The Story

The story is set in one location with moving sets behind the character action. Transitions between scenes would be accomplished by 2D and 3D aesthetic shifts incorporating shadows, colors and flat planes shifting in space (back and forth, side to side). The film would be designed to be accomplished exclusively in Maya (3D). The feel would be reminiscent of old cartoons and live theater. We'd like to keep the simplicity of the story reel style from the Just Pink. The character design of the cats would not be photo realistic but somewhat abstract and simplified. So -- fur is not an enormous issue but follow-through might be. The look of the kittens would also be abstract and simplified.  The human characters would be much less important -- often only showing the perspective of the cats (upper body, lower body, feet, hands, etc). Also, 4-legged creatures are a bit of a challenge to animate. It can be done, but several people in the class are going to make this a fulltime job for a while. We need to know who those folks are.

The story itself would revolve around a cat and an old lady in a generic looking house. The cat is the woman's pet. The cat has had many litters of kittens but has spent all of her time keeping the existence of the kittens secret from her owner. To the woman who owns the cat continuously misses the kittens by a very narrow margin until one day the kittens just seem to come out of nowhere.

The woman is very upset by the existence of the kittens (she doesn't want them) and uses boxes to put the kittens in. As soon as one is placed in a box, more show up in the house. Soon the house is overridden by kittens of all shapes and sizes The old lady, who doesn't want any more cats to take care of keeps finding kittens around the house in very strange locations and takes them, one by one, setting them in boxes in the front yard with a sign "free cats, please take one".  The boxes have holes in them and the kittens squirm out as she reaches for the packing tape to secure the boxes.

The woman finds the Daddy cat in the house and angrily returns the cat to the neighbor. The Momma cat watches the old woman and hates her for stealing her kittens and giving them away. Each kitten has a different story about how they tried to outsmart the old woman to keep from being put in the box. We mayor may not have time to tell a few of these. The old woman becomes more and more upset and frustrated that the more she tries to rid herself of the kittens, the more they seem to emerge in weird places in her house.

Finally out of desperation and fatigue, the old woman goes to her TV room, turns on the TV, reads and falls asleep. Several dozen cats  (the ones that were given away) emerge, pick her up in her sleep, and removed her from the house and place her in a box in front of her house. The cats have changed the sign to read "Free. Take one"