I’m thankful to writers like Lori Duska who has been writing funny commentary by the cats to management for our daily updates.
I’m thankful for all the work groups who come out and share their blood, sweat and tears to help us with the less glamorous parts of our work, like spreading dirt to raise the elevation of the cats’ cages above flood levels.
I paid $100 to RealityTVScouts.com and am thankful that they were so thorough in their pitch. I think I have a pretty good feel for how we can do our own reality series here and sent the following to Afton:
Out of curiosity, I paid 100.00 to see how Reality TV Scouts promotes ideas to the channels. Their pitch is pretty scammy sounding and I doubt that we will work with them, even though they said we would be a great show for them to pitch, because they said it would cost about $64,000 to film the sizzle reel and put together the "treatment". I'll send you the PDF they sent me about how shows are pitched and below is a link to how they do their sizzle reels:
http://www.realitytvscouts.com/project-library/?inf_contact_key=f1ffc8fd7b26b23d73ded049a2ee73940a20308226b93d1d28c52aed5514d46f
The reason I'm sending you this is that reality shows are still hugely popular and I think we can do our own YouTube version that will go viral if we do a little bit more to spice up some of our stuff.
I've been watching all kinds of reality shows lately to try and figure out what the format looks like and essentially it is creating a deadline, the drama to meet the deadline, the characters involved showing a bit of who they are, and the sense of voyeurism that makes you feel like you are in the room watching.
With the Artemis footage that is on the camera right now, I think you can film some shots to cut in that really make people pay attention (to yet another dental vid). I wish I'd thought to get a few shots of Dr. Miller, Dr. Justin and Jamie, and now that can't happen for 2 weeks, but Gale's good on camera so maybe she can carry it and sort of set up the scenes.
The idea would be something like filming Gale, in the Cat Hospital (as if it happened then, so no wide view of empty room) where she does the following bits that are then followed by what actually happened:
In her own words so it doesn't look like she's reading and only a sentence or two for each set up:
Gale Outside: Artemis Cougar is really shy. We're moving her family to a new area, but there's no way we're going to catch her. Since we have to sedate her, it's a good time to see why she's being so fussy about chewing bones.
Then you show some footage of Artemis being a spook.
Gale Outside: We have to hide in the bushes until Dr. Justin has the darts all loaded. Artemis likes me, and I trapped her, so I'll go help.
Show that.
Gale Outside: That first dose wasn't enough. She's really freaked out and sedation doesn't always work when there's a lot of adrenalin pumping though their veins. Once she's down the clock is ticking. Three hours and we have to wake her up, whether we are done or not, or she could die.
Show the follow up darting.
Gale Outside: Alright, she's down. Now we have to hurry up and get her out of the tunnel and into the transport, but she could wake up at any minute so we have to hurry.
Show that.
Gale Outside: Shew, she was heavier that we thought. Maybe that's why it took more drugs. Good news is that she's loaded and we're on our way to the Windsong Memorial Hospital to check her out.
Show that.
Gale Inside hospital: So she weighs X and was sedated at X o'clock. Sedation is very dangerous for wild cats, so we have to hurry, but it's the first time she's been sedated in 11 years, so we want to gather as much info as we can, like blood work, X-rays, a full body exam and then maybe take some dental X-rays.
Show everything but the dental X-rays.
Gale Inside hospital: Whenever we can we call Dr Tammy Miller, who is a board certified ophthalmologist.
