Review Fix chats with “Catcam” director Seth Keal.
The winner for best short film at the 2012 Tribeca Online Film Festival, “Catman,” is an endearing flick with plenty of heart.
To read our review of “Catcam,” click the link here
Review Fix: How did you originally come in contact with Mr. Lee and his family?
Seth Keal: I originally came across the idea for the film when a friend of mine sent me the link to Juergen’s site after he posted the photos. I was so amazed by the perspective that the photos brought and I felt that this is something really intriguing. It brought up questions of art which is something people have argued about for centuries and all of a sudden another example of it rears it’s head. I thought that it could be a great little story that should be told and thankfully we were able to do it.
Review Fix: What was your main goal when putting this film together?
Keal: The main goal was to provide a fun and entertaining story that audiences would enjoy. We loved the story of Juergen and Mr. Lee and we didn’t want to spice it up with cheap tricks and artsy film techniques. We wanted to keep it an honest story and let Mr. Lee and Juergen’s personalities be the highlights of the film.
Review Fix: How difficult was it to edit this film?
Keal: Sinead Kinnane and I were the editors on the film and we edited sections separately and gave lots of notes to each other. Over all I didn’t think it was terribly difficult to edit, but finding the proper music gave us the most problems. Propelling the story forward with music was very important to me and luckily we were able to get what we needed. I think the music and the pacing of the film came out great. Another interesting aspect of the edit was going through Mr. Lee’s footage. It wasn’t until we were almost picture locked when I found the footage of Mr. Lee and the Grey Cat in fisticuffs. It was a lucky thing to find.
Review Fix: What’s your favorite part of the film?
Keal: My favorite part of the film is when Mr. Lee goes out by himself. We had so much fun filming it and I just love watching animals do what they do. There is no talking, no narration, it’s just Mr. Lee out in his element and his territory doing what he does. I wish I could have made it longer, but I didn’t want audiences to get fidgety.
Review Fix: Is there a scene you had to edit out for time and think it was still intriguing? Can you tell us about it?
Keal: We did have to cut out a lot of the process of Juergen designing the case for the camera. It went through a lot of trials and a lot of testing, but we thought that it slowed the story down a bit. When we screened the film to close film colleagues, they felt that it screwed with the pacing a little, so we were able to trim that stuff out and it really let the story move forward.
Review Fix: What did you learn from making this film?
Keal: I learned a lot from this film, but one of the big things was that it amazes me is that there are people out there that have the initiative to do something which may or may not work and put a tremendous amount of time into something without the need for recognition. When what they set out to do, as what Juergen did, is successful; they’re whole lives completely change. Juergen never had the intention of being a huge hit with his invention on the internet and he never thought that his idea would help Universities study animal behavior with his devices.
Review Fix: Did you strike a friendship with the cat throw the filming?
Keal: I would like to believe that Mr. Lee and the crew bonded during the making of the film, but what he really liked is the cat treats. If those weren’t around he really didn’t want to do much because it was the middle of summer when we filmed.
Review Fix: How did it feel to win the award for best short for this year’s Tribeca Film Festival?
Keal: It was pretty amazing winning the prize at Tribeca. It was just cool that all the film lovers and cat lovers got together and voted for the film. I was very appreciative to all who passed the link along to their friends and actually voted. I was a real honor.
Review Fix: What’s next for you?
Keal: We’ve got some things in the cooker that are in pre-production phase, but nothing we really want to speak about until some things get locked down. We would like to get into a feature length format and we are heading more in that direction, but we’d love to crank out some short films along the way.
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