Review Fix 2012 Tribeca Film Festival Coverage: Q & A with ‘Catcam’ Director Seth Keal

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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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14262 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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