Cat Casting

When I stole Lee from the Knightside Chronicles team last week and told him about this alternate project, he said his main concern was the real cat acting part. Being a cat person myself my whole life, with the superpower of knowing which parts of a cat's body to scratch to make him love you forever, plus thinking beforehand in the shots so I can easily tell the story with footage that lets the kitten be himself instead of attempting to make him act, I told him I was confident that part wouldn't be a major problem.  Will be? Will not be? There is only one way to find out!

Funny as it comes, the hardest part so far has been to find the actual kitten. Being an overseas student that just arrived months ago gives me the ability to know very few people in this city, most of them also non London based students  with similar projects and a total lack of kittens among their belongings, so I started my cat quest, posting on DeviantArt, Digital Media Kingston group asking for help and referrals, contacting shelters, calling breeders, posting in specialized forums and placing ads in Gumtree. Apparently, is a weird thing to ask for since shelters didn't answer, breeders told me off, Gumtree took my ad down (I actually got some people interested from there, but after couple of mail exchanges they stop replying). Got some lights in one specialized forum, where an user pointed out it was weird to give away your pet to a total stranger, which makes sense. I asked what should I do in order to make my project believable and break the menacing stranger stigmata, and someone suggested for me to explain my project further, what I plan to do and how, so, ladies and gentlemen:

"The train" video: kitten footage planning.

PROFILE: 

• A kitten between 8 and 16 weeks old.  This comes to the fact that older cats are less active and willing to move, also, more difficult to handle.
• Not black, not 100% white. This for Chroma key purposes, a 100% white cat might reflect a lot of light from the set, giving the footage a glowing effect that makes the fur detail disappear. A black cat might be hard to colour correct.
• Not Persian, Chinchilla, Angora, Siamese, Russian Blue or Egyptian. A luxury cat wouldn't work storywise: is hard to find one of these wandering around the streets, and if you do happen to find one, first thing you think is they belong to someone.

PROCESS:

All the footage would be recorded in a green screen room. The photo studio is located at Kingston University. No need to take the little one to the actual location where the action unfolds, it will be added later in postproduction. 

SHOTS:

I've created a series of animated gifs, so you can have an idea of what the shots are and what the kitten should be doing in them. This is a rough, flexible guideline of what is needed, once on location we can adapt some angles or takes in order to fit them to what works best with the kitten. 

Scene 1:

Kitten enters to the scene. 

Is his first appearance so we only need for him to enter

 into frame, ideally looking away from the camera. Can 

be doing whatever he feels like. 

Scene 2:

From sit/wandering/whatever he was doing on the previous shot

to running out of frame. 

Scene 3:

Kitten running away from the camera.

Scene 4:

Couple of seconds of kitten sit still. Full front view.

Scene 5:

Shot taken slightly from above. This one needs to be 

pretty much exactly as depicted. 

Scene 6:

This is quite weird to depict in terms of what you would see

on screen, so I am adding a diagram here:

... basically we will tilt down the camera towards our sit 

kitten until it comes to frame and cross fingers he doesn't move. 

Scene 7:

Kitten turning his head up, looking and then jumping up

out of frame.

Scene 8:

Kitten approaching and licking a surface. We can try

this with some cat food juice or a little bit of milk. 

 Scene 9:

Some good amount of seconds of the kitten looking 

directly to the camera looking happy, so we will need

treats and cuddles :)

 Scene 10:

Kitten rubbing himself against something. Again, we

will have to make him happy. Angle and point of view

can change, important part is to capture the gesture.

Scene 11:

Kitten idling, then something grabs his attention and 

runs/walks towards that. 

Scene 12:

Kitten approaches someone with a bowl of milk. Ideally

a little girl between 6 and 9 years old... but given how 

difficult is to get a kitten and assuming will be even worse

with children, anyone can do. Must be female, though, 

and on her early twenties, tops. 

 Scene 13

Girl cuddles the little cat. Could even be the cat owner

if she fits the profile.  

Now, let's continue our search for our feline superstar!