Watchcat Story Development

Our Watchcat review of Black Panther had over 1280 views and still continues to get more views. This tell us that there are a lot of people who also liked this movie and hopefully will discover our blog. We also got several ad clicks helping us get closer to our $30 goal.

This week, I picked up an animation desk, carried it down a flight of stairs and then drove it back to Burbank. It had belonged to an animation studio called Duck, a studio where I animated this hot dog running from this College girl.Today, I'm the proud owner of a Duck desk. All I need now is a smaller chair to go with it. 







Tune into our LIVE Watchcat Wednesday Blogcast this Wednesday, April 18th @ 7:30pm PDT! on our Watchcat Films Youtube channel. Stop by and see! 

Watchcat LIVE Blogcast!
WatchcatWednesday 4/16/18@7:30pm
https://www.youtube.com/c/WatchCatFilms9/live 

We are still in the process of story development and have discovered that Watchcat is also too perfect and sure of himself in our first episode. Sometimes we think too much about what Watchcat can do, rather than why is he doing it. Nobody likes a "Know it all", because this character can never fail, he's always right and thus will never learn anything new. He needs a little more character development so the audience wants to see what he's going to do next.

Currently I'm teaching a class about Story, Storyboarding and Animation Principles. In doing so, I am rediscovering the importance of telling a story through the character's eyes and not just hitting different plot points. Asking more questions about " Why and How" would Watchcat feel about doing this or that. Its easy to come up with a story driven by plot, but you need to let the audience know what the character thinks about what's happening to him.

We are introducing the idea that Watchcat has 9 lives and has flashbacks from those previous lives whenever something bad is about to happen. We also want to show the flashbacks in a different style, maybe even in stop motion, to keep things interesting.

Here's a flashback sequence we are currently working. Let us know what you think of it in the comment section below.

EXT.   WWll German cargo plane  Night

The plane maneuvers between explosions in the sky as missiles continue to fire upon the plane from the ground. We see another type of commotion happening inside the plane.

INT.  German cargo plane Continued
Three German soldiers huddled around a bunch of crates (containing German weapons). Several rows of parachute packs hanging from the curved wall of the plane wall. We see one of the German soldier pull out something from his jacket pocket.

We cut to a close up of a roll of microfilm as he hands it to his German officer. Close up of the German officer smiling as he stares at the microfilm.

German Officer:

                                   (German accent)

                   With these American plans, we will 
                   turn the war in our favor.

Cut to, a low angle shot, as we look up at the German officer holding the microfilm, behind him from the darkness of the roof of the plane, we see a set of white eyes open up from the darkness and a wicked smile, as if the shadow is coming to life.

OTS of the German officer

A black shape lands onto the German officer's back. He opens his arms wide and yells in pain, dropping of the microfilm.

Close up of the other two German soldiers looking up in surprise.

German officer knocks forward and crashes onto the other soldiers. They all fall to the metal floor.
CUT to close up of the microfilm landing into a small black cat's paw.

The German soldiers look up from the floor of the plane. On top of the crate, a Black and White Cat is holding the microfilm.
                                                                

                                 German Officer:
                                     Watchcat!!

                                     Watchcat:

               Don't you know you should never take

               what doesn't belong to you.

                                  German Officer:
                                     (To his men)

               Get that Cat and get the microfilm!

Watchcat flips over the two men trying to rush him. He kicks the German Officer in the the chest, knocking him back down to the floor.  Cat flips back and lands on one of the Germans Soldier's face as he starts to scratch it up.

                                    Watchcat:
                                      Yeowl !!!

                             German Soldier 1:

                            Get it off! Get it off!!

The other Soldier (soldier 2) swings the butt of his rifle into Watchcat, but Watchcat flips off soldier 1. The butt of the gun hits soldier 1 in the face, knocking him back into more crates.

As the soldier 2 looks up, we see Watchcat sitting on top of another crate, licking one paw and holding the microfilm in the other.

                                   Watchcat:
                                   (Smiling)
                          You guys never learn.

The angry Soldier pulls out his gun.

                               German officer:
                         NO!! You idiot, not in the.

The German officer tries to grab the arm of the soldiers gun, but it goes off! BAM!!
Watchcat dodges the bullet. The bullet hits the pilot, who slumps forward onto the steering wheel. 

The plane turns downward. Everybody starts to fall forward.
Watchcat drops the microfilm as he rolls forward along with the Soldiers.

Ext.  German cargo plane - Night

The plane is speeding downwards as clouds wisp by.

Int.  German cargo plane - Night

Everybody is bunched up together trying to get up.
Close-up of the German Officer as the microfilm rolls right in front of his nose. He grabs the film, gets up and grabs a parachute. He turns and struggles to open the door of the plane.

The door slides open, wind blows everything in the plane.

Close up on Watchcat, as he sees the German Officer wearing a parachute smiling back at him. He salutes holding the Microfilm in his hand.

                                  German Officer:
                                     (In German)

                                       You lose!

German Officer jumps out of the plane.

Watchcat runs to the door looking down.

Ext.  Man falling in the sky - Night

The German Officer's parachute opens, floating him to earth. Close-up on the German Officer looking back at the falling plane.

Extreme Close-up of the German Officer's face changing from victory to sudden shock. POV Watchcat flying towards camera.

Everything goes dark. 


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Watchcat Review: Black Panther

 by Gregory J. Bradley

"It's nice to see America celebrating a superhero that dresses up like a cat. Wait til they get a load of me."
                                                            Watchcat.
  

Black history month took on a whole new meaning with the arrival of Black Panther in movie theaters this week. Every show was sold out for this historical major event. I had a chance to watch this movie (twice) over the long holiday weekend.

I, being African-American, was so excited to see the first, major black superhero film with an all black cast and a black director, who also co-wrote the script, and with a budget of $200 million, crushing it at the box office!!

The movie was the fifth highest grossing movie of all time. It made $242 million doing the four day holiday. And over 400 million worldwide. In four days!!
 
I hope this movie shows Hollywood that African-American movies can make money at the box office. As a matter fact, we should have more ethnic stories out there. Give diversity a chance Hollywood. And as far as the movie is concerned, I loved it!!

I loved seeing African Americans represented in a positive light on screen. The idea of the story taking place mainly in Africa, the celebration of African traditions of the past as well as introducing a character who loves science and is constantly pushing technology to the future.

I loved how the director Ryan Coogler crafted the script in such a way that there's a political and social message disguise in a very cool and entertaining superhero film.

Black Panther was introduced in July 1966 in Fantastic Four #52 comic by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby. I grew up reading comics, especially Batman and Spider-Man. As much as I loved those characters, Black Panther was different. He wasn't a sidekick like "The Falcon" to Captain America or a racial stereotype that was born out of the 70s blaxploitation film like "Luke Cage/ Power Man." 

He was T'Challa, African warrior who was the Black Panther, but he was also King of a fictional country in Africa called Wakanda. A technical marvel of a world with flying cars. A world so cool and advanced that I wanted to be a part of it. And the hero was Black.

For a little black kid growing up on the southside of Chicago to see that kind representation in the comics was amazing. A Black superhero who was cooler than Batman and richer than Bruce Wayne and he was King of a country. And he looked like me?! It was Fantastic!! And that's how I felt watching this movie. Fantastic!!!


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I thought the cast did an incredible job. (Chadwick Boseman) as the Black Panther plays T'Challa as a man who wants desperately to be a good king, but still struggles with how to be one. He has a certain dignity and swagger to T'Challa, its a very understated, good performance. 

And the Women of Wakanda are so BADASS!! They are intelligent, strong, fierce, independent and beautiful African women. 

Starting with the spy, ex-girlfriend Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o),

Okoye (Danai Gurira) general of the all female bodyguards to the king, The Dora Milaje and a breakout winning performance from (Letitia Wright) who plays T'Challa's brilliant tech wiz sister Shuri.

They're so good in this movie, they steal every scene that they're in. But for me, the real strength of this film comes from it's villain Erick Killmonger (Michael B Jordan). He is such a well fleshed out character who has such an affect on our hero and the plot, I was pleasantly surprised.

And because you understand his motivation so well, you might sometimes often agree with him. I think he's the best villain in the Marvel Universe. And that is the brilliance of Ryan Coogler's script. In Killmonger, Coogler is actually showing us the black experience in America. 

He shows us what could happen if kids are left without parents or mentors to fend for themselves in a broken system in inner-cities across America. His backstory is so tragic and sad, that you can't help but sympathize with him.

He is the real victim of this story. And the scene with him and  his father in the film is heartbreaking! I have never seen such a strong emotional social message in a comic book movie before. 

The cinematography and costume design were more impressive than what I remembered from the comic and they surpassed my imagination. It is not a perfect film. I do have some problems with it, mainly with the CGI, but I think this is a very important and inspiring film.

When I came out of the theater, I saw a group of black kids between the ages of five and 12 dressed up as their favorite characters from the film,taking pictures in front of a Black Panther poster. To think that they can now look at the screen and see someone who represents them. Someone that looks like they do and maybe even dressed like them. Maybe they have the same feeling that that little Black kid in Chicago had when he picked up his first Black Panther comic and said
"Hey, he looks like me."

Wakanda Forever!!

If you liked this blog post... Check out this other review.

Tune into our LIVE Watchcat Wednesday Blogcast on our Watchcat Films Youtube channel. Stop by and see, 
this Wednesday, April 18th @ 7:30pm PDT! 

 Watchcat LIVE Blogcast!
WatchcatWednesday 4/16/18@7:30pm https://www.youtube.com/c/WatchCatFilms9/live

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Watchcat Needs your Help.

Help us raise some money for a local Animal Shelter in the name of Watchcat. Clicking on the ads on this blog will not cost you a thing, only about less than a second of your time. We are only $30 in ad clicks away from reaching our $100 goal and asking you to click on an ad everytime you visit us.

December and January we got a lot of clicks pushing us to $70.34 and this month, we've only received 0.05 cents. We are hoping to get more ad clicks, so we can stop posting this request all the time since we are only very close to the goal.

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