Hollywood Watchcat

In Hollywood, many tourists drive down Beachwood Blvd to get a photo or selfie in front of the world famous Hollywood sign. 
You have to drive carefully, because at any moment a group of tourists will run into the middle of a street to snap a photo of the large white letters on the hill. 

At the corner of Beachwood and Belden Drive, outside the Beachwood Market sits a small sculpture of "Figaro" by artist Sharon Loper. A small statue of a black cat sits looking at a round garden in front of him and I suspect he's keeping an eye on the traffic as well.

Most people are more interested in the nearby Hollywood sign and will never notice this small work of art. So the next time you are visiting the LA, stop by and get a picture this bronzed Watchcat of the Hollywood sign area. I am sure there is a more of a story here, and so, I contacted the artist, Sharon Loper, who was nice enough to reply to some of my questions.

It turns out that, Figaro was her cat for seventeen years. Loper writes, " Figaro is a very popular cat with the children and neighbors. Figaro was my best model for the cat series, which you can see on my website www.sharonloper.com. "

I gave her a link to our Watchcat files blog and she wrote back, " I love the idea of a black cat protecting the neighborhood. I'm an avocat for animal rights and Figaro was one of my rescue cats. He was the model for Number Nine Cat , now in the permanent collection of a museum in Amsterdam. BTW, Number Nine cat is on the left and Picasso cat is on the right.

I found Figaro while I was working across the street at "We are the Mighty" studios. I was there last week to help finish one of their future animated show. Here is an example of their first series called "Gunny". Character design/Animation by Douglas Vannick: http://www.vannickartz.com/

The project I worked on was animated in ToonBoom Harmony and used rigged animation character assets, which make it faster to animate, then traditional drawn animation. I learn a lot about how they set up their files and their animation pipeline.

Do you have a real Watchcat story or a picture of your real life Watchcat? Let us know and we will include it on this blog. Send your stories, images, etc to heyjimr@gmail.com

We have 15,279 all time views! 

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Help us donate our first Google check to a local animal shelter by clicking on the ads every time you visit this watchcat files blog. The clicks are working and Thank you for Clicking!

  

 

Meet a real crimefighting Watchcat

For one great moment in time, The city of Los Angeles turned into Gotham City for a very special tribute to Adam West. 

A couple of Weekends ago, we asked our friends on Facebook to help boost our views on our Watchcat episodes and other videos on our Youtube channel: WatchCat Films. We started the weekend with Watchcat01 = 597 views and Watchcat02 = 968 views. I am happy to report that Watchcat 01 is at 634  and Watchcat02 jumped up to 1,033 views. We also have reached 98 subscribers to our WatchCat Films channel. Keep the views coming!

A lot of the recent increase in views is the result of a person who was using our Watchcat logo without our permission. A few week ago, we had never heard of Martinsville in Morgan County, Indiana, but there is a crime watch group known as the Martinsville Watchcat who prowl the streets, keeping their eyes open and reporting crime or any suspicious activity.

The leader of this group is Brian Wagaman, aka wagswayz on Youtube. He came up with his Watchcat group about the same time we started to animate our first episode. Just by chance, we saw the video below and were surprised to see our Watchcat logo in his video.

At first, we contacted YouTube, but since we are not a corporation, they couldn't do anything for us. I emailed Brian through his email page and discovered that he had found our logo and thought it was a stock image.

"I started a crime watch group called WATCHCAT.... 

To find a logo i just googled watchcat and found the eye with cat ears. I had no clue how to reach anybody to ask for permission to use it, so i was hoping it was just a stock image. 

But...i totally understand your position and i will refrain from using it in future videos. I do apologize. I assure you i did not intent to make any gain monetarily with the logo, we just needed a symbol that stood for the good people in town that warned the criminals that we are watching."

After watching some of Brian's other videos, we discovered he's also a musician, tattoo artist, cat rescuer as well as crimefighter CatMan!

I'm not sure if Brian dresses this way when he fights crime, but if he does, that's one dude I would not like to meet in a dark alley!

It turns out, Brian is one of the good guys and helps cats who have been abused or abandon. He also keeps watch on his fellow humans with his WATCHCAT Morgan County, Indiana post on Facebook. A place where residence can report their concerns and help keep their town safe. 

And so, we want to help this cause by allowing Brian use our logo as long as he gives us credit and a link to our Watchcat Films Channel on Youtube. We also would like him to help us promote our films to his subscribers as well. 

We are glad there is a real life Watchcat keeping the streets safe in Morgan County, IN.

Do you have a real Watchcat story or a picture of your real life Watchcat? Let us know and we will include it on this blog. Send your stories, images, etc to heyjimr@gmail.com

We have 15,141 all time views and only one Follower! 

Please become a Follower to the Watchcat files blog.

Subscribe to our Watchcat Films Youtube Channel! and be our 100th subscriber! We are at 98 so far.

 

Click on the ads to help an Animal Shelter!

Right now, were only at $36.18, but every time you visit this blog, click on the ads to show your support. Google won't write us a check until they get $100 or more in clicks. Help us donate our first Google check to a local animal shelter by clicking on the ads every time you visit this watchcat files blog. The clicks are working and Thank you for Clicking!

  

Our Tribute to Batman, Adam West!

Last Saturday, we reached out to our Facebook friends to see if we could gain a few more views on our Watchcat episodes. That same day we learned the news that Adam West had passed away. 

I'll let Greg handle the rest of this post, since he is the biggest Batman fan I know.

I was always a big fan of Batman.
Ever since I was a little kid. I loved reading the comics and I've especially loved watching the 1966 TV show, "Batman" starring Adam west and Burt Ward. That show really opened up my imagination on wanting to be a storyteller at a very young age.

So I guess it's no surprise that as an adult, when I came up with an idea of a crime fighting neighborhood cat that protects his city, at night, in the shadows, from bad guys, that Batman would be a big inspiration for that.

Even our Watchcat logo is a nod to the great bat signal in the sky.

I had a great opportunity to meet with Kevin Conroy who voiced Batman in Batman: The animated series,

 

but one person in particular I always wanted to meet was Adam West.

I guess you can say if it wasn't for Adam West being Batman, there might not have been a Watchcat.😼

And so, It is with great sadness that I lost a childhood hero. Adam West has passed away at the age of 88. He was Batman to me and the Batman TV show was my all-time favorite show of the 60s, along with the Green Hornet. My brother and I would play Batman and Robin when we were growing up. To this day, we still quote lines from that iconic TV show.

 
I remember as a kid being excited when I first saw the Batman movie that had the Cape Crusader's against their Rogue Gallery of Villains, that included the Joker, Riddler, Penguin and Catwoman. The Riddler was my favorite villain. 

I can still remember how excited I was coming home from school, when they were playing Batman reruns and seeing my favorite episodes "A Piece of The Action", and "Batman Satisfaction" which pitted Batman & Robin against the Green Hornet & Kato.

And who could ever forget the introduction of Batgirl. I loved everything about that show, the look, the music, especially the theme and even the camp humor. I never missed an episode, through all the good ones and even the bad ones. 

But Adam West also did a lot of voice work for animated shows throughout his career, most recently as the mayor of Quahog, Rhode Island on Family Guy.

And the thing that made the show work was was Adam West. He always played Batman with a certain amount of integrity and never played him for laughs. He was Batman. I only wish I could've met the man once just to say thank you. 
😔 Well..thank you Adam West for being Batman😃
#RIPBatman

NEXT WEEK!  
Meet a real crimefighting 
Watchcat in Martinville, Indiana!
Same Watchcat Wednesday, Same Watchcatfiles Blog!

Do you have a real Watchcat story or a picture of your real life Watchcat? Let us know and we will include it on this blog. Send your stories, images, etc to heyjimr@gmail.com

We have 14,950 all time views and only one Follower! 
We need more Followers.

Subscribe to our Watchcat Films Youtube Channel! and be our 100th subscriber! We are at 97 so far, come on 100!

Click on the ads, help an Animal Shelter!

Right now, were only at $36.18, but everytime you visit this blog, click away on the ads to show your support. Google won't write us a check until they get $100 or more in clicks. Help us donate our first Google check to a local animal shelter by clicking on the ads everytime you visit this watchcat files blog. And Thanks for Clicking!

 

Special Watchcat Request

In a period of 24 hours, views of Watchcat 02 have increased from 657 to 958, which means that 300 people have suddenly discovered our video on Youtube. We are hoping more will let friends know and boost our views over the 1,000 mark during the weekend.

We think Youtube will collect views if you click on the videos below. 
If not, please click on the videos on our Youtube channel, Watchcat films. Thank you!

Our first episode is currently at 592 views and we are also hoping that we gain more views as well. 

Make it a Watchcat Weekend!

Next Watchcat Wednesday;
Our Tribute to Batman, Adam West

Watchcat Pre-Production

We reported last week that our Watchcat eye logo was used in another person's Youtube video without our permission.

Since we are not a corporation like Disney or Dreamworks, it seems Youtube really can't do anything about it. 

Hi WatchCat Films,

Thank you for your notification. It appears you have made a claim on behalf of a company, but your account is not associated with a corporate email address. Please understand that YouTube receives a large number of fraudulent copyright takedown requests, some of which involve impersonating the company that holds copyright to the material in question. In order to prevent this, we need to ask you for more information.
Please help us verify that you are affiliated with the corporate entity listed as the copyright owner in your notice. There are several ways you can do this:

1. If you have a corporate email address, please forward this message to that address and then respond to copyright@youtube.com from there, preserving the ticket number in the subject line. 
2.  If your company doesn't have a corporate email address, please provide a website or other publicly available listing where we can verify your company's existence and your affiliation with it.
3. If neither of these options is applicable to you, please provide an explanation.
4. If you do not actually represent a company, please let us know.

Please understand that the content will remain live on the site until we have received this verification.

- The YouTube Team

 

In the meantime, I am storyboarding 5 episodes of the next Watchcat series, you can see the first two as rough animatics if you click here. I'm concentrating on drawing up the storyboards frames to create a final version as an animatic. The animatics will all have final sound fxs and music. We hope to show them to see if we will be able to make a real animation series or just finish the animation the way we want it to look.

I really don't think I can devote all my time and effort animating these next episodes by myself. I discovered that the first two episodes, each about 3 minutes in length, took me a year to produce. And so, I am asking for an interested animators out there who know Toon Boom Harmony to email me at heyjimr@gmail.com. If you have time to produce a scene or two, perhaps you could use the final scenes in your animation portfolio. 

Subscribe to our Watchcat Films Youtube Channel! and be our 100th subscriber!

NEXT WEEK: Meet a real crimefighting Watchcat!

And Thanks for Clicking! 

Right now, were only at $36.18, but everytime you visit this blog, click away on the ads to show your support. Google won't write us a check until they get $100 or more in clicks. Help us donate our first Google check to a local animal shelter by clicking on the ads.

Thank You!