Latest / The Hissing Feline / Hooked on cat videos? Go behind-the-scenes of the Cat Video Fest with Director Will Braden

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Hooked on cat videos? Go behind-the-scenes of the Cat Video Fest with Director Will Braden · The Hissing Feline

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Hissing Feline Podcast, a weekly program that is about everything cats.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: The Hissing Feline features experts and other cat aficionados who share their knowledge and perspectives about dealing with felines.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: From strays and ferals to adoption, health, and cat psychology.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: We hope the topics give you helpful and interesting insight into the world of cats.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here is the host of the Hissing Feline, Clark Greer.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Tens of millions of videos are uploaded to Facebook and various social media platforms every day.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Multiply that by the number of times those videos are viewed, and you come up with an astronomical number.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: An immensely popular type of online video features cats, live action, AI-generated cartoons, animation.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: They're everywhere.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: People simply can't get enough of cats being cats.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: I admit that I'm part of the audience that enjoys watching lots of cat antics.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: With me today on the Hissing Feedline is someone who is very acquainted with cat videos.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, they are his life.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Please welcome to the show Will Braden, director of the Cat Video Fest.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Will, it's really good to have you with us on the show today.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's my pleasure.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm purring so loudly.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's very good.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: What about the inspiration to start the fest?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I notice a lot of people like cat things, and the fest goes back several years.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: How did that all get started?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: My first uh inauguration into this was uh in 2012 uh in Minneapolis at the Walker Arts Center.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: They had the first Internet Cat Video Film Festival.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: That was its longer name then.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: And a film that I made won the Golden Kitty Award uh there in front of uh you know 11,000, 12,000 people.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I just sort of sunk my claws in and I said, I don't want to let this go, I want to be a part of it.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so bit by bit I just started working more with them and they moved on to other projects in 2015.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so since 2016, I've been in charge, and my full-time job is to watch 20,000 cat videos every year and find the best ones.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: So that that is a great job, but it's all I'm not going crazy yet.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about the growth in the US specifically.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: What has happened since 2016 as far as the number of theaters and the number of people who are attending those showings of the Cat Video Fest?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, when I first took over, I I was just kind of doing everything myself.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: And um so theaters would have a fair amount of success with it, but it was hard to just sort of cold call independent theaters and try to convince them and go, look, I understand this sounds crazy, but hear me out.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but in 2019, uh Oscill Scope Laboratories um who's a film distributor um started working with us and they were able to give it sort of a a pedigree of saying like this is actually something substantial.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so since then it's just kind of, I mean, except for the hiccup of uh of COVID, it's just kind of grown uh linearly since then.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um it we really have a very, very easy time uh uh going back to theaters because it rarely does badly, it has all this goodwill associated with it, it's so much fun, it's G-rated, there really isn't much to complain about.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: So we're lucky in the sense that as soon as we can find a theater that's willing to show it, they almost always want to keep showing it.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: So all I I to I say all I have to do is just not screw up and make the cat videos that's fun every year.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then it kind of sells itself.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's not a hard sell.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: So and the idea of cat videos, like I was saying in the introduction, they're just all over the place.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: So when you have cat people who are watching those anyway, and they say, Oh, I get to watch a whole bunch of this all at the same time, that must be a really good thing, then.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I do get people, uh I sometimes have not as much now, but in the past I've done press where people say, you know, you could all of these are online.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what why are we coming to do this?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: And my my glib answer is that it's a bit like saying, Well, I already know all of the songs from my favorite band.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Why would I ever go to a concert?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's just a whole different feeling.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's it's two things.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's one is you're with your people, the community of it is so fun.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's just a fun, infectious, uh, joyous experience to be in the theater with all these people watching it.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: And also, you get to do some good at the same time.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really it's if it's like saying, Well, if you want to do some good and you don't all you have to sacrifice is just going into a theater and laughing at cat videos, again, it's not a hard sell.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: We just have to get it in front of as many people's eyeballs as we can, and then it kind of the cat videos do the rest of the work.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's gone, it's gone international, and you get international submissions.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh is it showing internationally also?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: We've been uh I think in 25, 30 different countries.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh Australia and New Zealand is kind of our biggest uh second market after the US and Canada, but yeah, we played in in Southeast Asia and all over Europe and uh in Brazil.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it there's cats everywhere.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: So it maybe they have a sort of a different cultural footprint or paw print in certain areas, but it we have yet to find a place where it can't play.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a good, there's a really fun sort of worldwide sense of camaraderie there where it plays.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: It seems like it's a lot like music because music is such a big thing, it's a part of everybody's life and different cultures.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you can go from one culture to the other and enjoy all this music.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm guessing the same thing is true with humor revolving around cat uh videos.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a it's a good analogy.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it it there's for example, in um in Turkey, the huge cat culture there, but it's a little lot less about ownership and more just about letting the cats do what they want, and they kind of just go wherever they want.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: And if you go through subway stations, they're just like hanging out.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then in Japan, for example, cats are much more associated with with good luck and things like that.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, there's like adjustments to the real each time in terms of what people find the most funny, but you're right, it kind of just like it's you know, you music play everywhere, cats are everywhere.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, if we can do a show in Antarctica, they probably you know would still watch it, the scientists of the resource station.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so yeah, there really isn't any sort of uh hard place where we just go, oh, this won't work there.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: It works everywhere.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: I love watching cat videos.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: My wife watches cat videos.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's the reason why we see so many on social media because the algorithm knows that, oh, they like cat videos, here's some more.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we just love this stuff.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm we've seen them from all over the place.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that it's been said before, I'm not the person to coin this idea, but that the the internet has become kind of the virtual cat park.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why people say, you know, the internet runs on cat videos is because there's no, you know, take your cat to work day.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's no there's no cat parks, you know.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: People do walk their cats on leashes sometimes, but it's rare.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so because of that, the the the the community of sort of I want to share this experience that like dog owners just have going out to breweries or dog parks or whatever, cat owners have online by and large.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I see that a lot at Cat Video Fest showings where people want to show each other pictures and videos of their own cats, and uh so we're happy to be along for the ride and just be kind of a part of that community because it really is uh not only a fun community, but a generous one too.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I saw I saw a meme recently uh on social media, and there were two jars, and one said it's it's the jar when you don't say the right thing, and it's got a few quarters in it.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: The other one is the jar said something about talking about my cats when people don't ask me, and the jar is full of money, right?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of like that's one of the fun parts about being at Cat Video Fest is that you're gonna not be judged as much about talking too much about your cat.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's like everyone's like, okay, we got it.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: We're I'm I'm with my people, I feel seen here, and it's a safe space for being too into cats, I would say.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: My wife and I recently enjoyed a showing of the fest at a local theater, and we were talking about it a little bit before we started the show.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was really entertaining, but what an audience does not see is all the work and the amount of work that goes behind it.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned looking at thousands of cat videos.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Is there an average number of entries that you receive annually?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe the average number of hours that are represented?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's hard to say for hours.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: I will say, I mean, I can catalog how many videos I actually see because I have to go really like keep track of it.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's about 20,000 or so every year.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: I have a huge spreadsheet that I have to keep track of because I don't trust myself with that many cat videos to remember every little thing that I think on first viewing.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we get you know hundreds and hundreds of submissions every year, and it it changes every year in terms of how many of those end up in the real.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Some year in particular, we might get a whole bunch of really, really great stuff.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I will say that the more successful we are and and the larger our paw print is and in the world, um, the more people are likely to submit because they, you know, everybody if you know somebody that has seen a short film that you made that has that's about a cat, they see Cat Video Fest, they say, Oh, well, I have to go, you know, email Mark and say you should submit for this next year.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of people organically do a lot of the work for us and spreading the word.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but really I have to say, I mean, it's not, it's it's less than 50% of the real is from submissions.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of it is me just scouring the internet and reaching out to people and finding things that people haven't seen before is a big uh challenge that I uh I find really important.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: I want to be able to say to somebody, oh, you think you see every cat video?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: I promise you're not gonna see a bunch of stuff.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because if it was just all of the most popular viral ones, there would rightfully people would be able to say, Well, I, you know, I've seen these.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm happy to do my part, but I've seen all these.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I want people to feel like it's a real curated experience, that there's variety, that there's real pacing, that even though we're watching videos in all aspect ratios and it's some of them are from uh everywhere you can imagine on social media and whatnot, yeah.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: I want people to feel still like there's some real thought put into it, into the experience.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, because otherwise I would feel like that people would rightly feel like when they come out of the theater, they go, okay, well, that was all right, but I've seen all those.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: I I get it.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: We've seen a lot of cat videos, and I think maybe there was one in that whole showing time is what, 70 to 75 minutes, something like that.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think there might have been one.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'd have to think back where I saw it, but all the rest of them were new to me.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's good to hear.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's what I go for.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: What are the types of videos?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: I noticed in the show that you you have different different types or different segments.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's an art one, there's some live action.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Categories, yeah.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Category, that's very good, yeah.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: To a certain extent, the categories are kind of just to like let people know to take kind of take a breath and go, okay, because so it's not just relentless.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: But I also do find that uh categorizing them allows me to sort of find some sort of common thread, and that uh it makes it feel a little bit more like there's a a structure to it.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: But obviously, some of the uh most of the videos in the drama category are funny, yeah.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Most of the videos in the comedy category are you know somewhat dramatic.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: But there's sort of an action adventure category which allows me to sort of do a lot of funny cat sort of climbing and jumping.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I usually do a documentary section where I can show things that are kind of more um either cats being rescued, but then also, you know, there's a news clip, for example, of a cat that keeps crossing the border from Canada to script it's a great news story up there, yeah.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then often this often I'll do a category with music.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this cat this year I did a category with art because I just there was a lot of really fun, expressive either music or uh cartoons or or you know uh mixed media art, things like that.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: I really want people to come away from it thinking that there was uh a a lot of variety on on the showcase because if I just showed the classic sort of America's funniest on videos cat video where they you know cats are just fallen and accidentally silly, that would just be too relentless for 75 minutes.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: So there's gotta be a hu a a lot of variety, and that also allows me to try to head it off at the past with people maybe who get taken there by a spouse or a kid to just go, oh god, it's just like you know, 20 minutes of TikTok videos or something, to be able to say, Oh, there's some real you know, artistry and design behind a lot of these things.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it's and it's educational too, because I'm I'm expecting at the show to see a lot of the animated type or not animated, but uh live action type things and some of the cute little clips and uh memes and those types of things.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I look at it and say, wow, some of these people are really spent a lot of time when they're when they're dealing with cat things.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it's also just I what I love every year I can find at least one or two um student animation projects where people have have have had an assignment as they're graduating from uh from university to to and they've chosen cats as the sort of the subject of it.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's always a good choice.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I tell this to people out there, if you're trying to, if you have a project in film school, I did it myself.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Use a cat.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: It just it just it's like gets you from like a B plus to an A minus just by the fact that it's cats.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, and and you could end up in Cat VFS, so why not?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And there you are.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we're gonna take a break here in a minute, but I do I want to ask you first, um, what are what types of venues are?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: They pretty much all in theaters of some size.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: I know ours was fairly small in our area that we went to, but I'm I'm guessing they probably show them in much larger theaters.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if they're the Detroit Institute of Art has a giant theater and that does really big shows every year.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: And mostly we're in independent theaters, so they're all different sizes.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, um, but we also show in museums, uh performing art centers.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um sometimes shelters will just put on fundraising shows themselves and have us as sort of the entertainment.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we'll project it on the side of a barn if it raises money for shelters.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we're we're we're okay either way, but I would say independent cinema just in general is kind of our bread and butter.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so if people see Cavity Fests and they think, well, why isn't this at Insert My Local Theater here?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: Contact your theater, tell them to email us, we'll we'll set it up.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we were we were thinking we were gonna have to drive on the other side.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're in Iowa, so I was thinking, oh, we're gonna have to drive to Iowa City to watch it because they have showings over where the university is.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then my wife says, Oh, there's one in town here.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's nice, that'll save us an hour and a half driving.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was great, and really had a lot of lot of fun with it.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the audience, everybody laughs together, and it's it's very cute stuff.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: It is very unironically joyful, and we all need that right now.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: You're listening to the Hissing Feline podcast.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Clark Greer, with my guest Will Braden.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: He is director of the Cat Video Fest.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Coming up in the second segment, we're gonna talk some about the best cat videos he has received.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: So please stay with us.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: The young couple were dyed in the Wolf Dog people who dreamed of someday having a faithful mutt.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Cats were not even on their list.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: That was until they adopted a timid gray tabby they named Sadie.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: The cuteness quickly turned into reality when Sadie took charge of the house.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: The good news was that on her best days, the cat was only slightly difficult.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yet, over two decades, Sadie became a beloved part of the family.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: The Striped Tornado, Life and Times of a Rotten Cat, is Sadie's story, a memoir that will inspire readers to rise above their challenges, to find companionship and love in the most unlikely places.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: The Striped Tornado, available on Amazon.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is the Hissing Feline Podcast, a show about everything cats.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Today's guest is Will Braden, director of the Cat Video Fest.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's really nice to have you here today, Will.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: My pleasure.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: What is the process that you go through to receive cat submissions, sorting through the entries, and then the selection criteria?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we try to make the process of submitting uh an entry as as smooth as and you know painless as possible.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: So if you go to our website, uh catvideofest.com, there's a submission page, and it's it's as simple as you send the link, you give us your name and your contact, tell us a little bit about the video, and and then you just have to say if you made it or you're just submitting it because you found it and you liked it.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I watch every single one of them and then get back in touch with people whose videos I think might be a good fit for the festival.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the biggest thing that I have to go through with submissions is that we have 75 minutes total, and I try to get about 200 different clips in there, so it goes by at a a quick pace.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: So if you make the greatest cat video I've ever seen, but it's seven minutes long, I can't put the whole thing in there.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I have to often, you know, uh see if people are willing to let me edit down their you know short films or clips or things like that.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then a lot of times I I just scour the internet and find uh you know great videos, and sometimes they need to be edited down.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes um I think that they'll really work well, but they need a little extra caption or a different music cue or something.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: So but by and large, uh, you know, getting a hold of people uh either from their submissions or or um me contacting them, it gets easier every year.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: Used to be difficult when YouTube was kind of the lion's share of everything.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was just you know, trying to get people to not think of my email as spam or whatever and just go I promise I'm a real person.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it gets easier every year.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: Communication and and you know, is easier to do.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so many times I hear like, I was gonna submit my video last year, but I don't know.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I go, I'll watch anything, don't worry about it.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: The worst that can happen is I say, Yeah, you got a great cat, but I'm not sure if that'll fit or not.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, why not?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I gotta think word of mouth is good too, because we went to we went to the showing.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how many people we tell that we went to the showing, and because I I think most of it is uh occurs in August.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Is that correct?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Most of the showing.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: I would say we most I would say probably you know more than half of our shows uh start in sort of early August and go through.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: But then there's lots of encores and everything too.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: And as you said, the word of mouth and sort of that organic spread of the the the joy of it is a huge part of the success because it's just so sort of undeniably fun.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: And there aren't many things that you can take your nine-year-old and your 90-year-old to.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's it.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: There's probably what, Taylor Swift, maybe some Pixar movies and us.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's about it.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so the fact that it appeals to everybody, it means that it's more likely if someone sees it, like you mentioned, they just want to tell everybody else about it.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a huge part of the success in terms of promoting it and also in terms of people giving feedback about it too.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: The family sat in front of us.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think they had a couple kids were they hard to tell in a theater with the height of the the seats, but it looks like two of them had cat ears, they were wearing the little, you know.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: These must people must be really into cats.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that's another great thing, too, is that we're not precious at all about how the the reel gets presented.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: We trust the indie theaters to do what they want and how they want to promote it.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they'll have you know, costume contests, so they'll have uh other people up there, you know, doing a QA about cat care in front of it or before the reel, or a lot of times during the pre-show reel that plays, you know, like in terms of places of previews.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: People can submit pictures of their cats from the local community and they kind of play on the big screen and that's fun.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, as long as the reel plays, we want we trust the local shelters and the local cinema to to decide sort of how to best present it.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that that's part of what makes each show special and connected to the community because they're all different.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's really important.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have one or two favorite videos that you could talk about today?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you watch 20,000 of these things a year, so that's that's a lot of news.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: I have to say I'm really I'm a sucker for the classic kind of sort of silly cat videos.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: What I what I like are ones that I can look back on over the past you know decade plus that I've been watching these, that to my mind typify what's special about cat videos.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: One is a real a classic one um about a I think it's ninja stalking cat, and it's about the I think that this guy found that his cat would just sort of playfully stalk him, but whenever he was looking, the cat would freeze.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: So he hides in a closet and then just peeks out of the closet, and every time he peeks out back and forth.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Forth.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: The cat is a little closer, but you never see it move.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: And there's something so fun about that because you couldn't write that.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: You couldn't make a cat do that if they didn't do it automatically.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny, it's silly, it's relatable to other cat people.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: So that's just one of my all-time favorites because it it typifies what I think made made cat videos so special on the internet.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um so things like that are my favorite.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: Every year I have new favorites and new things that sort of change, but um I had that will be my all-time favorite forever, I think.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I won't give away the store because I want people to go watch.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: This this is recorded uh middle August, and so it'll it will run uh about the third week of August.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: So if people haven't been to a showing, they can get one in their area.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about that in a minute.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't want to give away the store, but there's one that we were talking about.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's absolutely amazing because it the person had to put a lot of thought and creativity and time into producing this.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it kind of shows the inner workings of a cat.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's a yeah, this one that's very silly, but also very sort of produced and and technically created.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: And even though it's a bit silly, I think that some of these videos, there's there's a perfect audience out there for them, and that's Cat Video Fest.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: You couldn't just show them to a thousand average people and go, This is gonna kill, everyone's gonna love it.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: But you can show it to a thousand people in a theater that all paid for Cat Video Fest tickets, and every single one of them are going to love it.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: So there is kind of a real special joy when you find these videos that go, oh, these are the people that are gonna get it, and they're gonna love it.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, that that is a good joy to find videos like that.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: You were mentioning uh earlier about uh local efforts and uh local shelters and things.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's important to note that part of the proceeds go to help local efforts for uh for animals.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's part of the DNA.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: We don't do any shows at all unless there's a a charitable beneficiary.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's always a local shelter or a local animal welfare organization, and it's always local, obviously, to where our shows are.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's different everywhere.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: It would obviously be a lot easier to us if we just did all of our shows and at the end of the year wrote a check to, you know, the ASPCA or community, which are great organizations.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: But we found that uh not only is it better for the cats, it's better for our events to be partnered with local shelters because what uh is needed in any particular area is different than what's needed somewhere else.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: And the local shelters not only get a percentage of the ticket sales, they also usually can set up in the lobby and sign up volunteers, sign up fosters, um, give information out and uh sometimes even have cats available for adoption if a theater is really cool with it.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: So that's part of what makes the shows unique, and it's also part of what makes it undeniably, you know, uh exciting for people to hear about because you think, oh, if I I probably am gonna go watch all these cavities in a theater anyway.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just a bonus that it's gonna be helping local cats in need.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: And also people hear about it from the shelters.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, you're or you go take your cat into the vet and they say, Oh, have you heard about Cavity Fest?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: And oh, they're benefiting, you know, this local shelter, and that's where I got my cat 10 years ago.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's all just part and parcel of the same thing, and it makes everything feel special.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I mean it it it makes it's a good feeling.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: We've raised a million dollars uh over the last decade.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: So it's yeah, and it's no sh no signs of slowing.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think we're gonna run out of cat videos uh anytime soon.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have any future plans for the fest?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, again, I don't I don't want to give away something that you might want to say, oh, we're gonna surprise people with this down the road.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: What are some things you've thought about?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, one of the things, and I I had mentioned to you before we started, which is just I really just every time it plays somewhere and people have a great time and the theater wants to do it again, people are likely to come see it two, three, four, five years in a row.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: So all I have to do, my responsibility is just to not screw it up, you know.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: I just have to not try to change too much or not try to mess with the formula of what works.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: And uh as long as we can keep making people happy and keep raising money for cats in need, then it'll just keep growing organically.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I I just have to trust that what people are uh liking about it now will continue on and and not change things too much.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I have the greatest job in the world.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: All I just have to keep watching cat videos and and not and not make not change anything that's working, you know?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's not broke, don't fix it.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's not a bad type of business to be in, is to watch all the humorous cat videos and things.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: If someone in our the who's listening to the podcast today is interested in looking at the Cat Video Fest in their area, I know it's in different areas at different times.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: What is the best way for them to get information about their local area?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if you go to catvideofest.com, we have not only information about the festival and submissions and things like that, uh, and information about all of our charitable partners, but there is a map of all the showings.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: And you can basically just zoom in anywhere in the world to where you might want to see it and see little uh links to tickets and things like that.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a pretty full map, I have to say.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the easiest way to find it because you don't have to sort of necessarily Google and trust everything to try to figure out what's going on.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: You can just go to your area and I'm sure that we're gonna have a theater near you.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: And if we don't, tell us and we'll figure it out.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, very nice.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: I want to thank Will Braden, the director of Cat Video Fest, for joining me today on the podcast.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is this has been really fun.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: My like I said, my wife and I enjoyed seeing that.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I and I hope you do have a lot more viewers uh throughout uh the month of August and uh that you continue to grow.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's been really good uh chatting with you today, Will.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: It was a pleasure for me as well.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I I I I can't imagine we're going to run out of cat videos for people that want to see them.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll have a job as long as I want it.
• 28:11
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• 28:20
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• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Melissa Bolden talks about symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of feline dementia.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Until then, remember to keep hurrying.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Content on the Hissing Feline podcast is for information and entertainment purposes only, and is not intended to provide medical, veterinary, or legal advice.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Please consult your veterinarian and local and state authorities before dealing with feral and straight cats.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Opinions expressed are those of the hosts and guests, and not necessarily those of Duracho Cat Media LLC.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: References to products or services do not imply an endorsement.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: The Hissing Feline podcast is a production of Duracio Cat Media LLC and has been blessed by our rescue cats, Bridget and Maddie.
• 29:16
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