News Flash 2022

Welcome to the New Year of 2022, a lot has been changing and even though we haven't added any new "WatchCat" episodes to this blog, we are amazed to see that people are still popping by to look at it from time to time.

Covid changed life for everyone, but a few good things came out of this terrible situation for us.

Greg has become the manager of a bar/videogame retro arcade called "Player One". He and his co director are still working on finishing their feature film, "Noir". They are in post production, get the visual effects worked on by a small team of pros who have done work the Marvel films. Its been a slow, but steady process which we hope will be completed this year, fingers crossed.

As for myself, I was working part time for AAA as a driving instructor while teaching part time animation. This was a great Summer job situation for me, but it ended when the Pandemic began. A freelance job popped up where a friend of a friend needed some 2D animation. In the film, the main children actor would be drawing a tiger while in class. As he does so, the drawing suddenly comes to life and plays with the kid's pencil like a kitten.

It was a great experience to return to animating 2D again and I later learned that the film starred Dennis Quade and Queen Latifah. 

I also began teaching my animation classes again but online since the University had closed their campus and sent students home. It was difficult at first, but I believe it also showed the world that it is still possible to work from home. A lot of my friends working at major studios like Disney, moved their equipment to set up their new offices into their homes or apartments.

I also got another online opportunity to teach as a 2D mentor for an Australian based school called CG Spectrum.  I gave it a try and discovered I really like teaching there because its not based on grades. Students take the lessons online and are given a weekly critique of their work from a mentor. I review their work and give them personal feedback to help them improve the projects they are working on.

As well as teaching online, I am continuing to work on building my YouTube channel oddly called, Animateducated (pronounced animated educated) I interviewed more interesting artist, including another Jim Richardson who is a well known National Geographic photographer and his work is awesome! And also I contacted Winsor McCay from the great beyond in my Halloween episode of 2021. Click the photo below to see these interviews from 2021.

 

So there you have it, if you would like to subscribe to Animateducated to help build my YouTube channel. Or you can click on the ads of this blog and show your support for Watchcat. Every ad click generates extra income to the blog, so make sure you click the ads a few hundred times each time you visit.

Thanks again and Happy New Year!

NOIR final days

Several days, hours really, the NOIR Indiegogo campaign will end and we need to raise as much funds before it closes. We have seen a lot of viewers who have discovered our videos and have responded, maybe even for a second time. We are truly thankful for everyone who has supported this 3rd Indiegogo campaign. 

We have been pushing this last campaign to the point where Greg even reached out to Kevin Smith and Mark Bernardin of the FatMan Beyond show. See Greg sweat!

The benefit to all backers of NOIR at the least, will be that they will have a copy of the film when its finally finished. Our only fear is that we haven't found enough people to help with the funding.

As of this post, NOIR has 19% of its fund raising goal and 48 backers so far. We hope if you have recently been following our posts, you will consider donating to the NOIR campaign. At this point, every pledge will help us finally finish this project and you will be apart of helping us to get it done. It all ends on Friday, June 14th. Pray Good triumphs over Evil.

Like this post? After your donation to NOIR, click on the ads to fill up our blog tip jar. Or subscribe to Animateducated.

One last roar for Noir

Enjoying a NOIR moment and poster, Greg with Comicbook artist Neal Adams!

The Noir Indiegogo campaign is starting come to an end and we still need your help.This project has been funded through previous Indiegogo campaigns and is now seeking funds to finish the film's special effects and sound work. 

Self Promotion is the key for getting anything in front of an audience. Greg got a chance to talk about NOIR on the FatMan Beyond show with Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin.

The above promo has been seen by 1035 viewers so far on the Animateducated channel to inform everyone about the Noir Indiegogo campaign. We have been pushing these videos to gain public interest in this film and seek the funds for post-production. From the very beginning, this has been a labor of love project with a small budget, showcasing a great cast of talent in front and behind the camera.

“NOIR - Let’s Finish It!” Indiegogo-Pitch-2019 from Lee Anthony Smith on Vimeo.

Here's the Indiegogo link to help us finish NOIR, so we finally complete the film and won't have to beg you anymore. This project started about 5 years ago and has taken longer to complete than anticipated. Making a low budget feature in 1940s Hollywood, combining it with classic horror Universal type monsters from that era and presenting it as a B&W Film Noir detective story was always ambitious from the start. 

Lee and Greg knew what they lacked in production budget, they discovered a very talented cast to help bring their unique story to life. In a sense, they have been making a film in the same way Hollywood films were made during that time.

This is independent filmmaking at its finest and we hope as the days grow shorter for the NOIR indiegogo campaign that final donations will be made. Please show your support, share this post with a friend and help us finish it.

Thank You,
Orson Welles

Watchcat started around the same time that NOIR was starting up. And so, Watchcat Films will send an original Watchcat drawing to everyone who makes a pledge to NOIR. Be sure to mention "Watchcat sent me".  

This week, we also found out that Watchcat was accepted and will be screened as a part of the Florida Animation Festival on Saturday, June 15th @ 1pm. If anyone goes to this festival, please let us know what you thought of the show, below.

 

Show your support for this blog by clicking on the ads. Its our internet tip jar.

Thank You! 

Watchcat at CTN Roadtrip

The Burbank Arts Festival was held on San Fernando road between Magnolia and E. Angeleno Ave or also known as beautiful Downtown Burbank. We set up our table as a part of the CTN Roadtrip to let people know we have a project on YouTube called Watchcat and attempt to build more of any audience.

The weather was fine over the weekend and even though it rained over night, everything dried out by mid-morning when the event resumed on Sunday.

We came to sell Watchcat T-Shirts, Coloring books, Pins and gave away a lot of Watchcat Postcards directing people to our Watchcat Films YouTube channel. We also handed out flyers for our NOIR Indiegogo champaign.

Welcome to the modern way of Self Promotion. Having a website is fine, however any event where you can actually meet your future audience is a very special place to be.

Oh sure, most of your audience is passing by your booth, walking their dogs or pushing their kids in strollers and often at the same time. They're looking around for something new and there were a lot of artists to see this weekend.

We learned a lot about displaying artwork to the audience passing by the booth. We need to invest in a large banner which will hang behind our table of wonders. The passersby often are looking up to see what is at the tent they are approaching. Any signage taped to the front of a table is often missed or only seen by small children, who can't read yet.

Walking around to see the other booths was a real education, some people used the wires above their tent to display artwork. Others created simple displays to hold prints or books they created.





We learned a lot about exhibiting artwork this time around and have a whole year to see if we want to do this again or not. 


We had great weather, met a lot of people, handed out postcards  and even sold some T-shirts, Coloring books and pins as well.

 And so, until the next Burbank Arts Festival.

If we met you this year or enjoyed this post, please let us know. You can also visit and subscribe to Watchcat Films or learn more about animation at Animateducated. Or at least, click on the ads to show your support.

NOIR's Indiegogo Campaign

Eric James of Neal Adams Crusty Bunkers Comicbook shop in Burbank

The final Indiegogo campaign for NOIR began on Sunday, May 5th and has 38 days to go. A fund raising party occurred on the same day to kick off the campaign, premiere the new trailer and screen a rough cut of the film to invited cast, crew and friends. 

The film has been completely shot and the funds received this time will be going toward special effects shots, finishing up the editing and sound process. Take a look at the new trailer below, without giving away any of the awesome story, enjoy.

Noir-teaser-2 from Lee Anthony Smith on Vimeo.
If you would like to learn more about this film and how you can help fund it, please visit their Indiegogo page today. 

NOIR the film

Four years ago, two writers decided to take one of their scripts and make it into their own feature film project. Its been quite a journey up to this point, but now the end is in sight for an upcoming feature film known as Noir. 

NOIR Indiegogo Pitch from Lee Anthony Smith on Vimeo.

Greg and Tony set up their first Indiegogo campaign and were able to raise enough money to begin the production. Being a very low budget film, they knew they had to have a good cast to help flush out all the characters in the film. A lot of time was well spent in the casting process to find the right actors with the most patience during the production process.

Here's a short interview with Greg Bradley and Lee Anthony Smith about Noir and how you can help them finish the film.

The Indiegogo campaign is up and running, please visit it here. You can also learn more about the film by visiting @noirthefilm on Instagram and Facebook, 


Was that worth a few ad clicks for the price of admission? Let us know with a like or subscribe to either Animateducated or Watchcat films on Youtube, maybe even both at the same time.

Next Post: The NOIR launch party results and the upcoming Burbank Arts Festival (Watchcat Weekend) May 18/19

Watchcat Year in Review 2: Electric Boogaloo

Will this be the year of the Watchcat?

Let's take a look back at 2018.

Watchcat Films, our Youtube channel began the year with
121 subscribers and has gained 63 new subscribers, we begin 2019 with 184 subscribers. 

Our Watchcat files blog views have also increased in size. We began with 20,250 views and grew to 46,891 views or 26,641 new views in 2018. I guess some people like what we are doing? 

We started 2018 with this New Year's Greeting...

Posted several Watchcat Reviews of different films that we enjoyed this year.

Also started a new segment called "Jim Draws" where Jim drew stuff and talked about it. 

Time was hard to come by to work on episodes this year, but we managed to turn out two. The Halloween episode was boarded like this, https://youtu.be/wGP6iDWodrQ, 
but it was a lot of work to produce and so, creative editing was used to tell a different shorter story.

My thanks to Joel Brinkerhoff for helping me animate Mikey. 

And we finished 2018, by finishing the Holiday episode this time, playing around with black and white.

What about 2019?
Its time to concentrate on writing a complete Watchcat story which could be turned into a graphic novel or a series of shorts. Greg will be writing it this year, complete with a Backstory, Character flaws and development, a 3 act story structure to tell more of a complete story, if one exists as a graphic novel, screenplay or TV series?

Planning to get a table at this year's Burbank Art Festival , May 18 & 19, to help promote Watchcat to the public and hopefully sell some merch. We were there in 2017 and had a 
great weekend.


In 2018, we donated to $200 to Big Cat Rescue. With your ad clicks, we reached our first Google $100 goal and are continuing to do so. 

As always, please click on the ads to help us get to the next $100 goal. We are now only at $9.57 with $1.03 this month so far. I haven't been pushing the ad clicks, because I feel like a broken record or CD, but every click on the ads does add to the fund and shows your support!

Click now to wish us a Happy New Year!

Love to hear from you in the comments section below...

Here's hoping you have a great 2019 in the New Year and thank you for your continued support! 

Become a Follower to this blog or Subscribe to Watchcat Films. If you want to listen to a new podcast about animation, check out Animateducated.

HAPPY