The Cat Piano

For all of you in the US, the NTSC version of the CP DVD is now available. Bit thanks to Mr. John Walsh in CA who helped with making sure it works! Can purchase with paypal at this link.

Enjoy!

http://kunaki.com/Sales.asp?PID=PX00WHDEO2&PP=1

As mentioned in the previous post, we have created a special edition Blu Ray version of the Cat Piano DVD. The DVD has a variant cover and the same features as the Standard Definition version. They can be purchased off our eBay listing for A$50 each + postage and handling.

Each copy is signed and numbered by Writer-Director Eddie White and shrink wrapped. You will need a Blu-Ray player to play the DVD. Click here to buy!

The Standard Definition version will be available on Amazon in February.

The wait is nearly over. The Cat Piano will be available on DVD in February.

In addition to the 8-minute film, the DVD will include:

• English subtitles
• 11-minute interview with directors Eddie White & Ari Gibson
• Concept art slideshow
• Animatic with “deleted scenes”

We’re using CreateSpace to self-publish the DVDs, so they will be available through Amazon for US$20.  Watch this space for more details!

Also, in the next couple of days we will be releasing a Limited Edition High Definition DVD version with a variant cover. Only 50 have been made and they are signed and numbered by director Eddie White.

Below is a small preview of the interview included on the extra features:

SATELLITE

A dark Christmas beat poem

By

Eddie White

It was a town built on tacky souvenirs,
Christmas sneers.
Imported knick-knacks deported from countries that wouldn’t, didn’t, couldn’t believe in naked, bearded messiahs.
Hacksaws, stalagmites and a stalleg-might just fall and impale you.
An old lady slips on the sleet laminated street,
Like a fat little bird flapping her arms.
Frostbite.
Frozen garbage.
Burnt chestnuts.
Rats threw themselves in front of subways in hope of being re-incarnated as something other than… rats.
Tonsillitis choirs that coughed like off-key greeting cards.
Spray-on snow that caused lung cancer.
Synthetic striped candy canes that contained sinister colouring agents.

On a city rooftop, perched like a suicidal angel on a xmas treetop,
A drunken, dyslexic hobo is dressed as Snata Cluas.
Thinks he can fly.
With no sleigh
No sled.
No magic. Just madness.
Snowflakes flutter to the ground like crystalised, hypnotized, dying white butterflies.
The vagrant jumps…
…. And hits the ground like a scarlet sack of shit and stale xmas hams.
His head, an egg. Cracked, spilled, embarrassing.
A turkey.
Stuffing all loose.
Cranberry halo.
Father listless.

Rushed to the hospital… Well, not rushed, but taken.
Metal plate inserted.
A cheaper model. Factory 3rd. Sewn up. Spat back out the door.
Robo-Hobo.
Still dyslexic and poor.
A wired jaw.
Unable to sing or swallow or cheer a ho-ho-ho.
Wandering the street, anaesthetised, pickled…
… In a jar of his own post-operative confusion.
Do not operate heavy machinery.
His cotton wool beard, smeared with a hemorrhage red
Stitches and staples, bulldog clips biting down to stop the bleeding.

He can hear things. Songs and sounds.
Not of this world, but that one. Up there, out there.
Past a TV store.
They fizz and fuzz and turn to alien broadcasts beamed via his aluminum scalp.
Vivid images far, from beyond tinsel and Styrofoam stars
He, a human conductor of intergalactic cable TV.

Passing car adios crackle and babble a language foreign to the most foreign of foreigners,
In some higher pitch, some lower octave, some middle ear.
Cats scream, dogs whine, car alarms convulse.

In the houses, screens are scrambled. images appear. It’s not a holiday up there.
People stare into their boxes at the unfamiliar faces on unfamiliar heads.
With familiar pupils.
News broadcasters, presenters, salesman from an orb beyond the sun.

They forget jolly bearded men owned by soda pop corporations,
They forget overworked and underpaid elf workers of the inhospitable Arctic
And horned quadrupeds with unconfirmed flying abilities.
They forget fake idols in their likenesses made of snow, with irrelevant hats and vegetarian noses. Shepherds and stars and mangers and births, deaths and re-births.
As they look into the eyes of another life form, unable to blink or think.
They feel miniature, microscopic. Amoebas in clothes roaming the earth.
Shopping, eating, drinking. Smoking. Snoring. Ignoring.

For the first time since there was light in life there is no light
… but the squares of images locking the world’s gazes
Invasions cease. Religions are mute. Mankind is a baby.
Staring, wide-eyed at the cosmic mobile that hangs above.

The walking antenna dribbles across the street in a daze.
His brain awash with static and noise and volume.
Banging the side of his head with his hand like some sort of jammed toaster.
The World, caught in the blissful moment before a sneeze…

-Whack!
Smack! Crack!
Slap!
Flat on his back.
Head off vertical hold.
A truck screams and halts. No Traffic lights.
Just that moony thing and those starry things.
The Broadcast from Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn?
A bizarre iridescent test pattern.
Technical Difficulties.
White Fuzz
White fluff
Blood.
Closed.
Black.

Zuuump!
The city’s power defibrillated.
TV’s return to their normal programming.
Humanity returns to its normal programming
Traffic lights blink awake from their momentary paralysis.
Xmas lights and neon brights return to their regular epileptic rhythms.
The World rotates again, hearts thicken, The Earth turning, cooking itself like a rotisserie chicken.

The satellite lies sprawled on the road. Paused. Like a Pollock painting. As Xmas proceeds untainted around his empty head.

THE END

Took a while to get to this in my inbox, but CP fan, Titio Pentelho, sent a file with Portuguese subtitles to add to a youtube video. Turns out it’s pretty straightforward to do (adding the file that is, not the translation!). Cheers Titio!

A big thanks to all the fans out there who have created subtitled versions of The Cat Piano:

• English
• Spanish
• Italian

The Cat Piano has been selected in competition at the Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin, Germany. CARNIVORE REFLUX was selected in competition at the same festival as the narration was also a poem I wrote.

I didn’t manage to make it to the festival back then but I’m really hoping to travel to Berlin, a city I have never seen to see the film compete against 25 other poetry-based films from around the world. I’m really curious and intrigued to see how poems have formed the backbone of these films. I think the format of a poem seems to work really well for a short film. The Festival runs from October 14 – 17 so if you’re in Berlin come along to the festival and say hi.

A very talented animator/artist friend of mine called Andrs Barrientos whom I met while at an animation festival in Zagreb in 2006, recently sent me one of his art works. It was painted for an article in SOHO Magazine, written by well known Peruvian journalist Jaime Bayly.

I was really chuffed to hear that part of the inspiration for the piece was drawn from the scene in The Cat Piano where one cat stabs another in cold blood in a dark alleyway. It’s a very cool thing when a friend and artist you admire is inspired by something that you have done, and gave me a real buzz. If you want to see more of Andres’ work, have a look at his blog.

We were flattered to find this image created by artist Mete Erdogan, posted on Notcot. The caption reads:

“This fashion victim is a cigarette dwelling sax genie. Influenced by genie in Aladdin and short film ‘The Cat Piano’, this piece is made from a combination of photoshop masks and Indian Ink textures.”

The Cat Piano will be screening as part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival’s Gluttony, a “two day+night decadent feast for the senses” from 5pm at Rymill Park.