declining enrollment and mounting financial losses. Cogswell President Bill Pickens said the private school, operated by the Foundation for Education Achievement, lost $700,000 in 2005. Enrollment had dropped from 198 last year to a projected 156 this fall.
The closure, effective Sept. 1, leaves students like Ehreth with few options.
During its 10 years in Everett, about 400 students graduated from Cogswell, said Nancy Desmond, the school’s registrar and associate dean for enrollment. Along with digital arts, Cogswell offered degrees in engineering, computer science and professional management.
“I thought it worked well for (Paul),” Karen Ehreth said. “I’m sorry it’s closing.”
Paul Ehreth had some academic struggles at Mount Rainier High School in Des Moines. He considered joining the Army. In high school, he was so hooked on video games he helped design a game called BoxWar.
“When he was growing up, we thought he was spending entirely too much time on the computer,” Karen Ehreth said of Paul.
That computer expertise paid off. The creators of “Barnyard,” directed by Steve Oedekerk, found Ehreth’s resume online. He’d been working for small video game companies when he landed the movie job at Omation Studios in San Clemente, Calif.
“We used to go surfing every day at lunch. It was truly the dream job,” Ehreth said. “I was a senior environment artist, in charge of all the background, foreground, all the objects and props the characters interacted with.”
If you’ve seen the movie, no, it wasn’t Ehreth’s idea to put an udder on a boy bovine.
Several weeks ago, Ehreth and his older brother, Dan, attended the movie premiere at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. Stars who lent their voices to “Barnyard” – Courteney Cox Arquette and Sam Elliott among them – didn’t attend.
“But we got to walk the red carpet,” Ehreth said. “The head honchos and producers were there.”
Back in the Seattle area, Ehreth has taken skills honed at Cogswell to another high-profile employer, Microsoft Corp. He’s a video game designer at the company’s Redmond campus.
“Paul is extremely talented,” said Hank Isaac of Everett, who taught digital arts and screenwriting at Cogswell. “He has endless energy. I consider him a co-worker.”
For Ehreth, the beauty of Cogswell was the opportunity to do real work.
“I’d done a lot of experimentation in high school, and knew exactly what I wanted to do. But I didn’t know any schools that taught that stuff,” Ehreth said. He was referred to Cogswell from Olympic College in Bremerton, which offered a certificate but not a degree in digital arts.
“I was never very academic at all,” Ehreth said. “One nice thing about Cogswell, I could do things physically rather than just sitting in a classroom. It was great hands-on experience.”
Ehreth has high praise for his instructors, including Isaac and Eileen Matis-Wong. He blames the closure on poor marketing and management.
There weren’t many students at Cogswell, but its closure is a real loss.
“It’s a tragedy,” said Isaac, who’s now looking for work. “It was such a great program.”
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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