Leo loves mondays (a fat cat rap)

You can see the video on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkkqybcDIYA

I have just finished my first video project called Leo loves Mondays (a fat cat rap) which I created for a online short film competition reed.co.uk love mondays and partially also as a way of easing myself into video production for the first time in 3 years. It stars my tabby tom cat Leo going about his Monday (everyday) business and activities whilst he raps about it in a cool yet funny way!

The Process:

The rap lyrics were written by me and 100% original, I lay on the floor with pen in hand for around 3 hours coming up with those rhymes! That was the easiest part though, I'll be honest, all I did was decide what Leo loves to do the most and then came up with a simple rhyming pattern to coincide with the lyrics... The meowing interlude parts or the meow downs (break downs) as I called them is just me and is meant to set the grimey beats and pace of the rap.

Once the rap was written I had to come up with a shooting plan for Leo, to know exactly what video I wanted and the camera angles etc that would work best with the words, simply again as if he sang about being asleep thats what I filmed. The filming was perhaps the most stressful part, they DO say never work with animals and it was definitely a case of "come on Leo you do this everydaaaaay" and he was more interested in the camera!!

Next I recorded the rap on a standard mic uploading onto my PC with the very lovely help of my boyfriend, I would of quite happily rapped your socks off but Leo is a boy cat and thus a boy rapping made sense and it was an obvious choice as he is very gangsta!! :p

Then a problem arose as my camera saves the files as AVI and for whatever reason Adobe Premiere was not friends with any of the files... it was jumping and blippy and at one point there was 3 Leo's... So after hours of Technical support, from a Tech savvy whizz, the files were eventually converted and usuable in not to shabby quality...

Editing was brilliant, I love editing it kind of makes everything come together my initial ideas, creativity, themes and all! It took a long time, a fair few days and Im sure it drove people insane with the continuous PURR MEOW PURR PURR PURR MEOW.... lol

I directed, filmed, edited it all myself, with ideas from others of course but its my first ever solo piece.

The finished Video:

After all the effort and time I came out with something Im very proud of and I think worthy of that competition. Not sure if I will win any of the prizes but in a way that doesnt matter, it was just great to be back doing something I love and missed, I didnt realise how much, to be keeping busy but most of all to have a creative outlet that I have so craved since graduating university!

I particularly loved the last minute idea of using the jazz piano instrumental part of "everybody wants to be a cat" from the brilliant Disney Aristocats, I dont know why I didnt think of it sooner that and my starring Leo shot I love, where he is sniffing my finger.

I enjoyed desiging the intro and ending credits too, I love using photoshop more than anything else I think, those pieces along with the dream bubbles took mre a few minutes and I think they really work!!

My favourite part I think is the chatty ending especially the brrap brrap brrap and the catnip WORD. Awww my Leo is such a G!

I think my equipment let me down slightly, I used a typical digital camera that I picked up few years back for £200 so it was good enough but as the perfectionist I am something more advanced and of a higher quality would of been better but timing limited me and my monetary funds as well of course. I would love a proper swish little hand held recording piece but alas working part time that isnt realistic right now....

But I think it turned out pretty great tbh, there are a few glitches that I can notice: lighting issues here and there and a few extra audio blips that I struggled with, but other than that Im happy with it for sure!
Just need to see the kind of response I will get from it now...


Next for FATCAT I need to get my website up and running and then start compiling a decent online portfolio to build my future.

You can see the video on YouTube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkkqybcDIYA

FATCAT CREATIONS logo

This is my logo for my design and production company . online portfollio website.

I will use it before any video production and as an intro to my website when I finish building it on dreamweaver....

I initially sketched it out as my idea, I knew the name I wanted (I love fat cats and its for a creative design personal company) I also wanted it particularly feline in style. Then re-designed it on Photoshop, chose the colour scheme - which is my cats tabby colourings taken from a photo (he is my inspiration) and gave it catty elements like the paw print, tail, whiskers and stripes.

Then I erased some, piece by piece, saving each image as a separate file and finally lined them all up in premiere in the sequence that will make the letter appear, followed by the paw print then a tail swish and finally a meowing A letter.

The audio was a little more difficult, capturing a cats meow and purr isnt the easiest thing to do... and the paw print noise is meant to be a kind of cat kissy squeak noise that cat lovers will know instantly.

There probably is a better way of doing this but its my first ever attempt at a stop animation type logo and Im very happy with it!!

Completely my idea and it turned out exactly how I wanted it to and I think represents me and my work how I desired.